Homeowners insurance policies are a beautiful thing when you're trying to protect your home from disaster, but let's face it-they can be hard to understand. And when you don't know exactly what your insurance will cover (and what it won't) you can never be too sure about exactly when your home insurance claims will be covered and when they'll be denied-not a good feeling by anyone's definition! It isn't enough just to know when your insurance company will cover a claim and when it won't though. You have to know how to plug the gaps in the middle.

All home insurance policies share a set of common guidelines. You can expect them to cover fire, flood, explosions and lightening/hail damage. You might even be able to slide in snow and ice damages, although you'll have to be careful-those damages dip into grey area the minute the culprit starts to melt!

See, home insurance companies need to make money too. Yes, they're there to pay your insurance claims when you need to file them, but where do you think they get the money for those claims? Right. From the premiums you pay each month. And when the damages incurred by the policy holders fly by the amount of money the company's taking in, they're going to go out of business-and hundreds of policyholders are going to find their home insurance claims denied because their insurer doesn't have enough money to pick up the slack.

That's not a fun place to be.

Since they don't want to find themselves in that position any more than you want to be in that position, most insurers have fairly strict guidelines about what they'll cover and what they won't. For example, very rarely will you find a home insurance provider that willingly incorporates flood or earthquake insurance into a standard insurance policy. And most of them are particular about windstorm damage, especially if you happen to live in a high risk area like the Gulf of Mexico-as far too many homeowners discovered, to their detriment, after Hurricane Katrina left her mark.

As an insurance shopper, the best thing you can do when you first touch base with the homeowners insurance agents is flip through the packages they have to offer and pick the best fit for their needs. Think of it as walking into a thrift store and searching around for a suit in your size. The best you can hope for is a close enough fit to get the job done.

In other words, you end up adjusting your needs to meet your homeowners insurance policy instead of the other way around, and that's just not right. If you're going to pay your policy in good faith every month you deserve a homeowners insurance policy that's going to give you the coverage you need at a price you deserve, and the best way to do that would be to talk to your insurance agent and inquire about additional insurance to meet your own special needs. That way you can plug the gap, and you're never left holding the bill for repair expenses you neither need nor deserve.

After all, isn't that what homeowners insurance is for?