Real estate
BY ATIRIKTA KUMAR
Robert Oncken talks property protection during hurricane season The Greater Houston area is no stranger to natural disasters and the potential damage they can cause. Robert Oncken is the agency principal and owner at Oncken Insurance Agency, a Cypress-based independent insurance agency that specializes in home insurance. Oncken spoke to Community Impact about what residents can do to prepare their homes for hurricane season. How can residents best protect their homes during storms and hurricanes? Be prepared for a storm coming in and ... aware of the weather that is coming. If it’s going to be a wind event or something along those lines, I would certainly sort of batten down the hatches, so to speak. ... Doing repairs as they come up and not letting them go is something that would certainly help you out. Getting a generator is a good idea, too, if it’s something that you can a ord. It certainly is helpful in terms of large weather events where the power may go out for a short or long period of time. ... From an insurance standpoint, I would certainly check in on exactly what type of insurance you have on your house and how it will protect, what type of deductibles you’re looking at, [and] what type of coverage you have for the roof. Because there can be a wide variety of options there, and some provide more or less coverage. What should residents know about ood insurance? Flooding is something that, for the most part,
is not covered under your homeowner policy. ... There are two very broad types of policy. One is a policy through [the Federal Emergency Manage- ment Agency], which is broken into a few di erent categories. But the policy through FEMA usually caps out at about $250,000 in coverage for the dwelling itself and $100,000 for any content. ... There is another option called private ood insur- ance, and private ood insurance is a lot closer to a homeowner policy but just for [ooding]. The big di erence is it’s not always available for every single address out there. ... So, insurance company “A” may o er coverage, and insurance company “B” may not o er coverage for a specic address on private ood [insurance]. How can residents minimize ood damage? Making sure that you get your drainage in and around the house as good as possible is one of the rst things that you would do. But if you are going to have water coming into your house, getting things that are particularly valuable that you’re able to move up to a second oor is a good idea. And certainly, if it can’t be taken to the second oor, getting it o the ground because a lot of ooding is not up to your eyeballs in the house. A lot of times, ooding is just an inch or two of water in the house. Do you have any tips to prevent hail or wind damage? Maintenance on the roof and staying on top of any issues that may need to be addressed in terms of roof integrity, mold and granular loss ... all of those things are things that I would stay on top of. The other thing to do would be to make sure that you have a good understanding of what is or isn’t covered under your particular homeowner policy. You can’t keep hail from coming. You can’t keep wind from coming. But once it does come,
COURTESY ROBERT ONCKEN
hopefully your roof is structurally sound enough to where there won’t be any damage where you lose the integrity of the roof. If that happens, you want to make sure that you’ve got the right type of insurance on your house. What are some cost-eective ways people can protect their house? I think the most cost-e ective way ... is staying on top of repairs that need to be done and not waiting until they become a big issue. I think that also applies to your insurance—making sure that on a regular basis with your agent, you’re reviewing what you’ve got, and what is and isn’t covered.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. For a longer version, visit communityimpact.com .
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