When most people think about personal insurance, they think about homeowners and auto insurance. While those are important, a comprehensive personal insurance program should do much more than protect your house and your vehicles.
Your insurance should protect your property, income, assets, lifestyle, and financial future.
At Truska Insurance Agency, we take a broader view of personal insurance. As an independent insurance broker, we work with multiple highly rated insurance companies to help Chicago-area individuals and families build an insurance program around their specific needs.
What Does Personal Insurance Include?
Personal insurance can include several different types of coverage, depending on your circumstances.
Homeowners Insurance
Your homeowners policy is designed to protect your home and personal property from covered losses such as fire, theft, certain types of water damage, and other covered causes of loss.
A well-designed homeowners policy should also include:
- Adequate dwelling replacement cost
- Personal property coverage
- Additional living expenses if your home becomes uninhabitable
- Personal liability protection
- Medical payments coverage
- Water backup coverage
- Service line coverage
- Equipment breakdown coverage
- Ordinance or law coverage
It’s important to remember that your home’s market value is not the same as its replacement cost. Your insurance should be based on the estimated cost to rebuild the home, not what you could sell it for.
Condo Insurance
If you own a condominium, your insurance needs are different from those of a single-family homeowner.
A condo unit-owner policy, commonly called an HO-6 policy, can protect your:
- Personal property
- Improvements and betterments
- Personal liability
- Additional living expenses
- Loss assessment exposure
- Water backup
- Valuable personal property
One of the most important things to understand is how your condominium association’s master insurance policy works with your individual HO-6 policy.
The association’s policy may not cover everything inside your unit. Depending on the association’s governing documents and master policy, you may be responsible for portions of the interior of your unit, improvements, or assessments resulting from a covered loss.
For Chicago condominium owners, we recommend reviewing the association’s master policy and deductible when determining the appropriate HO-6 coverage.
Renters Insurance
Renting doesn’t mean you don’t need insurance.
Your landlord’s insurance generally protects the building—not your personal belongings or your personal liability.
A renters policy can protect your:
- Furniture
- Clothing
- Electronics
- Jewelry
- Personal belongings
- Additional living expenses
- Personal liability
Renters insurance is often surprisingly affordable, yet it can provide important protection against a significant financial loss.
Personal Auto Insurance
Auto insurance is about more than simply meeting Illinois’ minimum insurance requirements.
We generally recommend considering higher liability limits to better protect your assets in the event of a serious accident.
Your auto policy can include:
- Bodily injury liability
- Property damage liability
- Uninsured motorist coverage
- Underinsured motorist coverage
- Comprehensive coverage
- Collision coverage
- Rental reimbursement
- Roadside assistance
For clients with significant assets, we often recommend coordinating higher auto liability limits with a personal umbrella policy.
Personal Umbrella Insurance
A personal umbrella provides an additional layer of liability protection above your homeowners, renters, and auto insurance.
For example, if you are found liable for a serious accident and the damages exceed the liability limit on your auto policy, your umbrella may provide additional coverage, subject to its terms and conditions.
A $1 million umbrella is often an appropriate starting point, although higher limits may be appropriate depending on your assets, income, lifestyle, and exposure.
Umbrella insurance can be particularly important for individuals who:
- Own a home
- Have significant savings or investments
- Have multiple vehicles
- Have teenage or youthful drivers
- Own rental property
- Own boats or recreational vehicles
- Entertain frequently
- Have substantial future income to protect
Personal Articles and Valuable Property
Standard homeowners, condo, and renters policies may have special limits on certain valuable possessions.
If you own valuable jewelry, watches, artwork, collectibles, firearms, musical instruments, bicycles, or other high-value items, you may want to consider scheduling them separately.
A Personal Articles Floater can provide broader coverage for certain valuable possessions, including coverage that may not be available under the standard personal property section of your homeowners policy.
For particularly valuable items, documentation such as appraisals, receipts, photographs, or other proof of value may be important.
Personal Cyber Insurance
Our lives are increasingly digital, and traditional insurance policies may not provide sufficient protection against every type of cyber-related loss.
Personal cyber coverage can provide protection for certain risks involving:
- Identity theft
- Online fraud
- Cyber extortion
- Ransomware
- Data restoration
- Cyberbullying
- Online financial fraud
- Certain cyber liability exposures
Coverage varies significantly by insurance company, so it’s important to understand exactly what is—and isn’t—covered.
Insurance for Your Recreational Lifestyle
Your insurance program should reflect how you actually live.
If you own a boat, motorcycle, jet ski, RV, collector vehicle, or other recreational vehicle, those exposures should be evaluated as part of your overall insurance program.
The same applies to second homes, rental properties, and other real estate.
Rather than looking at each policy independently, we look at how the policies work together.
Why an Annual Insurance Review Matters
Your insurance needs can change throughout the year.
You may:
- Buy or sell a home
- Purchase a new vehicle
- Renovate your home
- Acquire valuable jewelry or artwork
- Start a business
- Purchase a rental property
- Add a teenage driver
- Buy a boat or recreational vehicle
- Receive an inheritance
- Accumulate additional investments
- Get married or divorced
These changes can create new exposures or make existing coverage inadequate.
That’s why an annual insurance review is important. It provides an opportunity to make sure your coverage and limits continue to reflect your current circumstances.
Your Insurance Should Work Together
One of the biggest mistakes people make is looking at homeowners, auto, umbrella, and other policies as completely separate products.
A better approach is to look at your entire personal insurance program.
For example, your auto liability limits need to coordinate with your umbrella. Your valuable jewelry should be evaluated separately from your standard personal property coverage. Your condo insurance should be reviewed alongside your association’s master policy.
The goal is to identify potential gaps before a loss occurs.
Work With an Independent Insurance Broker
Insurance isn’t one-size-fits-all.
At Truska Insurance Agency, we take the time to understand your home, vehicles, assets, lifestyle, and potential exposures. As an independent insurance broker, we can compare coverage and pricing from multiple insurance companies rather than being limited to one carrier.
Most importantly, we work for you—not the insurance companies.
Our goal is simple: to make insurance easier, provide knowledgeable advice, and build a personal insurance program that protects what you’ve worked hard to build.
Ready to Review Your Personal Insurance?
If it’s been a while since you’ve reviewed your insurance—or if you’ve recently experienced a major life change—now may be a good time for a coverage review.
Truska Insurance Agency provides personalized personal insurance solutions for individuals and families throughout Chicago and the surrounding areas.
