Standard homeowners insurance typically does not cover flooding. After the floods in Alberta, many people now realize this. There are still a lot of people that are not aware of the types of situations that their home insurance will not cover. Following are some of the personal property exclusions, but not necessarily all of them, from standard homeowners insurance:

A structure that is part of a business is not protected by a standard home insurance policy. In fact, any claim related to a business on your property could be denied. Remember this if you’re running any kind of business out of your home, if it’s a day care, catering company, or a mail-order business for examples.

Pets are not generally covered, whether they are stolen or injured. If your pet causes an injury, this will be covered. If your dog bites someone, for example, and the injured person decides to sue, your personal liability insurance would cover you. There are some dog breeds that would require additional coverage, so speak to your insurance provider about your dog’s breed.

If there are losses on your property that would not have been incurred if you had taken measures to protect from further damage, these will be excluded. What does this mean? If you do not call the fire department when there is a fire on your property, your losses will not be covered. In a case where a tree falls on your home and damages the roof and you fail to protect your belongings from the rain damage, you will not be covered.

You can’t file a claim based on losses caused by an outage of electricity – say, if your frozen food thaws and is ruined because of an outage.

Damage due to rising waters, more commonly called floods are also not covered by standard policies. But you’re also not covered for water backup. Say a drain or a sewer backs up or a sump pump in your basement fails. Unless you’ve purchased specific coverage for this, you could face thousands in damage.

If you lease space in your home or even just have a boarder who isn’t related to you, his or her property is not covered by your homeowners insurance. Boarders or renters must take out their own insurance coverage in case the home is damaged by fire or other covered perils and damage is done to their property.

Earthquakes are also not covered by standard insurance policies. Earthquake insurance must be purchased for people who live in areas that are more likely to have earthquakes. Mudslides and sinkholes are also generally not covered by standard home insurance.

Speak with your insurance agent about what exclusions are listed in the policy. When you have this knowledge, you will know how to prepare.

We offer the only Thunder Bay Home Insurance policy that can be truly tailored to your needs. Get a quote and buy a policy online or by phone. Or Visit our Home Insurance video.