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51 Main Street
Waterville, ME 04901
207-873-5101
207-873-5784 Fax
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155 Center Street #10
Auburn, ME 04210
207-689-9171
207-689-2287 Fax
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Toll Free Phone: 800-244-9046
Toll Free Fax: 866-274-0005
E-mail: info@ghmagency.com

Homeowners Insurance

The phrase "homeowner insurance" includes mobile homes, condominiums, and renters insurance. As with auto insurance, you must satisfy insurable interest with homeowner insurance. All deeded owners of the property should be listed as named insureds on the policy. Homeowner insurance policies can be written to cover your dwelling, detached structures, personal property, loss of use, and personal liability. A variety of broadening endorsements are offered by most insurance carriers, which can provide coverage for exposures that are usually limited or excluded.

Although coverage is typically very broad, homeowner insurance can be restrictive when it comes to everyday household personal property such as clothing, furniture, appliances, etc. There are strict limitations within most policies for property including but not limited to; jewelry, furs, firearms, collectibles, antiques, fine arts, glassware, silverware, money and other types of high valued property.

Homeowner policies also exclude things such as vehicles, motorcycles, boats, snowmobiles, ATV’s, RV’s and other types of motorized vehicles. Other common exclusions include earth movement, inherent vice, damage from insects or animals, flood, water in your basement, backup of sewer or drains, losses that occur if the dwelling is vacant or unoccupied, business activities on or off premises including those business activities of your children. Other exclusions apply.

Homeowners Coverage Recommendations

Your Home GHM recommends you insure your home to 100% of the cost to re-build it if it were totally destroyed (your policy requires that you maintain at least 80% of replacement cost to avoid a penalty at the time of the claim). We would be glad to do a computerized cost estimator to help you determine the replacement cost of your home. If you would like to take advantage of this free service please contact our office at your convenience.	Special Types of Property All homeowner policies have strict coverage limitations with regard to property such as jewelry, furs, firearms, collectibles, money, antiques, silverware, crystal and other similar types of property. It is possible to schedule these types of property to provide broader coverage and higher limits. If you have any of these types of property we urge you to contact us so we can discuss this in more detail.
Personal Property Homeowner policies typically insure personal property on a “named peril” basis. An endorsement is available to broaden personal property to “special perils” which provides broader coverage for your personal property. We urge you to upgrade your homeowner policy to include “special perils” and increase the chances that a loss that might occur would be covered. Call us for more information.	Water & Sewer Backup Homeowner insurance excludes loss from water leaking into your basement and for water back up of sewers or drains. Although there is no coverage for water leaking into your basement (damp basement) you can purchase coverage for back up of sewers or drains including sump pumps. Our agents would be happy to speak with you about water & sewer backup coverage. Limits are usually available up to $10,000.
Liability Homeowner liability protects you if you are negligent in causing an injury to a non-resident of your household and you are sued. Your insurance carrier would defend you and pay for the injuries of covered losses when you are legally liable up to the amount of coverage you have on your policy. Most insurance carriers offer up to $500,000 of liability coverage on homeowner policies. Policies have numerous exclusion including; liability losses related to business activities of you or your children, personal injury such as libel, slander, false arrest.	Discounts Homeowner insurance provides several discounts that are available to you, such as: 1) Account discount for combining your home and auto insurance with the same carrier, 2) Non-smokers discount, 3) New home credits, 4) Smoke detectors, alarm systems, fire extinguishers, dead bolts and more. Please do not hesitate to contact us to make sure you are receiving all the discounts you are entitled to. Please remember that you must purchase a separate policy for each property you own, as well as separate policies for boats, motorcycles, snowmobiles, ATVs, RVs and other similar types of motorized vehicles.
Personal Computers You should know that homeowner insurance has coverage limitations. Although computer hardware and software are covered like other personal property (subject to perils insured against clause in your policy), there is no coverage for loss of stored data. For a small annual premium, you can purchase a rider to broaden coverage for stored data, hardware and software. Let us know if you have questions about this.	Earthquake & Flood Many people do not realize that an earthquake fault runs through Maine. Unfortunately homeowner insurance excludes loss caused by earthquake. Earthquake coverage is available as a rider to your home-owner policy and is generally inexpensive to add. Loss from flood is also excluded from most homeowner policies. If you are concerned about earthquake or flood please contact our office.
Business Pursuits Homeowners insurance does not provide coverage for any type of business activities whether in your home or outside your home. A separate business policy must be purchased to properly cover any business activities you may be involved in. This exclusion also applies to your children for things such as mowing lawns, shoveling, etc.	Replacement Cost Coverage In the event of a covered loss to your personal property, Replacement Cost Contents (RCC) eliminates depreciation. Without RCC your claim would be settled based on the depreciated value of your property at the time of the loss. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to discuss RCC in more detail.
Umbrella Liability An umbrella liability policy provides you with a higher limit of liability over and above your homeowner liability, auto liability, boat, motorcycle and snowmobile liability. Limits of liability can go to $5,000,000 and higher. Please note that most umbrella policies do not provide uninsured / underinsured motorist coverage.	GHM AGENCY does not suggest in any way that this web page replaces or alters your current insurance policy. Please refer to your insurance policies for specific coverages, conditions, limitations and exclusions. Thank you for choosing GHM Agency as your local independent agency.