Personal insurance, explained before you're asked to buy it.
Home, rental property, umbrella, and pet. Below is what each one actually does, where it stops, and the Napa-specific questions that come up around it. Read as much or as little as you want.
Homeowners
A homeowners policy is really four coverages sold together. Most confusion comes from not knowing which one is doing the work in a given situation.
- Dwelling
- The structure itself. The number here should be what it would cost to rebuild your home today, which is not the same as what you paid for it or what it would sell for. In the Napa Valley, rebuild costs have moved a lot, and a dwelling limit set six years ago is often low now.
- Other structures
- Detached things: a garage, a guest cottage, a barn or workshop, a fence. Usually a percentage of your dwelling limit rather than a number you pick.
- Personal property
- Your belongings. Note that jewelry, art, firearms, and collectibles usually have low internal caps, so a single ring can exceed the whole category limit. Those get scheduled separately if they matter.
- Loss of use
- What it costs to live somewhere else while your home is repaired. During a widespread event this is the coverage people wish they'd looked at, because rentals get scarce and expensive at exactly the wrong moment.
- Personal liability
- Claims that you or your household injured someone or damaged their property. This is the coverage the FAIR Plan does not include, which is why FAIR Plan almost always needs a companion policy.
- Flood
- Water that rises from outside the house is generally excluded from standard homeowners policies, and that includes the Napa River or a creek coming over its banks. Flood coverage is its own policy, written through the National Flood Insurance Program, and it has a waiting period before it takes effect, so it can't be bought the week the forecast turns.
Every one of these has exclusions, sublimits, and conditions written into the policy form. The summaries above are meant to orient you, not to tell you what your specific policy covers. When we talk, bring me the declarations page and I'll go through yours.
Three worth asking about before you need them
None of these is the policy people call about. All of them are the kind of thing that is cheap to arrange in advance and impossible to arrange afterward.
- Personal umbrella
- Extra liability sitting on top of your home and auto policies. If someone is badly hurt at your house, or you cause an accident that runs past your auto limits, the umbrella is what stands between that number and everything you own. Carriers set a minimum on the policies underneath before they will write one, and the minimum varies by carrier, so bring both declarations pages and I will tell you whether yours qualify as written. I can look at this whether or not I wrote the policies underneath it.
- Pet
- Accident and illness coverage for dogs and cats. It rates on species, breed, and age, and policies generally exclude anything already diagnosed. That combination means the cheapest time to look at it is before anything is wrong, and the moment it stops being worth buying is usually the moment you first wish you had it.
The Napa questions.
These are specific to the valley and easy to get wrong, which is why they get their own section.
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The house is a weekend place
Plenty of homes in the valley are second homes, used on weekends or for a few weeks at a time and empty in between. Standard homeowners policies contain vacancy and unoccupancy provisions, and depending on the form and how long the place is empty, certain losses can be limited or excluded during that period.
This is fixable. There are policies written for seasonal and secondary homes, and there are endorsements that address the gap. What causes trouble is not knowing the provision is there until a pipe fails on a Monday and nobody finds it until Friday.
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You rent it out sometimes
Most homeowners policies exclude business use of the property, and renting your home to guests is business use, whether it's a whole summer or a few weekends around harvest. A claim during a rental period can be denied under a policy that wasn't written for it.
There are products built for this, and the platform's host protection is generally not a substitute for your own coverage. If you're renting or thinking about it, tell me, even if you think it's too small to mention.
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Condos and townhomes
In an association, the master policy covers part of the structure and your HO-6 covers the rest. Where the dividing line falls is written in your CC&Rs, and it varies. "Bare walls" associations leave you responsible for a lot more than "all-in" associations do.
There's also loss assessment, which covers your share when the association bills owners for a loss that exceeds its own coverage. It's often a small limit by default and inexpensive to raise. Send me the CC&Rs and the master policy and I'll tell you where your line sits. Condo policies themselves aren't something I place yet, but the read is free either way.
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Wildfire exposure
Hillside lots, homes up long private roads, and properties backing onto open land get looked at differently by carriers than a home in the middle of town. Whether the standard market will write your home is decided largely by the address.
The order of operations is the standard admitted market first, then what mitigation could change. If your home lands outside that market entirely, the fallback is a FAIR Plan policy with a companion policy beside it. I do not place that pairing, but I will tell you plainly when you have reached that point and explain how it works. Details are on the California page.
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Earthquake is its own policy
Napa has lived through this one, in the 2014 South Napa earthquake. A standard homeowners policy excludes earthquake damage, so covering it takes a separate policy, and that policy usually carries its own deductible, set as a percentage of the dwelling limit rather than a flat dollar amount.
Whether it's worth buying depends on the house, what you owe on it, and what you could absorb on your own. That's a conversation worth having before you decide either way. Earthquake isn't a line I place yet, but I'm glad to walk you through how it's built either way.
Rental property
A house, condo, or second unit you rent to someone else long-term is insured on a landlord form, usually called dwelling fire, rather than on a homeowners policy. The two look similar on a declarations page and behave very differently at claim time.
- The structure. Rebuild cost, same as a home you live in, and the same problem with limits set years ago.
- Liability as a landlord. Injuries on the property and claims from tenants. This is the part a homeowners policy stops doing the day a tenant moves in.
- Loss of rents. Built to replace the rent while the place is being repaired after a covered loss. Often left off, and missed badly when it's needed.
- Your tenant's belongings. Not yours to insure. A renters policy on their side covers those, and some landlords require one in the lease.
Short-term and vacation rentals are a different animal from a twelve-month tenant, and they run through a different market. If you host, say so before we quote anything.
Umbrella
An umbrella policy sits on top of your home and auto liability and takes over when those limits run out. It's usually sold in millions and costs less per year than most people expect.
- Who it's for. Anyone with assets to lose, a pool, a teen driver, rental property, or a household that hosts a lot.
- What it needs from you. Carriers require underlying limits at a certain level before they'll write it, so the umbrella conversation often starts with raising home and auto liability first.
- What it isn't. It doesn't extend your property coverage, only liability. It won't pay to rebuild your house.
Questions worth asking
Will getting a quote affect my current policy?
No. Asking for a quote does nothing to a policy you already have. Your current coverage continues exactly as it is until you cancel it yourself, and I'd never advise cancelling anything before a replacement is actually in force.
How much does it cost to work with you?
For a standard personal lines placement, my compensation comes from the carrier as a commission built into the premium. If a situation ever called for a broker fee, California requires a signed written agreement disclosing it before you owe anything, and I'd walk you through that in advance rather than surprising you with it.
Do I have to switch everything at once?
No. Plenty of people move one policy and leave the rest where it is. Bundling sometimes saves money and sometimes doesn't, and I'll tell you which it is in your case rather than assuming.
What if my home has already been declined somewhere?
Common right now, and not the end of the conversation. A decline from one carrier tells us something about their appetite, not about whether your home is insurable. Tell me who declined it and why if you know, and we'll work from there.
Can you promise my claim will be paid?
No, and be wary of anyone who does. Claim decisions belong to the carrier and depend on the policy language and the facts of the loss. What I can do is make sure the policy is written for how you actually use the property, so you're not relying on a coverage that was never there, and help you through the process if a claim happens.