Peak hurricane season is here. Know what your policy pays

NBC News published a hurricane preparedness guide built around advice from a meteorologist, covering the supplies worth keeping on hand before a storm forms. Mid-August through October is the busiest stretch of the Atlantic season, so this is the window where a kit in the garage actually gets used.

Supplies are the part most Florida and Texas households already handle. The part they skip is the money side. If a covered loss makes your home unlivable, most homeowners policies include loss of use, which reimburses hotel bills, meals, and other added costs while you are out. It is a real dollar limit, often a percentage of your dwelling coverage, and it does not pay just because you evacuated voluntarily. Food spoilage from a power outage is treated differently by different carriers, and many policies limit or exclude it when the outage starts off your property. Your hurricane deductible is also separate from your regular deductible and is usually a percentage of the insured value, so a 2% deductible on a $400,000 home is $8,000 out of pocket before anything pays. Pull your declarations page now and read those three lines. Knowing the numbers before a storm beats discovering them from a hotel lobby.

An independent agent can walk you through your loss of use limit and hurricane deductible, and re-shop your coverage while there is still time before a storm.