Personal lines
Homeowners
The structure, what is inside it, and your liability if someone is hurt on it.
What it covers
- Dwelling and other structures
- Personal property, with scheduled items for jewelry and firearms
- Loss of use / additional living expense
- Personal liability and medical payments
- Optional water backup and service line
What people get wrong
A standard homeowners policy excludes flood entirely, and most exclude earth movement. Replacement cost on the dwelling is not the same as your market value or your tax assessment.
Replacement cost, deductibles, and how a homeowners claim pays out
The dwelling limit is not what you paid, what Zillow says, or what the county assessor thinks. It is a reconstruction estimate — square footage, framing and finish materials, roof type and pitch, foundation, and current local labour and material costs. In a tight construction market that number can move faster than your home's market value, which is why carriers re-run the estimate at renewal and why the limit sometimes rises even in a year when nothing happened.
Deductibles on a homeowners policy are often not a single number. Many Carolina policies carry a flat deductible for most perils and a separate percentage deductible for wind and hail, calculated against the dwelling limit rather than the loss. On a well-insured house that percentage can be several times the flat deductible, so it is worth reading before storm season rather than after.
Payment on a covered structural loss usually happens in two steps. The carrier pays actual cash value first — replacement cost minus depreciation — and releases the held-back depreciation once you have actually completed the repair and sent in the invoices. That is normal, not a denial, but it means you need to be able to front some of the work. Contents are frequently settled at actual cash value unless you have added replacement cost on personal property, which is one of the cheapest endorsements on the policy.
Two limits routinely come up short. Personal property sublimits cap what the policy will pay for jewellery, firearms, silverware, and collectibles no matter how much total contents coverage you carry — items past that cap need to be scheduled individually. And loss of use, which pays for somewhere to live while the house is rebuilt, is worth checking against a realistic rebuild timeline in your area rather than an optimistic one.