Here Is What a Good Home Insurance Defense Looks Like

If you were watching Friday night, you already know how that one went. OU put up 51 on UTEP and the defense did not give up a single point. Four sacks. Two forced fumbles, both recovered. Five three-and-outs. UTEP missed all three field goal tries and finished the night with 198 total yards.
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A shutout is not one guy having a great game. It is every layer doing its job, and the next layer being there when the first one gets beat.

I think about coverage the same way. Most homeowners in Oklahoma City have one layer they feel good about and three they have never actually looked at. That works fine right up until it doesn't.

get the best okc home coverage!

Your deductible is the front line

The front line is where everything starts, and in Oklahoma that means your wind and hail deductible. It is the first thing that gets tested every single spring, and for most homeowners here it is a percentage of your dwelling value rather than a flat dollar amount.
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That difference matters more than people expect. A one percent deductible on a $350,000 home is $3,500 out of pocket before your policy pays anything. Two percent is $7,000. Plenty of folks find that number out for the first time while a roofer is standing in their driveway.

I broke down exactly how these work in Oklahoma City wind and hail deductibles. If you have not looked at yours since you bought the house, start there.

Your dwelling limit serves as the linebackers

Behind the line, your dwelling coverage backs you up as it is the number that decides whether you can actually rebuild. And this is the one I see wrong most often.
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Your dwelling limit is not what your house would sell for. It is what it would cost to rebuild it from the ground up, and construction costs in the metro have not stood still. A limit that was accurate when you closed in 2019 is very likely short now.

If your house burned down tomorrow, would that number rebuild it?

Nobody enjoys running that math. But it is a five minute conversation, and it is the difference between a claim that puts you back where you started and one that leaves you writing a check for the gap.

​Liability is your secondary, and most people are playing it thin

Property coverage gets all the attention around here because of the weather. Liability is the part of your policy that quietly protects everything you own, and most homeowners carry whatever number the policy defaulted to years ago without ever revisiting it.
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Standard homeowners liability usually lands somewhere between $100,000 and $300,000. That sounds like a lot until somebody gets seriously hurt on your property and a lawsuit comes in above it. Anything past your limit comes out of your savings, your equity, and your future income.

A pool, a trampoline, a dog, a teenage driver, or just hosting a lot of people all raise your exposure. So does having anything worth going after.

An umbrella policy is the safety over the top

When the secondary gets beat, you want somebody deep. That is what an umbrella policy does. It sits above your home and auto liability and picks up once those limits are used up, usually starting at a million dollars.

People assume umbrella coverage is for the wealthy. It is not. It is for anybody who would be financially wrecked by a judgment larger than their home policy covers, which describes almost everyone with a paid-down house and a retirement account.
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It is also one of the least expensive things on most policies, because it only pays after another policy has already paid out to its limit.

​Special teams is where the yards get given up

Punt coverage is where games quietly get lost, and on a home policy that is everything outside the four walls. Sheds, detached garages, fences, workshops. The stuff that is on your property but not part of the house.
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Coverage for those structures is usually capped at a percentage of your dwelling limit, and that cap does not know you finished out the garage last summer. I went through where those gaps usually open up in backyard structures and home insurance.

The same goes for anything you do with your house that is outside its normal use. If you rent the place out on football weekends, that is a different situation than your policy assumes, and I covered that in renting your home out for OU game weekends.

A shutout takes all eleven

The reason Friday looked the way it did is that no single layer had to be perfect. When the line got a push, the linebackers cleaned it up. When somebody got past that, the secondary was there.
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Coverage works the same way. A great dwelling limit does not help you if your liability is thin. A big umbrella does not do anything about a wind and hail deductible you cannot afford. The layers have to work together, and they have to actually match the house you own right now rather than the one you bought.

Michigan is next Saturday and that is a different kind of test. Your policy gets tested every spring here whether you are ready or not.

If you want a place to start, the Oklahoma home insurance guides page sorts things by situation so you land on the right article the first time.

Get a home insurance quote and I'll walk you through every layer of your coverage and show you exactly where the gaps are.
 

Boomer Sooner! Now let's check my home coverage

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Scott Godwin
​Founder

Oklahoma Insurance Professionals LLC serves Oklahoma City and the surrounding Oklahoma communities by protecting the people we work with just like we protect our own family members. Home insurance, auto insurance, business insurance, and more. 

Whether in Moore, Edmond, Norman, Oklahoma City or surrounding areas, We can help you find the coverage you need.