INSURANCE
Get the most out of it
E
very property owner with a home loan must
have home owner’s insurance in place. Your
insurer wants to keep your house in perfect
condition, so they should be the first person you call
when things go wrong.
What do they cover?
Some of the less well-known items covered by home
owner’s insurance include: alterations to your dwelling
should you become confined to a wheelchair.
When you apply for a bond, its approval is usually
conditional on you tak ing out home owner’s
insurance. The purpose of this kind of insurance
is to protect you – and the bank – from the risk of
structural damage arising from fires, bad weather or
burst geysers or pipes.
It goes as fas as to include damage to garden caused
by impact, emergency services expenses, appointing
of guards to protect your property, replacement of
keys, locks and remote control units, geyser wear
and tear, electrical gate motors, cost of demolition
fees and accidental breakage to f ixed glass and
sanitaryware. And the list goes on.
While you are not obliged to take the home owner’s
insurance that your bank offers, it is usually compulsory
for you to prove that you have this type of cover in place.
Of course, there are also exclusions. These
generally include wear and tear or damage from civil
unrest or war.
Although this type of insurance is often a grudge
purchase, once it is in place, it is extremely useful to the
home owner where your insurer will become your first
port of call in a household emergency.
Simply put, what it boils down to is that if anything
goes wrong with your home, you should call your
insurer before you do anything else, to find out
whether you are covered.
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Residential Handbook 2014
www.reimag.co.za