The Fifth Sign of Manhood

We had just sat down for family dinner after going through our opening routine. Recently, we reinstituted our family ritual of lighting a candle and praying together before dinner begins. I call it the "opening routine" because what tends to happen is an argument over who gets the candle, who lights the candle, and who prays. 

We're working on it.

 Well, after a few minutes, one of our boys turns to me and asks me to whistle, concentrating hard as he watches me do it. He tries it himself a few times, looking to me for feedback on how he's doing. After several attempts, he throws up his hands and, in a mixture of playful defeat and hopeful expectation, declares:

"I can't wait till I'm big. Then I'll be able to whistle. I'll be a man when I can have a beard, be able to whistle, jump high, and drive a car. One, two, three, four."

Four fingers go up, one for each milestone.

If you're wondering where the jumping-high thing came from, he's referring to me on our backyard trampoline. And yes, I jump high.

There's one more thing he forgot to add to his list for two reasons. First, he's never seen me do it. And second, if he did, it would be the most forgettable thing ever.

That's right. The fifth part of becoming a man is...reviewing your homeowners policy.

I am in the midst of doing this myself and wanted to share a few things so that you, too, can become a fully grown man or woman.

A homeowners policy begins with a list of coverages, starting with A and working its way down the alphabet. Dwelling Coverage (Coverage A) deals with the cost of repairing or rebuilding your home after a covered loss. This was the first one that needed to be addressed for us.

We bought our home in 2020, before costs began to rise. Our policy also carries a 25% expanded replacement cost endorsement. BTW, insurance endorsements sound a lot cooler than they are. They're add-ons...that you get to pay for.

Anyway, when I looked at our current dwelling coverage plus the additional 25%, I realized we could still be roughly $100,000 short if we had to rebuild our home at today's construction costs. That's an exposure worth paying attention to.

This next one is exciting.

Remember that trampoline I mentioned?

Imagine this scenario: The kids have a friend over and they start playing popcorn. It's a simple game where the child in the middle of the trampoline curls up into a tight ball resembling a popcorn kernel. The goal is to get the kernel to "pop."

Let's say this game is going on and this particular kernel in the middle is especially stubborn, so the kids call up to us parents on the deck for some help. Excitedly, I get on and join the fun. In our collective exuberance, we manage to bounce our friend over the side netting of the trampoline, face-first into the yard.

Whether we're dealing with understanding friends or first-time guests, based on my hypothetical actions we're probably going to be very interested in the personal liability and medical payments sections of our homeowners policy.

These coverages serve different purposes, but both can become relevant when someone gets hurt on your property. Make sure you understand what you have and whether the limits are sufficient in today's costly and litigious world. 

Lastly, we've been getting these pesky mailings for the last several years about buying underground service line protection. Our house is old, so this is something worth considering. Until I became a man the other day and actually reviewed my homeowners policy, I had this nagging concern every time one of those mailings showed up.

Turns out, our policy already includes underground service line coverage.

That was good news. But just like with the dwelling coverage for rebuilding our house, the next question is whether the limit is actually enough. If a buried sewer or water line fails and someone has to excavate and backfill a substantial trench through the yard, how far will that coverage really go?

Although homeowners policies may include inflation protection that increases coverage limits each year, that doesn't necessarily mean your coverage will perfectly track the actual costs that they cover.

And that's ultimately the point of reviewing the policy.

It starts with understanding the level of exposure you have. If my home is destroyed and we send a neighborhood kid to the hospital—hopefully not on the same day—are the different policy limits adequate for those events? And if they're not, what would it cost to reduce or eliminate that exposure? Finally, is that cost worth it?

So, take a look at your policy and see what you find.

Is it a fun exercise? No.

Is it something your kid will admire about you one day? Also no.

But the next time I get one of those things in the mail telling me I need sewer line protection I won't have to wonder whether there's a hole in my policy.

And that's a little more brain space for everything else in life.

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