Ignoring these preventive maintenance tips is the same as just sitting back & watching your homeowners insurance skyrocket! Just as you need to eat healthy, take supplements and exercise regularly to maintain your health, their are certain things we all need to do to maintain our homes. Your home is probably the most expensive thing you’ve bought to date. Depending where you live, it could be anywhere from a hundred thousand to over a million dollars. That is a heck of a lot of money.
Why would you ignore your home – your most valuable asset?
Which one of these scenarios best describes you?
- You are tired after working a long week.
- You don’t enjoy doing home maintenance.
- You don’t know how to do home maintenance.
- You don’t see the connection between regular home maintenance and preserving your homes value.
Lets take one of these at a time:
- You are too tired to work on your home after a long week at work.
- The answer? Hire someone!
- You don’t enjoy doing home maintenance
- The answer? Hire someone!
- You don’t know how to do home maintenance
- Go online and search “how to” videos on YouTube.
- Don’t feel comfortable with this? Hire someone!
- You don’t see the connection between regular home maintenance and preserving your homes value.
Think about this last point…
- What happens when you don’t clean out your gutters? Remember that clogged gutters cause water to back flow under your roof shingles.
- What happens when you don’t check your roof for missing shingles?
- Why chop down that dead tree? Dead trees can fall and hit your home causing major structural damage.
- Why address that mold smell immediately instead of waiting till it is too late? Black mold is toxic, and it can make a home uninhabitable, uninsurable and unsaleable.
- Why wrap your pipes? Frozen pipes cause pipe bursts.
- Why clean those chimneys? Creosote buildup causes house fires.
- Why update your electrical wiring? Electrical fires claim lives!
- Why inspect your heating and AC annually? Efficiently running equipment saves you money on your utilities and prevent home fires.
- Why inspect your water heater each year? Scalding can cause 3rd degree burns and water leaks cause mold.
Each of these has the potential to cause tens of thousands of dollars of home insurance claims. Remember that when you make too many claims your homeowners rates may go up.
Take the time to do home maintenance.
- Learn to do it yourself.
- Find joy in using this as an opportunity to work side by side with your family.
- Finally, if you don’t enjoy working around the house, then hire a handyman or a licensed professional to do it for you.
Yes, it will be an upfront expense, but remember that preventive maintenance is always cheaper in the end than fighting black mold or a house fire!
We hope you found these maintenance reminders helpful. If you want help with a claim because you deferred maintenance, then contact your InsuranceHub rep to see if you are covered.
