Catastrophe Liability Protection

How much liability protection do I need to carry to protect me and my family? Unfortunately there is no simple formula which you can use to calculate how much liability insurance you really need. With your home or a commercial property, there are computer programs which will help determine the construction replacement cost of the building, but there is no such program in the area of third party liability claims. Some insurance companies claim they make you “legal” for less, but in Ohio, for example, that means bodily injury limits of $12,500 per person/$25,000 per accident and property damage limits of $7,500. Any kind of serious accident will wipe out those limits in a heartbeat. As a bare minimum, we recommend no less than $500,000 in Personal Liability and $250,000/500,000/100,000 in Automobile Liability, but higher limits are available and recommended. This is where the Umbrella Liability Policy comes into play. These policies are written in increments of $1,000,000 with $1,000,000 being the lowest limit you can purchase. Limits of $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 are usually available, and higher limits are also available depending on the circumstances. Please contact us, and we will prepare a quotation for your review on this very important catastrophe liability protection.

Pools and Insurance

A few weekends ago we all celebrated Memorial Day. Traditionally this is the weekend where many pool owners open up the family pool for the summer. Pools are cleaned, chlorine is checked and pool toys are brought out of storage. There is, however, one other step pool owners should take when opening the pool. That step is to make sure their homeowner insurance is up to date to best protect them if something happens to the pool and or to a summer guest.

The pool itself has coverage on your homeowner policy under Section I, Other Structures. Normally this coverage is 10% to 20% of the amount of insurance you have on your home. Let’s say you have your house insured for $200,000; under a typical homeowner policy you will have $20,000 in coverage for Other Structures. As a pool owner you need to ask yourself, is that enough to cover my pool if it was damaged? If not you may need to increase your Other Structures coverage.

Liability is always a big concern when a pool is involved. It is important for pool owners to know that many insurance companies require pools to be fenced. If they are not the pool owner may find their homeowner carrier canceling their insurance. So if you are someone that currently doesn’t have a pool but plan to add one, make sure to include a fence in your planning process.

Umbrella insurance policies are something we at Fey Insurance Services always recommend but if you are a pool owner we strongly recommend them. Unfortunately drowning is a real risk when you own a pool. Heaven forbid this ever happened at your pool but if tragedy did strike you would want to have all the liability coverage you can to help protect you.

So before you pull the winter cover off your pool, be sure to consult with your insurance agent and do a review of your homeowner insurance. Enjoy the summer!

Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Coverage

In today’s economy where many people are looking to cut any costs they can, the number of drivers driving around without insurance has increased. Also, drivers are driving around with lower liability limits than maybe they had during good economic times. This makes the coverage of uninsured and underinsured motorist even more import. So I thought with this blog post, I would take the opportunity to explain a little bit more about what exactly that coverage does.

Uninsured motorist coverage protects you if you are hit by someone who has no insurance (up to your uninsured motorist limit) where as underinsured motorist protects you if you are hit by someone who has very low limits, limits lower than your own liability limits. Both of these coverages should be included in your typical auto insurance policy.

The best way to explain what these coverages do is to give you an example of situations where this coverage comes into play.

Say that you were to be driving down the road and an individual ran a red light and slammed into you causing you bodily injury. Say that they also didn’t have any insurance to help pay for your $30,000 of medical bills from the resulting injuries. This is where your uninsured motorists coverage on your personal auto policy steps up. Under that coverage they would pay the bills of $30,000 along with other expenses such as lost wages and pain and suffering.

Using the same example as above but lets say this time the person who ran the red light does have insurance but they have state minimum limits. The most that will pay out under a state minimum limit policy in Ohio is $12,500 per person. That means you would be left with $17,500 in medical bills plus your lost wages and pain and suffering. However, this is where underinsured motorist coverage helps. As long as your auto policy has higher limits than the individuals who hit you, it will pay the extra costs (up to your policy limits).

One last thing to note, on this type of coverage you can purchase even more coverage on an umbrella policy in increments of $1million dollars.