Hermes Insurance wants to insure your home with a plan that’s right for your specific situation and provides you peace of mind. There are several components to a typical home insurance policy. This section explains the major components of your home insurance policy and offers tips for ensuring adequate coverage.

The cost to rebuild your home is its replacement value. This can be very different from the estimated market value or actual purchase price. In most cases, it costs more to rebuild the home you own than to buy a new one. The Dwelling (Coverage A) limit represents the total amount the insurance company will pay to rebuild your home or other property.

Our agents will work with you to estimate the appropriate replacement cost for your home. Periodically, it's a good idea to reexamine your coverages and limits from time to time, especially whenever you make additions or improvements, and to adjust your policy limits from time to time as needed.

If you have questions or concerns about the limits in your policy, ask us to show you how those amounts were calculated. This will also give you an opportunity to make us aware of any overlooked information. Certain property, such as jewelry, ATV’s, and certain perils, such as flooding, are better insured separately. Knowing what is covered and for how much will help you insure properly. If there is anything in your policy you don't understand, contact us and ask for an explanation.

At each annual renewal of your policy, you receive a new Policy Declarations page showing limits of coverage and optional coverages. We encourage you to review this information. If you do any significant remodeling or add a family room, extra bedroom or bathroom, etc., tell us about these changes so your coverage limits can be adjusted to cover the improvement. Consider carefully whether your policy provides all the protection you need. Does it provide coverage for extra costs resulting from building code changes? Does it automatically increase coverage limits annually to keep pace with inflation?

Replacement Cost Coverage pays for losses to your possessions at the cost of brand new items. Without this option, a covered loss to your personal possessions would be depreciated by their age and condition, reducing the size of your claim settlement. If you have an art collection, jewelry, or other valuable possessions,talk to us about supplemental coverages, such as fine arts or scheduled property endorsements, to adequately protect your investment in these items. The cost is modest for the extra protection, and often the deductible is waived. Consider whether you should have more coverage for personal property (contents) than your policy provides. Personal property coverage is usually 60% of the coverage limit for the structure. Your limit may be lower than 60%. Supplemental protection is available for a small additional premium. Prepare an inventory of personal property items, update it periodically, and keep it in a safe place outside your home, such as a safe deposit box at your bank. It will save you hours of time trying to list everything damaged or destroyed if you need to make a claim. It will also help ensure you don't forget some items. We can advise you on ways to simplify the job of preparing a personal property inventory such as videotaping each room with descriptive information on the sound track.