You can’t go 5 minutes in the United States without being presented an ad for car insurance. Health insurance is central to our politics and homeowner’s insurance is just par for the course of owning your own home. And let me tell you, If you’re signing a lease you’d better be paying for renter’s insurance!
Homeowners, renters, health, auto, life – these are all pretty standard insurances we’re all aware of. Life insurance pays out to your family in the event of your untimely death, and homeowners will pay if your house burns down.
But what happens if your dog gets sick? Does your homeowner’s insurance cover an earthquake? What do you do if you’re in another country and someone steals everything you have with you? Well, depending on what insurance you have, the answer can be really bleak or a major relief. We’re going to look at 5 of the more obscure types of insurance that you might not know about but you should probably consider.
Pet insurance
Whether you’re a dog person or a cat person, you love your animals. They’re a member of the family and with good reason; pets bring joy to our lives, improve heart and mental health and are truly loved. That doesn’t make them cheap to care for, however, and vet bills can be astronomical, totaling in the thousands for testing and treatment.
Pet insurance functions very similarly to human health insurance, paying out for high vet bills when your furry friend is feeling awry. While pet insurance isn’t exactly a minor expense, it has become significantly cheaper in the last 10 years. In the event that you need to use it, it can literally save you thousands of dollars. If you’ve got furry family members, it’s worth checking out.
Travel insurance
Travel insurance is an interesting product, in that it protects so many different types of calamities that could befall you abroad. If you miss a flight, need to cancel reservations or lose your luggage, travel insurance will pay out. Likewise with medical emergencies, you’re a victim of theft or in the worst case scenario, you die while on vacation and need to be brought home. Still, many travelers aren’t even very aware that they can get their own travel policy, let alone how useful it can be.
We tend to think of insurance in worst-case-scenario terms but the reality is that travel insurance can pay out for things like expensive inconveniences, like non-refundable reservations or dropping your wallet on accident. The best part is that it’s not really that expensive. If you travel a lot for work or leisure, you should speak to an insurance broker about travel insurance.
Earthquake, mold and flood insurance
Even though these three are, well, three different types of insurance, they all work in tandem with your homeowner’s policy. The fact is that most homeowner’s insurance will not cover earthquake or flood damage, and it’s very difficult to claim mold remediation.
Mold spores can cause tremendous health problems, ranging from allergic reactions to memory loss, internal bleeding and death in some species. In some cases, if the mold presence is secondary to a covered water incident, you might be able to claim and remediate the problem. In most cases, however, you’ll need to add a rider for mold coverage to your homeowner’s insurance. There aren’t really any standard mold insurance companies out there, so speak with your homeowner’s insurance broker to see what you can do to your existing policy.
If you live in a flood plain, then you probably are compelled to have flood insurance already. As catastrophic flooding has become more common in more areas, you want to check and see if flood insurance is worth the investment.
As with living in a flood plain, if you live in an earthquake-prone area, you probably already have an earthquake rider. If you don’t, and earthquakes are even moderately likely in your area, you need to get earthquake insurance. Most homeowner’s policies will not cover explicit earthquake damage, nor will renter’s insurance. Earthquake coverage is often cheap and will save you a lot of money if you ever have to use it.
Loan insurance
With the prevalence of student loans in the generational groups entering middle age, more people are making monthly loan payments than ever. Beyond just the student variety, there are tons of different loans that carry the burden of monthly payments.
Loan insurance protects you in an event where you cannot make your loan payments; unemployment, sickness, disability or death. While there are a lot of variables involved in getting this type of insurance, the main components are your age, the amount of the loan and monthly payments, and how long you might need coverage.
This insurance will make payments for you when you can’t, and in some cases, pay in full in the event if your total disability or death.
Identity theft protection
While this isn’t necessarily an insurance in the same sense of health, life or auto coverage, identity theft protection definitely meets the primary definition of insurance. If someone steals your private information and starts down a path of opening up fraudulent accounts in your name, identity theft protection can help reassemble your life.
Even when you can prove fraudulent activity was done with your social security number, fixing it can be expensive. Additionally, fixing identity theft is a very long process, even with protection. The benefit of having ID theft protection is that it stops you paying more for the damage someone else caused to you. It also helps get your credit fixed much faster than working on personally remediating the situation without insurance.
Coverage is critical
You might not ever need insurance of any variety but the fact is that most people will at some point in their life. The more you do, own and love, the more important having the protection of insurance becomes. The amount of money that pet insurance alone could save you in the event of a catastrophic accident or illness is staggering, and that’s just for your pets.
Have you had experiences where a not-so-common insurance saved the day? We’d love to hear about it in the comments! Also let us know if there’s any insurance you think we should include on future lists of uncommon insurances that are need-to-know.