How to Protect Your Wyoming Home

Wyomingite homeowners tend to understand the importance of having a good homeowner's insurance policy. The likelihood of your home being damaged by one of the state's famous snowstorms, seismic activity, wind, and possible floodwaters from regular snow runoff makes owning a good policy a necessity, but is your coverage sufficient to protect you from all of these disasters and more? Probably not.

When shopping for a policy, there are three things you want to keep in mind for choosing your broker or provider, the price, service level, and the longevity of the carrier that is offering to sell you a plan. For your policy you want to make sure that you are receiving the best available coverage for your area at the most affordable price for you. This does not mean that you are obligated to buy the most expensive option you can find - not all coverage levels will be appropriate to your needs. For example, if you live in a $25,000 single-wide manufactured home on the outskirts of Cheyenne, you don't need to purchase a plan that will provide you with $100,000 of coverage for structure damage. On the other hand, if you live in one of those nice, $600,000 mansions on the other side of town, $100,000 worth of structural coverage may well not be enough. The other considerations are defined as:

• Longevity of your company: As with any other industry out there, it is very possible to sign with a provider and have an experience with them that you will find completely unsatisfactory, or worse, you may wind up falling prey to a scam entity that is mostly interested in taking your money and delivering as little back in return as possible. Another consideration in this category is a provider's financial stability. A brand that has a low Standard & Poor's rating for financial stability is a carrier that is usually less likely to pay policy claims in a timely manner as they try to hold on to their cash.
• Service level: The best way to get information on a company's service level is not by how nice they treat you on the phone or in person when you are signing up with them or asking them your initial questions, but by researching the carrier on the Internet before you even pick up the phone. Certainly you will manage to find dissatisfied individuals in just about every lot, but running across a lot of complaints about lack of service, attention, or responsiveness is a clear red flag for doing business with any organization.
• Price: This is a key factor that many homeowners pay the most attention to - often to their detriment. A lower premium is nice, but not at the expense of providing the valuable coverage you need. It is a terrible thing to have your home damaged in a fire or other disaster only to have your carrier pay out a maximum benefit that is not sufficient to complete repairs.