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Here are 5 steps to follow when you need your home insurance.

Here are 5 steps you should do to prepare and file your home insurance claim after the disaster.

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Read more from this blogger: 5 Steps To Preparing & Filing Your Home Insurance Claim After The Disaster

Floridians hit with high rate hikes in their home insurance.

We just got our home insurance bill. It went up from $900 annually (it was less than $300 a year just three years ago) to almost $3k a year. Are you kidding me? All this legislation that passed in Tallahassee to curb the financial destruction that the insurance industry is wreaking on our people and most people are STILL getting rate increases that threaten to break the proverbial bank.

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Read more from this blogger: Home Insurance Hikes in Florida, AGAIN!

Barclays declines to renew a home insurance special.

Last year, Barclays offered a fairly compelling home insurance proposition. They beat your current deal by £50. A friend took advantage of this offer. A year later they sent the renewal documents through. Being a reasonably busy and disorganised guy, he never got round to renewing the insurance until six weeks after it had expired. He rang the call centre explaining that he wanted to renew; yes, he had been without insurance for the past six weeks, but wanted to take advantage of the premium they had quoted. But Barclays refused to honour the renewal quotation.

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Read more from this blogger: How to loose your customers

Make sure to get enough home insurance for all your assets.

You know that the paintings that Aunt Mabel gave you a few years ago are worth something; they’re not simple garage sale finds. But you haven’t actually done anything about it. Don’t you think it’s about time you got them appraised? And what would you do if they were stolen or damaged in a fire? Don’t you think it’s time for you to add them to your home insurance?

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Read more from this blogger: Are you insured yet?

A little spare cash and it's time to buy home insurance.

Once we get our tax refund back I need to look into getting some home insurance. Our home isn’t worth a whole lot, but I would like to be prepared in case something awful were to happen. You know how it is- insurance is one of those things that you shouldn’t be without, but you hope you never need.

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Read more from this blogger: Insured

Home insurance increases have a smaller, but similar impact on housing prices as mortgage rate increases.

My prediction? The huge jump in home insurance costs that have forced Floridians to put homes on the market will force these same homeowners to drop their already inflated asking price, just to get out from under the insurance ax that is poised and ready to drop.

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Read more from this blogger: Like a Good Neighbor?

Some thoughts on the energy costs, home insurance, interest rates, and the economy.

I know from my prespective that energy cost are taking a bigger bite. Home insurance, interest rates and real estate prices are making my search for a house much more difficult than the last time, 5 years ago. Many Americans are heavily leveraged and have dipped heavily into home equity to maintain the spending the president touts. Those bills will be harder to pay as interest rates climb, as well as mounting credit card debit.

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Read more from this blogger: Shared Prosperity or A Culture of Greed?

Hurricanes are causing home insurance problems in Florida.

InsureMe Agent Blog has a post up regarding Insurance Journal’s recent article on one of the proposed insurance reforms in Florida.

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Read more from this blogger: Florida Insurance Commissioner to Become Elected Post Again?

From a list of insurance policy changes made by this blogger, number eight: home insurance.

8. Home Insurance - covers theft and damage to the insides/belongings of our home

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Read more from this blogger: New Policy, Literally.

Pretty funny that the folks from Washaway Beach can't figure out why they can't get home insurance. Click through for the whole story.

Well okay…some people could. Like the people from this coastal community. These same people who can’t get insurance on their houses. Now, when you’ve got insurance companies who refuse to give you home insurance under any circumstances, don’t you think that would give you kind of a clue? Well okay. Let’s cut them a break. Maybe they’re not from around here. Maybe they don’t understand the power of the Pacific, and they just think that the insurance companies don’t want to take their money because they’re on some kind of hallucinogenic drugs.

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Read more from this blogger: Well….duh??

You can work with your neighbors and local police to reduce your home insurance rates.

Just for the record, a few years ago two moms tried to get together a Neighborhood Association for the purpose of getting neighbors to know each other and share interests, resources, and community awareness. I think their main goal was sharing babysitting and play groups for their young children but they really did put forth quite a bit of effort into coordinating block captains, bimonthly meetings, a neighborhood garage sale, a regular newsletter, a website, and a few other party/events. I recall the second or third publicized meeting Hubby and I went to had about 7 people total out of the neighborhood attending (including the coordinators). A representative from the College Station Police Department came to talk about home safety, home insurance discounts (theft deterrents, etc), neighborhood awareness, possibilities for neighborhood watch type associations, etc. It was a really nice presentation she did, I felt bad there were so few people attending.

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Read more from this blogger: Neighborhood Update

Some actuarial problems noted here with post-hurricane home insurance of last resort.

Yep, let’s let coastal wind rates continue to be inadequate, and permit the burden to fall on the shoulders of other policyholders in those states, and on admitted insurers doing business there.

Read the entire article.

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Read more from this blogger: Wind pool price changes

Sounds like the home insurance industry is missing an opportunity.

Major landlords’ associations have joined forces to create a fund that will provide compensation to owners of properties where a suicide, murder or other killing has occurred, especially as home insurance does not cover these events.

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Read more from this blogger: Haunted Houses

I think New Orleans will be rebuilt. The geographical problems it faces seem just as bad as Florida with its hurricanes or California with its earthquakes. If mother nature's calamities were enough to stop building cities, we'd all probably end up in three states in the midwest somewhere.

A number of factors mitigate against New Orleans becoming viable. The city’s geographical condition - low-lying, over-settled, ex-swamp, hurricane-prone - means that hurricane Katrina isn’t necessarily the worst it can get. Many of those with home insurance may realise this and decide to rebuild elsewhere - that will include many of New Orleans’ main professionals - and tax-payers: doctors, lawyers, professors and so on. The Wall Street Journal thinks many businesses will relocate completely.

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Read more from this blogger: Is New Orleans worth rebuilding?

Here's a shameless plug for home insurance, but you might want to check out google as noted below, too.

6. Save money and shop for your home insurance the easy way! Yeah, I know this is a shameless plug for our web site, but seriously, whatever web site you do use, get online and shop around for your home insurance. You can get multiple home insurance quotes from HometownQuotes.Com or any of a dozen or so reputable companies online. Go to a search engine, like Yahoo! and type in 'home insurance quotes.' This is the best way because if you get 5-10 good quotes you can decide for yourself who is the best.

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Read more from this blogger: Tips for Buying a New Home

Flood insurance or homeowner's insurance with protection for flooding does not necessarily cover damage from a tsunami. You might want to call your insurance broker to find out what coverage you need.

A reader notes that in Tsunami Insurance I wrote that “...it appears that insurers usually exclude tsunamis from flood coverage, considering them more like earthquakes." (Note the words “it appears that".)

He says he has researched this issue and has found that:

In the US, the National Flood Insurance Plan (NFIP), the Insurance Services Office (ISO) and the Factory Mutual Insurance Company (FMO) consider all forms of wave damage including tsunamis and tidal waves as flood losses. These groups are not concerned with what caused the flood.

That paragraph is from a report Perspectives -- Tsunami by the insurance broker Willis; look under January 28, 2005. The report has much further context, including a discussion of how nonetheless many insurers may write policies that make an excluded peril take precedence over an insured peril.

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Read more from this blogger: Perilocity: Tsunamis as Floods

California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi said he is "actively investigating" title insurers RE/MAX International, Fidelity National Financial Inc. and LandAmerica Financial Group Inc. Other states are involved with the developing investigation. The title insurance scam is described below. This will have no direct impact on home buyers, but may create legal liabilities for certain Title Insurance Companies and developers.

How the alleged title insurance scams work

• When individuals buy new homes, a home builder steers the buyer to a certain title insurance company. The same can be true for refinancings and previously owned home sales, with brokers and Realtors steering clients to certain title insurers.

• Beforehand, the home builder, lender, broker or Realtor cuts a deal with the title insurer: In exchange for large volumes of business, the title firm uses a "shell" reinsurance company. Reinsurance is legal - and protects title insurers from outsized claims. But these shell reinsurance firms are owned by the home builder, Realtor, lender or broker.

• The title insurer pays the reinsurer a hefty sum, and the reinsurer then feeds 50 percent of its fee back to its owners. These reinsurance firms don't pay a penny in claims.

• For example, if title insurance costs $1,000, the insurer keeps a $350 processing fee, then passes $650 to the reinsurer. The reinsurer then kicks back $325 to the home builder, lender, Realtor or broker and keeps $325.

• The extra fees are folded into costs borne by home buyers.

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Read more from this blogger: Rocky Mountain News: Business

Home Insurance may not cover everything you think it does. Southern California is having lots of mudslides and water damage due to unusually strong winter storms this year.

Are flooding and mudslides covered by most common homeowners insurance policies?

No. Standard homeowners insurance covers rain and wind damage but not property ruined by flooding, landslides or mud. The rule of thumb is that if the damage is caused by falling rain, it's covered; if it's caused by rising water, it's not.

Flood insurance is available but takes 30 days to activate and costs $300 to $600 a year, according to the Insurance Information Network of California.

Although no carrier protects against landslides, flood insurance may cover minor mud damage, said Pete Moraga, a spokesman for the network.

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Read more from this blogger: Property Damage? Know Your Policy

Make sure you have home insurance! Some mortgage calculators will help you determine how much it costs. The link above describes an episode of Extreme Makeover where the Dore family's house was rebuilt by volunteers. But you can't count on volunteers if your house burns down.

From ABC's Extreme Makeover:Home Edition site: As a struggling widow of three daughters, Roseanne Dore is no stranger to hardship. The family was dealt a tremendous blow when their Kingston, Washington home, originally built by Roseanne and her husband, burned to the ground in March 2004. Following the devastating news of the fire, Roseanne found out that their home insurance policy lapsed when their agent retired. The structure was uninhabitable. While figuring out what to do, Roseanne moved her three daughters into a half-built, backyard utility shed that had no plumbing, electricity or running water. Now, the Dore family will be getting a very different home from the original 856 square ft. house, as well as new lives.

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Read more from this blogger: Addicted to Digital Media - Our Extreme Makeover ep airs tonight