I posted this on another thread, but wanted to re-post it here and share what we learned/decided. Finally chose an insurance company (Edison) that had the best rate for the coverages we wanted.
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My summary:
1) Dwelling coverage.
Many homeowners are underinsured but don't realize it until a major loss occurs. Make sure you get replacement coverage (NOT ACV - which is the depreciated value...hadn't realized our policy on our rental property was ACV - they snuck it in in the small print!). Replacement coverage means cost to rebuild, not market value. Don't trust what your agent's calculator tells you, estimate it yourself via a tool like building-cost.net. Agents may underestimate upgrades in your home, and, in an effort to show a lower premium and get your business, you end up underinsured.
2) Other structures
Yes, you can reduce this - we actually took ours to $0 since we purchased a townhome and have no outside structures. I verified that our attached garage, paver patio, and lanai (which is under the roof) are covered under Part A dwelling coverage. However, no policy covers the rescreening of a lanai, according to our agent (strange!).
3) Personal Property
Again, check to see if it is replacement cost or ACV. If ACV, it is the depreciated value...so even though you have to pay full price for a new couch, if you have an ACV policy, they will only pay the depreciated value based upon how many years you owned it (if I am understanding this correctly).
Check the fine print. Sometimes they will sneak this in as ACV and you need an endorsement added that states you will be covered at replacement cost.
We did a whole house inventory and came up with a number that was half of what some policies offered - so we would have been overinsuring in this case. We chose a policy that covered the amount we feel we'd need. Saved us some $ esp since we had increased the dwelling the coverage. It also kept us from underinsuring, as we had underestimated how much it would cost to replace everything we own (we don't have tons of fancy furniture, etc., but it still really all adds up!)
We plan to use this app to do a more formal inventory and recording when we have a bit more time:
https://knowyourstuff.org/
4) Loss of Use
Sources said this should cover rent for at least 2 years' time after a total loss, to allow for rebuild time. Many companies require you to use the whole $ in the first 12 to 24 months, even if you haven't exhausted the limits. The policy we chose requires us to use it up in 1 year's time - not ideal, but we settled for it b/c we liked the other features of this company compared to the competitors.
5) deductible
Already discussed above - go with highest you can afford to self-insure for and only make a claim for large losses.
One last great resource I found - researching the # of complaints and type of complaints athttps://eapps.naic.org/cis/. I saw a huge difference between companies, and I could see certain ones had a lot of complaints for canceling policies and claim denials. This sealed the deal for us on which company we chose.
