October 2004  Email this  Print this
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REAL ESTATE
Home Security
by Pat Mertz Esswein Talk about buyer's remorse. You're about to close on your dream house, but you lack the proof of insurance necessary for the mortgage lender to release the funds. Or the paperwork is in order, but a few months later -- when you already own the house -- the insurer threatens to charge you an outrageous premium or informs you that it won't cover you after all. Over the past few years, insurers have become increasingly skittish about who and what they will cover, particularly in areas that have been hit hard by natural disasters. "Insurance used to be the last thing people would think about when buying a home," says Marcia Salkin, staff coordinator for the National Association of Realtors' insurance task force. Salkin now advises buyers to request a copy of their claims-history report, such as the one produced by the Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange, or CLUE, to check for errors. She also recommends asking the sellers for a claims-history report for the property. Insurers use these reports, which go back five years, to assess their risk in insuring you and your new home.
You can order your CLUE report at www.choicetrust.com or a similar A-PLUS report at 800-709-8842. Each report costs $9 unless you live in Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey or Vermont, where you can get a report free of charge.
Realtor associations in many states have added a homeowners-insurance contingency to their standard purchase contract, as well as a disclosure form regarding past insurance claims to their sellers' listing package. And lawmakers in several states are considering new measures that would protect the ability of homeowners to get and keep insurance. | 
MAGAZINE
