The Show-Me State has a long and proud history, whether it's honoring Mark Twain in Hannibal or the heritage attractions in Independence. For the residents who need new or better Missouri home insurance, it's time to start your own tradition: getting the coverage you need at a price you can afford. A number of factors influence your Missouri home insurance quotes, including frame versus brick construction, the age of your house, even your credit history. But there are a variety of ways to lower your premium if you take the time compare the many Missouri home insurance quotes out there.
The Basics
In broad terms, there are five types of homeowners insurance policies are sold in Missouri:
- HO-2 (Homeowners broad form): covers damage from the most common perils, such as fire, lightning, windstorm or hail, and theft.
- HO-3 (Homeowners special form): this covers your dwelling against all perils except flood, earthquake, neglect, war, nuclear accident and others specified in your policy.
- HO-4 (Special homeowners policy for renters contents broad form): this protects renters' household contents, personal possessions, additional living expense, liability coverage and medical payments against the perils listed in form HO-2.
- HO-6 (Homeowners condominium policy): protects condominium unit owners against the perils listed in HO-2, personal liability, and medical payments coverage.
- HO-8 (Homeowners actual cash value policy): protects the dwelling plus contents, and is designed for older homes whose market value might not be as great as the replacement cost.
Protections and Their Cost
If you live in St. Louis and want the most common policy, what will that cost? The average liability protection is $300,000, and the most common deductible is $500. For a single-family home built in 1975, with a $100,000 replacement cost, you'll pay about $948 a year. But you can switch some coverages around to lower your Missouri home insurance quotes. For example, increase the deductible to $1,000 and the premium drops to $846. On the other hand, lowering your liability coverage (to $200,000, say) often has very little effect on the annual premium.
Installing Discounts
There are ways to ensure lower Missouri home insurance quotes aren't as difficult as swimming upstream in the Missouri River. One way is to decrease the likelihood of theft. For the same $948 policy in St. Louis, you can lower it to $854 by installing deadbolt locks and a burglar alarm system. Fire protection is very important to insurers. Your premium will be determined in part by your distance from the local fire department. If you install smoke alarms and buy some fire extinguishers, you can drive the $948 down to $806. You can also affect your Missouri home insurance quotes by updating your roof and plumbing. As you can see, Missouri home insurance is flexible.
Finding the Best Rates
Even if you're not currently looking for a new policy, it's important to know that insurers in Missouri are only required to give you 30 days notice on a renewal. With so little time, it helps to have a free service like NetQuote to do your comparison shopping. You can also see how much you'll save by combining auto and home insurance policies. And you may want to consider additional coverage, like the personal article floater for special possessions with exceedingly high value, like antiques. Once you make your final determinations, it's time to shop around.
