Homeowner claim guide

How to read your homeowners insurance policy

Updated August 5, 2026 · Havn.ai

Start with the declarations page

A homeowners policy runs 30 to 60 pages, and almost none of it is what you need first. The declarations page — usually the first two, and the part your carrier re-sends every renewal — is where your actual numbers live: the named insured, the property, the policy period, the coverage limits, the deductible, and a list of endorsements attached to the policy.

Read those numbers out loud before you do anything else in a claim. Most of the arguments that follow are about them.

Coverages A, B, C and D

A standard US homeowners policy (the HO-3 form, and its cousins for renters and condos) splits property coverage four ways:

Coverage A — Dwelling. The structure itself. This number should reflect the cost to rebuild, which is not the market value and not what you paid.
Coverage B — Other structures. Detached garage, fence, shed. Often 10% of Coverage A.
Coverage C — Personal property. Your belongings. Often 50–70% of Coverage A, and the coverage with the most sub-limits hiding inside it.
Coverage D — Loss of use. The extra cost of living elsewhere while the home is uninhabitable. Often around 20% of Coverage A. (Full guide.)

Liability coverages (E and F) exist too, but they're about someone else's injury or property, not your loss.

Replacement cost vs actual cash value

This is the single most consequential line in your policy and the one most homeowners have never checked.

Replacement cost value (RCV) pays what it costs to replace the item with a new equivalent today.
Actual cash value (ACV) pays replacement cost minus depreciation for age and wear — often a fraction of it for a ten-year-old roof or a six-year-old sofa.

Many policies cover the dwelling at RCV and contents at ACV, or contents at RCV only through an endorsement. And even on an RCV policy, the usual mechanics are: the carrier pays ACV up front (the “actual cash value payment”), and releases the remaining recoverable depreciation after you've actually replaced the item and sent in the receipt. That second payment is regularly left unclaimed, sometimes within a deadline stated in the policy.

Deductibles, including the percentage kind

Your deductible may be a flat amount ($1,000, $2,500) or a percentage of Coverage A, which is common for wind, hail, hurricane and earthquake. A 2% hurricane deductible on a $500,000 dwelling limit is $10,000 — a very different number from the $1,000 most people have in mind, and separate policies can carry separate deductibles for separate perils. Check which one your loss triggers.

Sub-limits: the quiet caps

Within Coverage C, specific categories carry their own caps regardless of your overall limit — commonly jewelry and watches, furs, firearms, silverware, cash, business property, and electronics. A $2,500 jewelry sub-limit applies even if your contents limit is $200,000. Scheduling valuable items individually (a “scheduled personal property” endorsement) is the fix, and it has to happen before the loss.

Exclusions and endorsements

An HO-3 covers the structure against everything except what it excludes, and contents against a named list of perils. The exclusions that matter most in practice:

Flood. Rising surface water is excluded from every standard homeowners policy, and needs separate flood insurance. A burst pipe is not a flood; water coming in from outside at ground level generally is.
Earth movement. Earthquake, landslide, sinkhole — typically separate.
Wear, tear, and maintenance. Gradual deterioration isn't a loss; a sudden failure caused by it may still be.
Mold, often capped at a small amount or excluded unless it results from a covered water loss.
Sewer and drain backup, usually excluded without an endorsement.

Endorsements sit on top of the base form and change it — sometimes adding coverage, sometimes taking it away. They're listed by form number on the declarations page. If a denial cites a form number you don't recognize, that's the document to go find.

Your duties after a loss

Buried near the end is a section usually called “Duties After Loss.” It's short, it's binding, and it typically requires you to give prompt notice, protect the property from further damage, keep records of your expenses, prepare an inventory of damaged property, cooperate with the investigation, and submit a signed proof of loss within a stated number of days — often 60 — of the carrier's request.

Those deadlines are real. Read that section early and put its dates in a calendar, because missing one is an avoidable way to lose an otherwise sound claim.

How Havn.ai helps

Upload your policy and Havn.ai reads the declarations page into a coverage card — Coverages A through D and your deductible — for you to confirm. Then ask it questions in plain language: what your deductible is for this peril, whether mold is capped, what the policy says about proof of loss. It answers by quoting your own pages, with the page number — and when your documents don't say, it tells you they don't say, rather than inventing a term.

This is general information, not legal or insurance advice. Every policy is different, and only your own policy and your state's rules decide your claim. For advice, talk to your adjuster, a licensed public adjuster, or an attorney.