Home Insurance and Lightning Damage: What’s Covered and When?

During a storm, lightning may become your worst enemy. Lightning is a high-risk event. Lightning is electricity, and electricity can damage your home. When a storm contains lightning, it is important to protect yourself and your property. 

Even when you protect your home from lightning, incidents can happen. If lightning strikes your home or other structures on your property, you may see a lot of damage. Your home insurance may be able to help you cover these losses.

The Most Common Types of Lightning-Related Losses

Lightning can cause damage that’s more extensive than just what you can initially see. 

For example, when lightning hits a home, it creates a power surge. A power surge occurs because lighting causes sudden, unpredictable changes to electrical loads. The surge can run through your home and damage anything plugged into the outlets. 

Surges can affect your home’s appliances and gadgets. It takes seconds for this to happen. Your appliances often cannot handle sudden surges.

When Will Home Insurance Cover Lightning Damage?

There are few things you can do to prevent lightning damages. Using power strips with surge protectors can help. Even in these situations, some damage may happen. Your home insurance often covers some of the losses you face.

Most policies include personal property coverage. This helps cover losses related to items that you own. It may include electronics and other valuables damaged during a lightning strike. It will only cover personal property up to the limit listed on that policy, though.

The Insurance Information Institute said lightning caused about $30 million in personal property damage in 2014. This can be a common claim.

Most policies will cover:

• Damage to your home’s electrical components such as electrical tubes and transistors.
• Damage to your appliances or other gadgets damaged by a power surge caused by lightning.

Be sure you have a home inventory that outlines what items lightning could impact. You will need to show proof of ownership to receive financial coverage. However, the damaged appliance itself is enough for many insurance companies.

Some policies have exclusions for power surges, though. If your policy has this exclusion, power surge damages may not have coverage. Take a closer look at your existing home insurance plan. The plan could show you what type and how much insurance protection you currently have.