Make Sure Your Home Insurance Covers These Holiday Mishaps

The holidays bring the need to make your home look more festive. With decorations, lights, colorful garland and stockings on full display, homes are reimagined for the month of December. With all these additional items, your home could become crowded. And when all of your guests arrive, the issue will be even larger.

However, it's not only overcrowding that can lead to problems, but also the safety precautions that many homeowners don't take in advance of the holidays. By whipping up your home decor without thought of potential dangers, you could be setting yourself up for a holiday nightmare.

That's why it's important to make sure you have a comprehensive homeowners insurance plan that will cover damage related to any of the instances below:

1. Christmas tree fire

Whether you're planning on going the traditional route and purchasing a real tree or pulling your old fake one out of storage, the chance of a house fire increases because of the presence of a tree. When combined with eccentric lighting displays and trees wrapped in dozens of feet of decorations, a fire could occur fairly easily - especially if the tree is dry.

Further, many trees are placed in living rooms, which are in the vicinity of fireplaces. Simple missteps can cause a tree to topple over and perhaps fall into the flames.

2. Outdoor fire

Fire's not exclusive to the interior of your home, as many homeowners enjoy showing their holiday cheer by including light spectacles outside of their homes. Lights are commonly hung from roofs, windows and gutters, while lawn ornaments and inflatable decorations typically populate front yards. All of these items are hooked up to your home's electrical system.

This added usage of power puts a heavier load on your electrical system and can cause outages or circuit breaks. Additionally, animals and weather conditions can interfere with certain displays, potentially causing electrical failure or fires.

3. Stolen presents

While you're focused on improving the safety of your home, you'll also want to be aware that the holidays provide thieves with prime targets due to the uptick in expensive gifts present in people's homes. Someone could break into your home and steal the gifts underneath your tree, ruining your festivities.

Luckily, home insurance covers theft. However, it's still best to update your security system to deter vandalism and break-ins.

Make sure you're getting the best deal on your home insurance this season by going to CoverHound.