When it comes to your homeowner’s insurance rates, there are a number of factors that go into determining how much you’ll need to pay. Things like your home’s location, overall worth, replacement costs, and more are all on the list. Another factor that insurance companies consider is the age of your home. Why does this matter? Does having an older house always lead to paying higher premiums? The fact is that your home’s age plays a huge role in your overall homeowner’s insurance costs. Here’s why.
Older Houses Are More Prone to Damage
Your homeowner’s insurance covers a number of different things, including damage from broken pipes that lead to flooding in your bathroom, basement, or anyplace else in the home. When you factor in other things, such as the age of your plumbing system and roof, the chances of ending up with some sort of damage go up exponentially.
In order to account for the damage potential, your insurance premiums will be higher. Your insurance company needs to account for this, and will make you pay more, simply because the odds of having to pay out a claim are higher.
Updating the Home
In addition to having an older home, complete with aging pipes and roofing materials, you also run the risk of owning one that’s out of code with the county or city that it’s located in. While this isn’t an issue when the home isn’t damaged, because the older styles are grandfathered into the laws, you’ll have to pay to have it meet those codes and other requirements should a fire or flood occur.
Thankfully, there are extras that you can add to your homeowner’s insurance policy in order to cover the costs of these updates. Known as law or ordinance coverage, the policy will take care of any additional expenses incurred in making your home’s electrical, plumbing, or structural systems completely updated. After all, if your home is damaged in a fire, you won’t be able to have the old knob and tube electrical system installed. You’ll have to choose a new one.
Improving Your Home and Making Updates
If you’re worried about paying higher home insurance premiums due to the age of your house, you do have some options to make things less expensive. For example, you can upgrade your plumbing or electrical systems to get them up to code. You could also replace your roof with a modernized version and do the same with your windows. Upgrading your HVAC system is another option.
Once you inform your insurance company of the changes that you made, they’ll more than likely lower your premiums a bit to make up for the fact that your home is more up to date. Since the things that you upgraded will be less likely to break and cause expensive damage, you’ll be rewarded with slightly lower monthly insurance bills. This will, over time, make the cost of the repairs and upgrades worth it.
Have Questions? Contact Charlotte Insurance
Want to know if your recent home upgrades could lower your insurance premiums? Contact Charlotte Insurance. Our agents can explore and explain all available options to you and put together the coverage plan that you need.