The household insurance in Germany and in the USA

Everybody has his private and more or less worthy good and chattels and everybody wants to prevent his properties from getting damaged or stolen. If preventing and paying attention was not useless, than the insurance, or in this case the household insurance joins the game. The household insurance is responsible to replace private property although it is not deciding if it is a kitchen, a vase or a carpet. The insurance helps in the case of natural disasters, fire, thievery or other occurrences which makes it necessary to replace somebody’s property.

The household insurance exists in Germany and in the USA alike but the systems are a bit different.

“Hausratsversicherung” in Germany

In the German system, called Hausratsversicherung, everybody can decide on his own, how much or rather what of his household he wants to insurance. The amount directs at the worth of the household but it is common in Germany to have a blanket insurance which does not refer to the minutely worth. The problem with this blanket insurance is the risk of being underinsured, which would be fatal in the case of fire or thievery for the person concerned. The insurance is not obligated anymore to replace anything, if the paid amount insured was too low.
Basically there is the base of insurance and everybody can extend his protection with additional packages. So you can decide individually on your insurance which can be positive or negative. If you decide to take the base version of insurance you can either be lucky of paying just a small amount insured or being the victim of destiny and losing your properties. On the other hand you can decide to insurance all your properties and either paying a high amount for years without ever having the need of insurance or being secured in the case of emergency. It is everybody’s own decision.

Homeowners insurance in America

The biggest difference between German and the USA concerning household insurance is, that Germans can only protect their household, means only property that you have in your flat or in the house, typically furniture or worthy household articles. But the American household insurance includes property in general. That means that the American system includes more areas than the German system, which is unusual if you look at the remaining insurance system in the US, like the public health.
Different is also that in America the household insurance includes a private, third party insurance which can’t be contracted separately. An example: When you fell down on the stairs of your friend’s house, the household insurance helps you.
In detail the American Homeowners Insurance (HO) falls into seven single types: HO1 – HO6 and HO8. These seven types do not base on each other, but they are for the different clients. For example a tenant does need a different household insurance than a hirer. HO1 is the base type, HOI3 is the most common insurance for all house owners and HO4 is perfect for a tenant. The types include different protections, just adapted to the clients needs.

Public health system in America

Unfortunately the remaining public health system of the US is one big disaster, because lots of people are not even insured. But our favourite president, Mr. Obama announced, doing something against this unbearable situation.

On 9th September 2009, president Obama held a speech at the congress concerning the reform of the public health in the US. He said, that the public health policy was just a big breakdown in the past and that a huge reform is absolutely necessary. With one important sentence, he emphasized explicitly his intentions: “I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last."

Obama also formulated the three most important aims of the reform:

    • For all those who are already insured: They need more security and stability from the public health system.
    • All 47 millions Americans, who are not insured yet, should be integrated into the system, means that every US citizen should be insured.
    • The costs in the context of the public health will be reduced.