Your Complete Guide To Cottage Insurance In Ontario

A cottage is your cherished home away from home where you can entertain family and friends and make lifelong memories. Cottage ownership is not just for those looking to get away from the city, as many decide to live year round at the cottage, either retired or working remotely.

Certainly, if the cottage is important to you, insuring it is a must. In this guide we cover what is cottage insurance, the different coverage options available, what cottage insurance covers, and the cost of cottage insurance.

What Is Cottage Insurance?

Cottage insurance is insurance for your property similar to home insurance, but specifically designed to meet the needs of your cottage. In most cases, banks and other lenders will require that you have cottage insurance while paying off the mortgage on the property.

Another common aspect of cottage insurance is that most insurance companies will only insure your cottage if you have an existing home insurance policy with them. The cottage gets added onto your home insurance policy as a secondary property or a seasonal property.

Types Of Cottage Insurance

The two most common cottage insurance policies are the secondary property insurance and seasonal insurance.

Secondary property insurance is a must for a property that you will use year round. For example, if you visit a cottage most weekends in the summer and make some trips up to the cottage in the fall and winter, this would be considered a secondary property.

Seasonal insurance is what it sounds like: insurance for your cottage that is used for one or two seasons a year.

Be sure to speak to a broker for more information and coverage options.

What Does Cottage Insurance Cover?

Most cottage insurance policies cover you for damages to the building and liability in case someone gets injured on your property. For example, if someone sues you for getting hurt while at your cottage, your insurance policy will protect you.

As for insuring your building structure, there are some options to choose from. A replacement cost insurance option is insurance that can be a benefit to you as it can cover the construction material costs after damage to the building.

A named perils policy is coverage that meets most needs of cottage owners in Ontario. It can provide you coverage for fire, lightning strikes, flooding and other named perils on the policy. Be sure to ask a broker about insuring your cottage from other perils such as: falling trees, vandalism, theft, building collapse, and wild animal damage to the building.

Cottage Insurance Costs

As you have seen from the above, there are many types of cottages in Ontario, and so the cost of insurance varies from one property to the next. In general, taking into account the value and location of the property, Canadians pay anywhere from $800 to $3000 annually for cottage insurance.