The most costly winter weather event on record in the United States was the polar vortex that occurred in February 2021. This winter storm famously led to an overload of the utility grid in Texas, which left millions without power, caused $15 billion in damage and killed 246 people – many from hypothermia. It doesn't take a brutal storm to cause a wintertime loss, though. The most common winter homeowners insurance claims include roof and siding damage, frozen pipes, damage from fallen trees or limbs and house fires. Wind and hail have consistently been the most frequent cause of winter claims, according to the Insurance Information Institute, but house fires can often be the most devastating. Many winter residential fires can be traced back to heating – which remains the second overall cause of residential fires year-round. According to the United States Fire Administration (USFA), there were 34,200 heating fires in residential buildings from 2017 to 2019, with November through March each year seeing the highest number of these fires on average. They found the equipment involved in the ignition of these fires most often included heating stoves (19.7%); unspecified heating equipment (17.2%); heaters, including floor furnaces, wall heaters and baseboard heaters (15.1%); water heaters, including sink-mounted instant hot water heaters and water bed heaters (12%); and furnaces (10.7%). In the slideshow above, we look at nine preventative maintenance steps you can take this fall to ensure your home is protected from winter perils, courtesy of Travelers.

Related:

• Texas was warned its grid would fail in cold — and it did
• Weather-related events causing surge losses
• Diving into the claims data from a Texas winter storm