Moving to a new home on Long Island can be a stressful time. During the rush to pack all your earthly belongings, saying goodbye to old friends, and planning the move, you can easily forget to ask what could well be the most important question of all: Will your home insurance cover you while you are moving from one home to another? Let us examine this question before it’s too late.

Will Your Home Insurance Cover You While You Are On The Move?

The short answer is, it might and it might not. One of the benefits of home insurance is that it normally covers your personal belongings. However, the loss or damage has to be related to a cause that is specifically listed in the insurance policy. Examples of covered perils typically include risks such as theft and fire.

Your insurance may cover the damages if the removal truck is involved in an accident while on the way to your new home and your property is wholly or partially destroyed. The same might apply if the truck somehow manages to catch fire during the trip.  If there is coverage for these incidents, it may also be limited .  If you want full coverage during your movie, you will need to purchase insurance from the moving company.

The majority of policies, however, do not cover damage to individual items. For example, if one of your most valued personal belongings - such as that ancient Chinese vase you inherited from your grandmother - is dropped by a worker, the replacement cost will most likely not be covered by your home insurance policy.

You also may or may not have coverage if, on the way to your new home, your property gets stolen from the removal truck. It’s best to consult your specific policy to make sure of that as there is often an exclusion on homeowner policies for theft away from your premises.

What Happens If My Homeowners Insurance Does Not Cover Moving Damages?

This is where the importance of always using a reputable moving company comes in. By law these companies are required to have their own insurance to cover damage or loss while they’re moving their customers’ possessions to the truck, transporting it from one place to the next, and unloading it on the other side.

But if you use the cheapest company you can find in the classifieds you might end up with one that doesn’t have this insurance. It’s not difficult to imagine what will happen then if your belongings get damaged or destroyed. And even if they do have the appropriate insurance, damages would typically have to be unavoidable and without any doubt their fault. This means that if the movers drop your Chinese vase because the staircase at your new home is unsteady, a successful claim would be unlikely.

How To Make Sure Your Belongings Will Be Covered During a Move

In the first place make sure that you always work with a reputable insurance agency such as Newbrook Insurance on Long Island. That alone is worth a small fortune. Next, sit down with the insurance agent and closely examine your home insurance policy to see what it covers during a move and what is not covered.

If you are not 100 percent happy with the cover provided by your homeowners insurance policy during a move, you may want to look into buying dedicated moving insurance. Such a policy will protect your belongings from the moment the loading process starts, throughout the journey, and right until everything has been unloaded on the other side.

Moving insurance policies often provide depreciated value coverage for your belongings, but if you prefer, full replacement cover is also an option. Your insurance agent will be able to advise you about the best choice given your particular set of circumstances.