If you're a homeowner who's considering canceling your insurance coverage due to the high cost, think twice. Your lender will most certainly object, assuming you have a mortgage. But even if you own the house outright, you might not be able to cover the cost to rebuild after a catastrophe.

Owners with mortgages should read their loan documents, which plainly say that you are required to keep insurance in place. And not just any insurance, but enough to cover the cost of a total loss from a covered event -- tornadoes, hurricanes, windstorms, hail, fires and the like.

Notice that floods are not covered. For that catastrophe, you need separate coverage. And although it is always a good idea to have a flood policy, most lenders don’t require one.

They do demand regular homeowners insurance, however, and they don’t take kindly to borrowers who cancel their policies. If you do so, most lenders will put another policy in place -- usually at a much higher cost -- and make you pay for it. It’s called force-placed insurance, and it’s something you want to stay away from.

If you drop coverage, the insurer will notify your lender, and the ball starts rolling.

The rules differ from state to state, but usually, you’ll receive a letter giving you 30 or 45 days to find a new policy. If, after that time, you still don’t have coverage, the lender will put its own policy in place.

Gretchan Francis, managing director of InsureMAC Financial Insurance Services, estimates that 1% to 2% of homeowners with mortgages have force-placed insurance coverage. And she doesn't recommend it.

“You are always better off” with a policy you secure on your own, Francis says, calling force-placed coverage "a necessary evil" that is "not borrower-friendly."

"I don’t like it either," she says, "but it’s part of the mortgage agreement.”

One reason you’re better off finding coverage is that a forced policy covers only the lender, not you -- which means that only the structure is covered, not its contents. If your lender chooses to rebuild your house after a fire, you’ll get the benefit. But the insurer could call it a total loss, pay off the bank and walk away, leaving you with nothing.

Another reason: cost. Because the risk is higher -- jettisoning insurance is usually a sign of a borrower in financial difficulty, for example -- force-placed coverage is considered commercial insurance, which is more costly. That's not always the case: In rare instances, Francis says she has seen forced coverage come in at a lower premium than a conventional policy. But even when that happens, the coverage isn’t as good.

If you are mortgage-free, on the other hand, you can cancel your current policy without anyone forcing you to purchase another. You'll certainly save some cash in the short term by doing so. That’s all well and good -- as long as you don’t have an insurable event.

But you will have to worry about a disastrous event wiping you out. And it doesn’t have to be a tornado, mudslide or other major event that takes out everything from the ground up. Even a small kitchen fire can be expensive to put right.

The question is this: Can you withstand the hit to your pocketbook without raiding your nest egg? And do you want to take that chance?

According to the Insurance Information Institute, the typical home insurance claim for property damage is $15,747. Of course, being an average, that means some claims are smaller and others are larger -- much larger.

The most common claim is for wind and hail damage, at an average of $13,511 per claim, per the III. And claims in the catchall category of “fire and lightning” are the most costly, averaging $83,991.

With all this talk of insuring your home and its contents, it's important not to forget about liability insurance. What if your teenager knocks someone’s teeth out in a playground brawl? What if Fido gets loose and bites a neighborhood child or attacks the plumber?

You’re liable in all of these scenarios.

Dog liability claims are among the highest average cost of any type of claim filed against homeowners, according to a report from the III and State Farm. In 2023, insurers paid out $1.12 billion in dog-related injury claims. Yikes!

The point is, all types of insurance are important. Dropping coverage now could prove very costly later.

Besides, there are ways to save money on insurance without canceling it. Seek discounts by combining your home and auto coverage with the same carrier, for example. Or increase your deductible to an amount you can comfortably handle, should a catastrophe occur.

Your mortgage might limit how high you can raise your deductible: Most lenders won’t allow it to be greater than 10% of the property’s appraised value. But even at that, your premium may be a little more palatable.

According to data from LendingTree, more than 5.6 million housing units currently sit empty in the nation’s 50 largest metro areas. Soon, many of the people who own those vacant houses will be required to register them with local government agencies -- if they are not already.

The so-called vacant property registration movement stems from the 2008 financial crisis, when many strapped homeowners abandoned their houses, allowing them to go to seed and into foreclosure. Even after lenders took ownership of these houses, they often allowed them to sit empty rather than list them at fire-sale prices.

As a result, many deserted properties became eyesores in otherwise thriving communities: Lawns became overgrown. Windows were broken. Utilities were cut off. Sometimes, squatters moved in.

ATTOM Data Solutions says that in this year's third quarter, about 223,000 so-called zombie houses -- ones that were abandoned before the foreclosure process began -- were moving through foreclosure. That may sound high, but the number is merely a blip in the country's total housing stock.

“After some worries about a rise in abandoned homes following the end of the COVID-era foreclosure clampdown,” said ATTOM CEO Rob Barber in a recent news release, abandoned properties “remain an anomaly throughout most of the country. ... (F)ewer owners are simply walking away from their properties like so many did after the Great Recession of the late 2000s.”

Nevertheless, more and more municipalities are enacting ordinances to account for empty dwellings and to make sure their owners -- individuals and banks alike -- actively maintain and manage their properties. And now the practice has spilled over to include holiday homes.

Making sure houses don’t become a pimple on the local landscape is usually the stated reason for these regulations. But what goes unsaid is that registrations are a source of revenue -- sometimes a huge source -- for cash-starved jurisdictions.

Rates vary widely: Henderson, Nevada, charges a whopping $848 to register (and annually renew) a short-term rental property, while Nags Head, North Carolina, charges a paltry $25.

If you fail to follow the law, the charges can quickly escalate. In the Village of North Palm Beach, Florida, failing to register a rental can result in civil penalties, such as court costs and administrative fees. In Sarasota, Florida, applications cost $500 and renewals cost $350 -- but missing the deadline to register adds a $200 late fee to the tally.

The District of Columbia's policies may be the toughest to swallow, though. Once you register a vacant house with the district, your tax rate jumps from 85 cents per $100 of appraised value to $5 per the same. One attorney told me the district is known to check water and electricity bills in an effort to find unregistered vacant properties. If they catch a scofflaw, or if a place is considered blighted, the tax rate jumps to $10 per $100 of assessed value.

The message is clear: Find out what your local rules are, and follow them.

If you own a vacant house, or rent out your house on a seasonal or irregular basis, find out if your local jurisdiction requires you to register it. Also, you may be in breach of your mortgage by allowing a property to sit vacant, and could be violating the occupancy terms of your insurance policy. So check those rules, too.

Unfortunately, “registration requirements change frequently,” writes Jeff Connell, a senior vice president at property preservation company MCS, in an April post on MortgagePoint.com. So you have to be on your toes.

Connell keeps his fingertips on new and/or changing local laws, and he says property owners should follow his lead.

Not only must owners make sure they keep up on registration laws, but they also must ensure their vacant properties are maintained in accordance with specific local requirements and standards: The grass must be kept to a certain length, for example, and the flower beds must be free from weeds high enough to overtake the shrubs. Local rules may require you to rake the leaves, clean up any storm debris, repair broken windows and fences -- and, above all, make sure no people have occupied your property without your permission.

Connell also suggests trying to build a relationship with the agencies that enforce local codes. He writes that doing so “can help with compliance, and even negotiate the severity of fines if an issue does arise.”

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” the sequel to the 1988 Tim Burton horror comedy, raked in $110 million during its opening weekend in September. But how much would it cost to buy the Connecticut house where most of the movies' action takes place?

There's no price tag to check because it's not a real house -- just a facade built in nearby Vermont, coupled with a series of interior sets. But a just-for-fun listing prices the fictional house around $461,000. The 2,000-square-foot house would feature three bedrooms, two baths, a large kitchen, a one-car garage -- and a gateway to the afterlife in the attic, occupied by two friendly ghosts.

The fictional listing sparked a bit of interest in other famous movie and TV locations, and what they might draw in today’s market. Here are a few Hollywood-worthy properties of note.

Based on Google data, Harry Potter’s first home is among the most popular movie-location searches. To be clear, this isn't the Dursleys' house on Privet Drive, where Harry grew up. Rather, Google searches racked up for a house in the fictional town of Godric's Hollow, where Harry lived as an infant with his parents before He Who Must Not Be Named swept in.

In real life, Godric's Hollow is Lavenham, England, and the Potter residence is De Vere House, which dates back to the 14th century. It was on the market several years ago for about 1 million pounds, but is now run as a bed-and-breakfast. Potter fans can find it on Airbnb.

In "Full House" and in real life, the Tanner home is located at 1709 Broderick Street in San Francisco. It was home to nine people and a dog on the show, but the place has only four bedrooms and 3.5 baths. That’s a lot of doubling up! If you've got deep enough pockets, you can buy this piece of sitcom history, currently listed at $6.5 million.

The home from "Mrs. Doubtfire" is also in San Francisco, at 2640 Steiner St. in the Pacific Heights neighborhood. The 3,300-square-foot, three-level Victorian was built in 1893 and has four bedrooms and four baths. It sold for $4.1 million in 2016, and would likely fetch more than $5 million today.

Another cinematic icon is the "Home Alone" mansion at 671 Lincoln Ave. in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, Illinois. The 1921 Georgian-style colonial where 8-year-old Kevin McAllister (played by Macaulay Culkin) was left to his own devices at Christmastime is currently on the market for $5.25 million. The house has five bedrooms and six baths.

The house from "The Brady Bunch" is another expensive family hangout. Located at 11222 Dilling St. in North Hollywood, California, the place was used only for exterior shots. Nevertheless, the house sold in 2023 for $3.2 million, according to Zillow. Reportedly the second-most photographed house in the country (after the White House), the Bradys' joint was built in 1959 and has been remodeled on HGTV.

Of course, not all made-for-TV residences are houses. Some are apartments, such as the "Friends" unit in New York City. Exterior shots place the apartment at 90 Bedford St. in the West Village. Roommates Monica and Rachel (Courteney Cox and Jennifer Aniston) rented the two-bedroom, one-bath apartment for a whopping $200 per month -- thanks to decades of rent control. (The unit had been Monica's grandmother's.) Today, monthly rent for a similarly sized unit would be more than $5,000.

Carrie Bradshaw’s place in "Sex and the City" is in an unnamed building at 66 Perry St., also in the West Village. It is doubtful that Sarah Jessica Parker's columnist character could afford today’s estimated rent of $6,000. Nor could she afford to buy the unit, which would be worth an estimated $1.4 million if the building went condo.

Not all famous houses are worth nearly that much, though. Take the "Breaking Bad" house at 3828 Piermont Dr. in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The place where Walter White (Bryan Cranston) cooked up meth is worth just $352,300 on today’s market, according to Zillow.

Since this is Halloween weekend, let’s end with a look at a famous horror house. "The Amityville Horror" took place in the New York town of the same name, but the movie house is located in Toms River, New Jersey. The four-bedroom property sold last year for $1.5 million.