A summary, not the policy
An insurance declaration page, the "dec page," is the one-page summary at the front of your policy. It names who and what is insured, the policy number, the dates the coverage runs, your limits and deductibles, the premium, and any lender attached to the policy. Whether it's for your car, your home, a rental, or a condo, it's the page you reach for when a lender, the DMV, or you yourself needs the facts of your coverage on one sheet.
But the word "declarations" is doing a lot of work. The dec page declareswhat you bought; it doesn't contain the contract. A full insurance policy has a few standard parts, and the dec page is only the first of them:
- The declarations page, the summary you're holding.
- The insuring agreement, the carrier's core promise of what it covers.
- Definitions, which fix the meaning of loaded words like "occurrence" and "actual cash value."
- Exclusions, the perils and situations the policy will not pay for.
- Conditions, your duties after a loss, and the rules for filing a claim.
That layering has one practical consequence worth internalizing before anything else: you cannot tell what's excluded from the dec page alone.The dec lists coverages, limits, and the form numbers of any endorsements, but the actual exclusions, the flood, the earthquake, the wear and tear, live in the policy form the dec references by number. If you want to know whether something is covered, the dec page tells you the limit; the form tells you the truth. We'll come back to those form numbers, because reading them is half the skill.
What's on every dec page
Auto and home dec pages look different, but they carry the same skeleton. Once you know the blocks, every carrier's layout reads the same way:
- The named insured and mailing address. Who the policy belongs to. On auto, it also lists the covered drivers and vehicles by VIN; on home, the insured property address.
- The policy number and policy period. The period has an effective date and an expiration date. Coverage exists only between them. A claim for a loss outside that window isn't covered, so the dates matter as much as the dollars.
- The coverages, limits, and deductibles. The heart of the page, and the part written in code. The next sections decode it for auto and for home.
- The premium and any discounts.What the coverage costs, and the credits applied (multi-policy, good driver, alarm system). If you think you qualify for a discount you don't see, that's a line to question.
- The mortgagee, lienholder, or loss payee.If a bank financed your home or car, it's listed here. That line is how the lender's financial interest is protected and how it gets notified if your coverage lapses. It's the same lender that hands you a Closing Disclosure at closing and prepays your first year of this policy through escrow. When you pay off the loan, this is the line to have removed.
- The form and endorsement numbers. Usually a list of codes like HO 00 03 plus a handful of endorsement numbers. These name the exact contract language that governs your policy. They look like noise; they're the index to what you actually own.
Hover or tap any line on this sample homeowners dec page to see what it means. The auto and home sections that follow decode the coverage block in full.
- CarrierInsurer
- The company that issued the policy. The same skeleton appears on every carrier's dec page, only the wrapper changes.
- Named insuredNamed insured & property address
- Who the policy belongs to and the insured property address. On auto this block also lists the covered drivers and vehicles by VIN.
- Policy no.Policy number
- The number a lender, the DMV, or an adjuster asks for first. The one thing you'll need to recite when a tree is through the roof.
- Policy periodEffective and expiration datescheck it
- Coverage exists only between the effective date and the expiration date. A loss outside that window isn't covered, so the dates matter as much as the dollars.
- Coverage ADwelling
- The most the policy pays to rebuild the structure. Should equal reconstruction cost, not market price or what you paid. It's the single most important number on the page, and it quietly sets the others.
- Coverage BOther Structures
- Detached structures like a fence, shed, or detached garage. Usually defaults to about 10% of the dwelling limit.
- Coverage CPersonal Property
- Your belongings: furniture, clothing, electronics. Commonly set at 50 to 70% of the dwelling limit.
- Coverage DLoss of Use
- Additional living expense if a covered loss forces you out: hotel, meals, rent. Often around 20% of the dwelling limit.
- Coverage EPersonal Liability
- Pays if you're legally responsible for someone's injury or property damage. Limits commonly start around $100,000.
- DeductibleAll-other-perils / wind & hailcheck it
- The all-other-perils deductible is a flat dollar amount; the wind, hail, or hurricane deductible is usually a percentage of the dwelling limit, not the loss. 2% of $400,000 is $8,000 out of pocket before the policy pays a dollar.
- MortgageeMortgagee / lienholder
- The bank that financed the home. This line protects the lender's interest and notifies it if coverage lapses. When you pay off the loan, have it removed.
- FormForm & endorsement numbers
- The code that decides what's actually covered. HO is Homeowners, 00 03 is the Special Form, and the last four digits (05 11) are the May 2011 edition. It looks like noise; it's the index to what you own.
Auto: reading the limits
The most confusing thing on a car insurance dec page is a string like 100/300/100 or 250/500/100. These are your split liability limits, in thousands of dollars, always in the same order: bodily injury per person, bodily injury per accident, property damage. So "100/300/100" means $100,000 per injured person, $300,000 for everyone hurt in one accident combined, and $100,000 for property you damage.
| Number | What it is | In plain terms |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Bodily injury liability, per person | The most the policy pays for injuries to any one person you hurt: $100,000. The first number is always per-person bodily injury. |
| 300 | Bodily injury liability, per accident | The most the policy pays for all injuries in a single accident, combined: $300,000. The middle number is always the per-accident cap. |
| 100 | Property damage liability | The most the policy pays for the property you damage (the other car, a fence, a storefront): $100,000. The third number is always property damage. |
Some policies replace the three-number split with a single combined single limit (CSL), one pool of money that covers all bodily injury and property damage liability together. A $500,000 CSL is generally more flexible than a comparable split limit because nothing caps the per-person payout below the total.
Liability is what your state requires, but the state minimum is a floor, not a recommendation. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is blunt about it: state-required minimums "are usually not enough to fully protect you and your assets." Florida's minimum is 10/20/10; Texas is 30/60/25. One serious injury can blow past those in an afternoon, and anything above the limit is your problem. The rest of the auto dec page is the other coverages you chose:
| Coverage | Required? | What it pays for |
|---|---|---|
| Bodily injury & property damage liability | Required by state law | Pays others when you're at fault, shown as split limits (100/300/100) or one combined single limit (CSL). No deductible on liability. |
| Uninsured / underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) | Required in some states | Pays you when the at-fault driver has no insurance, or not enough to cover your loss. Often the most valuable line for the price. |
| Medical payments (MedPay) / Personal injury protection (PIP) | Required in some states | Pays medical (and, for PIP, lost wages) for you and your passengers regardless of fault. PIP is mandatory in no-fault states. |
| Collision | Optional (lender may require it) | Pays to repair your own car after a crash or pothole. Carries its own deductible, shown on the dec page. |
| Comprehensive | Optional (lender may require it) | Pays for theft, hail, fire, flood, and hitting an animal, anything that isn't a collision. Carries its own, separate deductible. |
Two things to notice. Liability carries no deductible, but collision and comprehensive each carry their own, separate deductible, and both are printed on the dec page. And the line worth more than its price for most drivers is uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, because about one in seven U.S. drivers is uninsured (by the Insurance Research Council's estimate), and your own liability limits do nothing for your injuries when someone else causes the crash. For the full field-by-field breakdown of a car policy, see our reference on the auto insurance policy.
Home: Coverage A to F
A homeowners dec page organizes coverage by letter, A through F. The letters are standardized across carriers, so once you learn them you can read any home policy. The first thing to know is that the others are usually defined as percentages of Coverage A, so the dwelling limit quietly sets almost everything else:
| Cov. | Name | Typical limit | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Dwelling | Set to rebuild cost | The structure of your home. The most the policy pays to rebuild it. Should reflect reconstruction cost, not market or purchase price. |
| B | Other Structures | ~10% of A | Detached structures: a fence, shed, or detached garage. Usually defaults to 10% of your dwelling limit. |
| C | Personal Property | ~50-70% of A | Your belongings: furniture, clothing, electronics. Commonly set at 50 to 70% of the dwelling limit. |
| D | Loss of Use | ~20% of A | Additional living expense if a covered loss forces you out: hotel, meals, rent. Often around 20% of the dwelling limit. |
| E | Personal Liability | You choose | Pays if you're legally responsible for someone's injury or property damage. Limits commonly start around $100,000. |
| F | Medical Payments to Others | You choose | Small, no-fault medical payments if a guest is hurt on your property. Commonly a few thousand dollars. |
Those percentages (Other Structures at 10%, Personal Property at 50%, Loss of Use at 20%) are the standard defaults the NAIC publishes, and on a standard form the 10% for Other Structures is written into the contract itself. But they are defaults, not law. The NAIC warns to "check your policy, as coverage limits might be based on percentages different" from the standard table, and the Insurance Information Institute puts the typical Personal Property range at 50 to 70%. The point: if you own a lot, or have a workshop in a detached garage, the auto-calculated B and C limits may not be enough, and the dec page is where you catch that.
The single most important number on the page is Coverage A, your dwelling limit. It should equal the cost to rebuildyour home, not its market value and not what you paid. The land doesn't burn down in a fire and isn't part of a rebuild estimate, so a home's market price can sit well above or below its reconstruction cost. Getting this number wrong is how people end up underinsured without knowing it, which brings us to the form number and the rules that decide what your limit is actually worth. Our reference page on the homeowners insurance policy walks every field in detail.
The form number, decoded
Every page so far has mentioned the form number, because it's the code that decides what's actually covered, and almost no consumer guide explains it. On a homeowners dec page you'll see a code like HO 00 03 05 11. Here's how it breaks down:
- HO is the line of business: Homeowners.
- 00 03 is the form: Homeowners 3, the Special Form, the most common policy in the country.
- 05 11 is the edition date, in month-year: May 2011. The last four digits are always the edition. A page reading HO 00 03 03 22 is the March 2022 edition of the same form.
The edition date isn't trivia: carriers revise these forms, and a newer edition can change definitions and coverage from an older one. Reading it tells you which version's language governs your policy. And the form number itself, HO-2, HO-3, HO-5, tells you the breadth of what you bought:
| Form | Name | What it means for what's covered |
|---|---|---|
| HO-2 | Broad Form | Covers the home and belongings against only the perils it names. If a peril isn't on the list, it isn't covered. |
| HO-3 | Special Form (most common) | Covers the structure against any peril except those it names as excluded (open perils), but covers your belongings only against a named list. |
| HO-5 | Comprehensive Form | Covers both the structure and your belongings on an open-perils basis. The broadest standard form. |
| HO-4 | Renters | Covers a renter's belongings and liability, not the building. The landlord insures the structure. |
| HO-6 | Condo / Unit-Owner | Covers your belongings and the interior walls, floors, and ceilings you own. The association's policy covers the building. |
| HO-8 | Modified (older homes) | For homes that would cost more to rebuild than they're worth. Typically pays actual cash value, not full replacement cost. |
This is where "named perils" versus "open perils" matters. A named-perilform covers only the causes of loss it lists; if your loss isn't on the list, it isn't covered. An open-perilform covers everything except what it specifically excludes, which is broader and shifts the burden to the insurer to name what's out. The popular HO-3 is a hybrid: open perils on the structure, named perils on your belongings. Upgrading to an HO-5 puts your belongings on open perils too. None of that is on the dec page in words; it's encoded entirely in that one form number.
The deductible that isn't flat
On a car policy, a deductible is a flat number: $500, $1,000, the amount you pay before collision or comprehensive kicks in. On a home policy, the deductible line hides a trap that the entire industry's consumer pages skip. Your all-other-perils deductible is a flat dollar amount, but your wind, hail, hurricane, or named-storm deductible is usually a percentage, and the percentage is applied to your dwelling limit, not to the size of the loss.
Read that twice, because it's where people get hurt. Per the Insurance Information Institute, "percentage deductibles are based on the home's insured value," and their own example is stark: on a house insured for $300,000 with a 5% deductible, "the first $15,000 of a claim must be paid out of the policyholder's pocket." Run it on a typical policy: a 2% hurricane deductible on a $400,000 dwelling limit is $8,000 you pay before the policy pays a dollar, even though the flat deductible elsewhere on the same dec page might be $1,000. Wind and hail percentage deductibles commonly run 1 to 5% of the insured value; earthquake deductibles run 5 to 25%.
The triggers are specific, and they're worth knowing because two storms can be billed two different ways. A hurricane deductible applies only when the National Hurricane Center officially designates a hurricane. A named-storm deductible triggers the moment a storm is named (sustained winds of 39 mph). A broader wind/hail deductible applies to any windstorm. In Florida the hurricane deductible runs from a watch or warning through 72 hours after it ends, and applies only once per season. Roughly 19 states and the District of Columbia permit these percentage hurricane deductibles, per the Insurance Information Institute. So a single dec page can carry two deductibles at once: a flat dollar figure for everything, and a much larger percentage that only shows its teeth in a storm. Find both before the storm, not after.
Replacement cost and the 80% rule
Two more terms on the dec page decide what your limit is actually worth at claim time: replacement cost and actual cash value(ACV). Replacement cost pays to rebuild or replace with materials of like kind and quality, with no deduction for age. The Insurance Information Institute's own definition ties it directly to the page you're reading: replacement cost is paid "without deducting for depreciation but limited by the maximum dollar amount shown on the declarations page of the policy." Actual cash value is replacement cost minus depreciation, so a ten-year-old roof is paid as a ten-year-old roof. Older-home HO-8 policies typically pay ACV; check which basis your dwelling and your belongings are written on, because they can differ.
One quirk catches people even on a replacement-cost policy: the first check is often the depreciated (ACV) amount, with the rest, the "recoverable depreciation," paid after you actually do the repair and send receipts. That's normal, not a shortchange, but it means the initial payout looks lighter than your limit.
Then there's the rule that punishes underinsuring without ever appearing on the dec page in plain words: the 80% coinsurance rule. Most home policies require you to insure the dwelling to at least 80% of its full replacement cost. The NAIC states that if your coverage "drops below 80% of the full replacement cost of your home, your insurance company may reduce the amount that it will pay on a claim." The reduction is proportional, carried limit divided by required limit. Here's the math on a partial loss:
- Your home would cost $400,000 to rebuild. The 80% rule requires $320,000 of dwelling coverage.
- You carry only $240,000. A kitchen fire causes a $100,000 loss; your deductible is $2,000.
- Payout = $240,000 / $320,000 = 0.75, times the $100,000 loss = $75,000, minus the $2,000 deductible = $73,000.
- Had you carried the required $320,000, the same loss would have paid the full $98,000.
That $25,000 gap is the underinsurance penalty, and it's why Coverage A is the number to get right. Estimates from firms like Cotality (formerly CoreLogic) have long suggested a majority of U.S. homes, often cited around 60%, may be underinsured, largely because reconstruction costs rise faster than coverage limits get updated. If you want a buffer, an extended replacement cost endorsement pays roughly 20 to 25% over your limit, and guaranteed replacement cost pays whatever the rebuild actually costs. Both, if you have them, are listed as endorsements on the dec page.
What it isn't (and its look-alikes)
The dec page gets confused with four other documents, and handing over the wrong one wastes everyone's time. Two distinctions matter most. The dec page is not your policy, the exclusions and conditions live in the form, as we covered up top. And it's not your insurance ID card, the small card you show a police officer is a different document with a different job. Here's the full set:
| Document | What it is, and who asks for it |
|---|---|
| Declarations page (dec page) | Your personalized summary of who and what is covered, the limits, and the premium. The document this guide decodes. |
| Insurance ID card | The small card you keep in the car and show a police officer or the DMV. Proof of active auto liability coverage, not a coverage summary. |
| Certificate of insurance (COI) | A one-page proof issued to a third party (a landlord, client, or venue). It confers no coverage itself; it just attests that a policy exists. |
| Binder | Temporary proof of coverage, issued before the full policy and dec page are ready. Time-limited (state law often caps it, e.g. 60 days). |
| Evidence of property insurance | The standardized form (ACORD 27 or 28) a mortgage lender often accepts as proof of home coverage at closing or renewal. |
The rule of thumb: match the document to who's asking. A mortgage lender or auto lienholder generally accepts the dec page (or an evidence-of-property-insurance form) because it lists them and proves the policy is active. The DMV or a police officer wants the auto ID card. A landlord, client, or venuewants a certificate of insurance issued to them. And if you're between policies, a binder is your temporary proof until the real dec page arrives.
What to check every renewal
You get a fresh dec page at least once a policy term, auto commonly every six months, home annually, plus a revised one whenever the policy changes. To pull a copy any time, log into your insurer's site or app, where it's usually instant, or call your agent. Each renewal is a free, two-minute audit. Texas's insurance department puts it simply: review the fields, and "if any of these aren't correct, let your agent know." The errors worth catching:
- A misspelled name or wrong address. The mailing address and, on auto, the garaging address both affect coverage and price.
- Wrong vehicles or VINs, or a driver who shouldn't be on (or is missing from) the policy. What you pay is driven heavily by the car and the drivers listed.
- A coverage you didn't want, or one you expected that isn't there. Renewals quietly add and drop things; the dec page is the receipt.
- A stale lienholder or mortgagee. If you paid off the loan, get the lender removed so claim checks aren't made out to a bank you no longer owe.
- Missing discounts. Compare this year's credits to last year's; they can silently fall off.
The reason to do this at renewal, rather than at claim time, is that claim time is the worst possible moment to learn your dwelling limit never kept up with construction costs, or that the coverage you assumed you had was dropped two renewals ago.
Keeping your dec pages findable
Keep your current dec page plus the prior term: the old one proves continuous coverage if you switch carriers or a lapse is disputed, and anything tied to a filed claim should be kept far longer, since property and liability disputes can resurface years later. (Our guide on how long to keep important documentshas the full retention table.) The problem isn't knowing to keep them, it's finding the right one in the moment a tree is through the roof and the adjuster wants your policy number. A dec page is one sheet in a household that also runs on tax forms, medical records, and titles; a real home filing system is what makes any of it findable under stress.
This is the job we built Granite to do. Drop in a dec page and Granite reads it, pulling the carrier, policy number, effective and expiration dates, coverage limits, deductible, premium, and the mortgagee into fields you can search, then files it under the right policy and links it to the home or vehicle it covers. Because it tracks the policy period, the renewal slots in beside last year's dec page, so a quietly dropped coverage or a dwelling limit that didn't keep up is easy to see side by side. Ask in plain English, "what's the deductible on my home insurance," and get the number with a citation to the line it came from, with every document encrypted at rest.
One honest line: Granite reads and organizes your dec page and makes its numbers findable. It is not an insurance agent, it doesn't rate or sell coverage, and it won't tell you how much to buy, that's a conversation for you and your agent. What it does is make sure that when the question comes up, the right page is one search away instead of somewhere in a drawer.