If you have transferred your home into a revocable living trust, there is one important step that can be easy to overlook: reviewing your homeowners insurance.
For Long Beach homeowners, properly funding a trust isn’t just about recording a new deed. Your insurance and other important records should also be reviewed to make sure they reflect the way your property is now owned.
Why Review Your Insurance After Transferring a Home to a Trust?
When your home is transferred into your revocable living trust, the property’s title changes. Although you typically continue to own, control, and live in the property, your homeowners insurance carrier should be notified of the change.
Insurance policies and carrier requirements vary. Depending on your insurer and policy, the carrier may recommend adding the trust to the policy or using a trust endorsement.
The goal is simple: make sure your insurance company knows how your home is titled before you ever need to make a claim.
What Should You Do?
After transferring California real estate into your trust:
- Contact your homeowners insurance agent or carrier.
- Tell them the property has been transferred to your revocable living trust.
- Provide the exact legal name of the trust if requested.
- Ask whether the trust should be added as an additional insured or otherwise reflected on the policy.
- Request written confirmation that your coverage is appropriate given the property’s trust ownership.
This is also a good opportunity to review your coverage limits, particularly if your home’s value or rebuilding costs have increased.
Don’t Forget Second Homes and Rental Properties
If your trust owns more than one property, review the insurance for each property separately.
A vacation home, rental property, or other real estate may have a different type of insurance policy and different requirements. Don’t assume that updating the insurance on your primary residence takes care of your other properties.
Trust Funding Is More Than Signing a Deed
Creating a revocable living trust in California is only one part of effective estate planning. Your assets also need to be properly coordinated with the plan.
At Lungu Law Group, a Long Beach estate planning firm, we help clients look beyond the legal documents to the practical details that can determine whether an estate plan works as intended.
That includes helping clients understand how their real estate should be titled and reminding them to coordinate important matters—such as insurance—with the appropriate professionals.
Is Your Trust Properly Funded?
If you created a trust years ago but aren’t sure whether your home and other assets were properly coordinated with it, an estate plan review can help identify potential gaps before they become problems.
Contact Lungu Law Group to learn more about estate planning, trust funding, and estate plan reviews for Long Beach and Southern California families.
This article is for general educational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or insurance advice. Insurance requirements and coverage vary by policy and carrier. Consult your insurance professional regarding your specific coverage.