Never Roast Marshmallows in Your Living Room

Never Roast Marshmallows in Your Living Room

What You Need to Know About Household Fires and Your Home

Snap. Crackle. Pop. The sound of a happy, bubbling bowl of Rice Crispies? No, that's the sound of curtains

More than 500,000 household fires occur in the U.S. each year.

merrily cooking away because someone forgot to turn off their coffee pot for the night and left it lying a little too close to their kitchen window.

Household fires are more common than you might think. There are an average of over 500,000 household fires every year in the United States resulting from electrical shorts, cooking accidents and Uncle Louis falling asleep with a cigar in his mouth on the living room sofa. Most household fires can be prevented, but since Smoky the Bear's not in today we'll save that topic for another time. What we are going to talk about is the relationship between household fires and your homeowners insurance.

The good news is that unless you deliberately toss some kerosene around and strike a match to hide the fact that you threw out the hideous Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer sweater Aunt Helen gave you for Christmas, your homeowners insurance policy is going to pay for the damages caused by household fires. Fire insurance is standard coverage with most insurance policies unless you happen to live on a windswept plain where your home has a better chance of being swept away to the Emerald City than not being burnt to the ground at some point during your 30 year mortgage.

When you're talking fire insurance there are two things you want to be concerned with:

a) Your Premiums

If you live in an area where wildfires are common you're probably going to find that fire insurance raises your homeowners insurance premiums. This is par for the course; just because an insurance company covers damages to your home and everything in it in the event of a fire doesn't mean they're not going to hedge their bets a little bit when it comes to making sure they're not paying out more than they're bringing in. (There's nothing worse than filing a claim only to find out that your "low budget" insurance provider doesn't have enough money in the kitty to pay for the damages to your home.)

Loss mitigation and higher deductibles can help balance out the cost of your premiums. The important thing to remember is to update your insurance policy regularly to ensure that your coverage is sufficient to get you back on your feet.

b) Loss Mitigation

No one really wants to lose everything they own in a fire, but if you've ever visited some of the buildings in the mountains of Tennessee or low rent urban townhouses you have to wonder if some landlords and homeowners aren't trying their best. Loss mitigation, the act of taking preventative measures to minimize the damage to your home and property if your home decides to imitate the Inferno, is an important part of protecting your home from fire and your homeowners insurance premiums from flying sky-high.

You'd be surprised at how easy it is to minimize your losses in the event of a fire. It starts by keeping your electrical systems up to code and up to date. Smoke detectors make a great early warning system (as well as conveniently letting you know when dinner's ready) and fire extinguishers should be a permanent part of your home's safety equipment. Guess what? All of these lower your premiums on your homeowners insurance.

Household fire is one of the greatest threats facing today's homeowners, but with proper preventative measures and a good homeowners insurance policy you can minimize your losses and protect the family you love from losing everything in one merry blaze.

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