Know Before you Buy: What Your Insurance Might Not Cover

The Holidays, for many, are a time to lavish your loved ones with expensive gifts. The kind of gifts that you only get on special occasions. For your kids, a certain man riding on a sleigh led by reindeer may bring a new bike, a motorized toy car, or maybe even an ATV.

But, have you considered whether these vehicles are covered under your homeowners insurance?

Imagine you’re sitting on the porch while the kids are playing down the block with neighbor kids. You’re feeling relaxed and content with the knowledge that everything in your home is fully insured. You’ve got the best homeowner insurance and car insurance in Omaha. You know that no matter what happens you will be covered so you kick back and relax. In fact, you’re not even thinking about insurance at all.

Then your daughter comes running from down the street screaming and crying, “I ran over Lucy’s arm with my car and she’s really hurt! I think she broke her arm!” In the end, Lucy ends up in the emergency room.

You talk with Lucy’s parents and tell them not to worry about the medical bill because your homeowner’s insurance will cover it, of course. You can rest a little easier knowing that at least you can help Lucy’s family with that.

You make a phone call and quickly find out that one of the only things your plan does not cover is battery operated vehicles, including children’s toys. You need a special plan for those types of vehicles. What now? How could you have avoided this situation?

1. Know what your insurance covers and what it doesn’t. Different home insurance plans in Omaha will cover different types of vehicles and motorized toys.

Here are some of the vehicles on your property that might not be covered:

• Motorized Kids Toys
• All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs)
• Dirt Bikes, even small dirt bikes for kids
• Golf Carts
• Snowmobiles

2. Decide what should be covered by your insurance. Two questions to consider are:

• Will this motorized ‘toy’ be driven off your property?
• Does this ‘toy’ have the capability of going faster than 15 mph?

Typically, homeowners insurance only covers incidents that happen on your property, so motorized toy vehicles driven off your property are no longer covered. This leaves you vulnerable as your kids play up and down the street. Motorized toy vehicles or recreational vehicles that travel faster than 15 mph may also not be covered on your property. Take a close look at your kid’s motorized toys to make sure the answer to both of these questions is no.

Even if the answer to both of those questions is no, you still should look into seeing if your motorized vehicles are covered under your insurance plans just to be sure you’re not liable.  Homeowners Insurance policies can and do differ in how they cover any motorized vehicle.

So what do you do if your local Omaha homeowner insurance doesn’t cover the types of vehicles that you have on your property? You can easily add endorsements to your existing homeowners policy.  Or, depending on the vehicle, it may require its own policy. The cost of the added endorsement or policy will vary based on what kind of recreational vehicle or motorized kids toy you want to cover. 

Contact Us to Add this Coverage to Your Insurance

There is only one thing you can do that is going to make figuring this out easy for you, and that is contacting your local independent insurance agent.

Your agent will know the details and complexities of the different homeowner and car insurance plans in the Omaha area. They will know what is covered on your plan and what kinds of motorized vehicles will need to be added through an endorsement or a separate policy.

So, if you want to get some peace of mind and make sure that there are no potentially huge liabilities sitting in your garage, contact your local independent insurance agent today to see how to get these kinds of vehicles covered.