Changes take place over time, and many of these changes in your life can affect the coverage you need for your home. In some instances, you may need more coverage while in others you may be able to reduce the coverage. The following are a few changes that may have taken place in your life that should motivate you to review your policy.

You are operating a home-based business

Some homeowner's policies will allow an increase in the personal property that is covered for your business. This may be enough if your business is operating out of an extra room in your house, and you only have a couple of pieces of furniture. Or perhaps you are conducting business outside of the home, but are storing equipment in your garage such as tools sued for landscaping or painting. As long as you don't have clients on your property, you are not likely to need business liability insurance. But you may need additional coverage on your homeowner's policy for a small home-based business.

Your children are grown and moved away

When you are raising children, there will inevitably be other children playing in your home and outside of your house. Child can get hurt in ways that cannot be foreseen, so you need a certain amount of liability to protect yourself. However, once your children are grown and gone, you may be over insured. It may be possible to reduce the total amount of coverage you have for liability.

There is a construction boom in your area

Your home is insured for its replacement cost, and not its total value. Your property may spike upward in value, but this may not affect its replacement value. This is determined by construction costs, and they don't change greatly over time. Your policy is likely to already contain a provision for a slight increase in contraction costs to counter any effects from price inflation. However, sometimes construction costs can go up significantly because of a large increase in building. In this case, the replacement cost of your home may now be greater than your coverage, and you are underinsured. Your insurance agent can help you with a current replacement cost estimate.

One obvious reason to review your policy is with significant renovations such as an additional room, but you shouldn't ignore smaller items such as a patio upgrade that includes a brick barbecue. However, the biggest issue with a homeowner's insurance policy is that people tend to file them away and never look at them again. But there are many changes that can take place over time that necessitate changes in your insurance.