What's the difference between home, property and liability insurance?

What's the difference between home, property and liability insurance?

Sam Friedman (Editor-in-Chief, National Underwriter, Property & Casualty Edition) gives expert video advice on: What does homeowner's insurance cover?; Am I required to have homeowner's insurance?; What does home insurance property protection cover? and more...

Home, property, and liability insurance is usually all under the same homeowner's insurance package. They refer to different aspects of the coverage. The home coverage is pretty straightforward. If anything happens to your house, whether the roof is blown off in a hurricane, the tree falls over and damages the garage, the house loses a room, or perhaps the entire property is burned down in a fire; these things are all covered under the home portion of the coverage. There's also a personal property provision in these policies. That can range from very basic things such as your television, your couch, your bed, your dining room table, standard items, to specialized items that you need to get appraised and added on to a policy in an endorsement to make sure they're covered. This would be stuff like a fur, a very fancy piece of jewelry, a stamp or baseball card collection, or fine art, something that's out of the ordinary that you need to get appraised and added to a policy. As far as the liability portion goes, if someone walks by your front yard and you haven't shovelled the snow yet, slips and falls, breaks their leg, they may sue you. If they fall down your stairs, they trip over your dog, or any of these unlikely occurences might lead to a lawsuit in which case the policy would cover you for any legal expenses and if you have to pay any damages to the individual who's been harmed.