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What is Additional Living Expenses (ALE) coverage?
Additional Living Expenses, or ALE, is insurance that covers the costs of living elsewhere if you are displaced from your home. This usually occurs when your house, condo or apartment becomes temporarily uninhabitable due to a covered incident, requiring repairs. The coverage lasts until you are able to move back into your home or until the policy limit is reached.
A potential scenario that may require ALE:
Your home partially burns down due to a fire, becoming too dangerous to occupy. As a result, you and your family temporarily move elsewhere – a hotel, for example – while your home is being repaired. ALE would cover all the costs associated with you living away from home, including the cost of your hotel room, meals and potentially even travel costs (if for instance, your commute to work becomes much more expensive than it used to be).
Your home insurance would, of course, also cover your home repairs – via the home replacement coverage.
Here's what ALE covers:
- Your accommodation costs (hotel, Airbnb, rent, etc.)
- Restaurant/takeout meals (if you don’t have a kitchen)
- The cost of moving Rental of special items (such as furniture) you’re used to having
- Laundry, if you don’t have access to a free washer or a dryer (but had it before)
- Transit expenses, including increased mileage
- Pet boarding
- Storage, if certain contents of your home require it
Other things covered under ALE:
- Fair rental value: If you’re renting out a part of your home (such as a room or basement) and your tenant is forced to move out due to a covered incident, your insurance could cover the loss of your rental income.
- No access: If your home becomes inaccessible due to an unexpected incident, such as a government-mandated evacuation order or a threat to your life, your insurance could cover you.
What’s not covered under Additional Living Expenses (ALE)?
ALE won’t cover everything. Here are some examples of the items that won’t get covered:
- Property-related payments: Your insurance will not cover any property-related expenses incurred while you’re away from home – such as mortgage payments or property taxes. Those would have to come out of your own pocket, as before, since they are a regular expense.
- Lost wages: If you lose wages due to taking days off during the moving, for instance, or a similar reason, ALE will not cover you.
- Home-cooked meals: Your insurance will not cover any meals you cook yourself, since groceries are considered to be a regular expense. However, if you’re forced to eat out (due to living in a hotel, for instance), then ALE will cover you.
- Utility bills: Any utility bills incurred during your time away from home will not be covered by ALE.
- Large temporary dwelling: If you rent a property that’s significantly larger than the one you own, ALE may not cover you.
- Any regular expenses: Any normal expenses, such as your cellphone bills or transit passes, will not be covered under ALE.
Circumstances that could negate your ALE coverage:
- Home vacancy: If your home has been unoccupied or vacant during an incident that makes it unlivable, your ALE coverage would not come into effect, since at that point, you would’ve already been living elsewhere.
- Poor maintenance and preventable losses: If your home becomes unlivable due to poor maintenance or another preventable issue (e.g. pest infestation or general negligence, such as leaving a window open during a storm), ALE won’t cover you.
- Uninsured incidents: If your displacement is caused by an incident not covered by your policy, your ALE coverage will not come into effect. For instance, if overland water makes your home unlivable, and you don’t have coverage for it, you’d have to cover your additional living expenses out of pocket.
- Regulatory action: If your home gets condemned, or another regulatory action forces you to leave the property, you might not get covered.
- Voluntary absence: ALE won’t cover any costs of living away from home, if your home is perfectly livable. You’d essentially be asking your insurance to finance your vacation.
What are Additional Living Expenses (ALE) coverage limits?
In many cases, total ALE coverage limits are 20% to 30% of the replacement cost coverage on your home policy. For example, if your home is valued in your policy as $500,000, the maximum ALE coverage would be $100,000 to $150,000.
Can you add coverage?
You can expand your ALE coverage by expanding your overall home insurance coverage. For instance, if you don’t have an overland water add-on, which protects your home from floods caused by overflowing rivers, lakes and so on, then getting displaced by this incident would not qualify you for ALE coverage. However, adding overland water would fix the issue (though you can’t do so retroactively, of course).
Some additions are unlikely to happen, however. For instance, an insurer will never provide you with ALE coverage for a preventable issue, such as pest infestation, for instance. That said, there might be other little adjustments your insurer could make, so be sure to ask, just in case.
Can you increase coverage limits?
Insurance companies will allow an increase in coverage limits for an additional premium.
Filing an Additional Living Expenses (ALE) claim
Should you get displaced from your home due to a covered incident, contact your insurer and let them know about it (either by calling them or submitting an online form). You should contact them as soon as the incident occurs to cover the incident itself and then after you return to cover your ALE expenses.
When filing an ALE claim, you’ll need to provide additional documentation, like receipts and proof of your displacement. The insurance company should guide you through this process and confirm your reimbursement amounts.
When does ALE coverage come into effect?
ALE coverage comes into effect when your primary place of residence becomes uninhabitable due to a covered incident, or you’re forced to evacuate.
Be sure you discuss the specifics of when and how ALE coverage is applicable with your provider, so there are no surprises. Every insurer is different, after all.
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Frequently asked questions about Additional Living Expenses (ALE)
Got more questions about ALE and home insurance? We got you covered.
Is Additional Living Expenses coverage mandatory in Canada?
From legal perspective, ALE coverage is not required to be in your home insurance policy, if you live in Canada. However, most home insurance policies, especially comprehensive ones, include this coverage by default. This is true regardless of whether you have home, condo or tenant insurance. You can talk to your provider to see if you can opt out of this coverage to save on premiums, but we don’t recommend it.
Will Additional Living Expenses cover expenses beyond cost-of-living needs?
No. ALE coverage is meant to maintain your lifestyle while your home is being repaired and is meant as a temporary stopgap while you incur out of pocket expenses during a set amount of time.
Is Additional Living Expenses the same as ‘loss of use’?
The terms are used interchangeably but they are not exactly the same. Loss of use coverage is a standard protection in a homeowners insurance policy. ALE coverage is part of that loss of use. For example, loss of use coverage would be for a hotel stay if you are ordered out of your house because that is an additional expense you would incur. But something like mortgage payments, which are not additional expenses, would not be paid if you needed to leave your house.
How long does the Additional Living Expenses coverage last?
ALE coverage lasts for as long as you remain away from your home – or as long as it takes to repair it. Some insurers may impose a limit, however, such as 15 to 30 days. Talk to your insurer ahead of time to make sure you know what that limit is.
What happens if my Additional Living Expenses coverage exceeds my policy limit?
If your ALE amount ends up going over your policy limit, your insurer will not exceed the limit themselves. In other words, you’d have to absorb that cost. Make sure you know what your coverage limit is ahead of time, so you don’t go over it.