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When it comes to home insurance, it seems that many people still think their standard policies will cover them for every eventuality, even if this is not the case. For instance, the vast majority of Americans living on the Pacific Rim do not have earthquake insurance despite their high risk factor for being negatively impacted by such an event. The same is often true of specific types of coverage in the event of hurricanes and floods in certain parts of the country where this kind of weather event is most common. For this reason, it may be incumbent upon insurance agents to do more to help their clients understand their needs.

This unfortunate trend persists in people living along the Mexican border in New Mexico and Texas, where flooding is common but specific types of home insurance to protect from those damages are not, according to a report from El Paso, Texas, television station KFOX. For this reason, insurance experts operating in the area are now urging homeowners to take on these policy add-ons, because of how much help they can be when a major problem hits.

What could this mean for owners?
Residents in that area were recently hit by a few major rain storms that left them at huge risk for flood damage, and many did indeed suffer damage, the report said. In many cases, however, that damage was not covered under their standard home plans, and therefore means their insurance companies are unlikely to help them cover the costs.

""Most of the time, the people we talk to are forced to have [coverage] because of National Flood Insurance Program requires that if you got a mortgage, you got to have flood insurance,"" Chip Carlsen, an agent at a local insurance company. ""So they regretfully get it.""

The better an insurance agent can explain the need for buying this kind of coverage to consumers, the better off they might be in terms of both doing business and building relationships with those customers. Many may be leery of adding even more to their home insurance premiums - which may already be sizable - every month, but having that extra protection in place when it's needed can typically spell the difference between being able to file a claim, and being on the hook themselves for potentially thousands of dollars or more in damages.

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