If you rent out residential property, you face a variety of financial risks, everything from damage from fires and windstorms, through fines for building code violations, to a disgruntled tenant who sues you.
Landlord insurance to the rescue! These policies cover losses to the property, medical payments for tenants or visitors injured on the premises, and your personal liability for alleged negligence.
The amount of coverage depends on your financial situation. If you’ve taken out a mortgage on the property, the lender will probably insist that you buy a policy large enough to cover the loan balance. As a rule of thumb, the higher the value of the property and the greater the risk of potentially catastrophic liability, the more coverage you’ll need.
Your premium will depend on the type of losses covered and the extent of reimbursement. If you choose comprehensive or all risk coverage (which will pay for damage from all causes unless specifically excluded), your cost will be higher than if you buy “named perils” coverage (which covers only losses due to specific causes). Expect a higher premium for replacement value, which will reimburse you fully for rebuilding your property, than for actual cash value coverage, which will pay only the value of the property, less depreciation.
You can also reduce your premium by increasing the deductible (which usually range from $100 to 5% of the building coverage).
Optional coverages include repayment for rental income lost if the property becomes uninhabitable, and for risks of doing business with tenants, such as legal fees and liability against claims for libel, slander, and discrimination.
Our personal insurance specialists would be happy to help you choose the landlord coverage that offers the best value. Just give us a call.
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
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From all of us at Scurich Insurance Services, we want to wish all the Fathers out there a Happy Father’s Day!
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Summertime is synonymous with backyard barbecues and cooling cocktails. Barbecue ribs, sausages, chicken, steaks, burgers, and hot dogs are permanent fixtures on the menu. Just because it’s summer, doesn’t mean that you have to pig out on unhealthy food. In fact, it’s a perfect time to try out some new recipes for the barbecue.
- Make your own homemade popsicles with 100% fruit juice and an ice tray.
- Jazz up your salad. Instead of the same ol’ same ol’, throw in some different greens, add some spice, nuts, and fish. Fresh salmon is a huge hit with a lot of recipes.
- Use more fresh oils. Some favorites are olive oil, grapeseed oil, walnut oil, peanut oils, and sesame oils.
- Drinks lots of H2o.
- Find the season’s best fresh fruit and enjoy. The fruit is also a healthy dessert.
- Cucumbers are versatile. Cucumbers are delicious in salads (think-cucumber and tomato salad) or as appetizers (think-sliced cucumbers with Greek dressing and Feta cheese).
- Grill those vegetables. Vegetables such as bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, asparagus, zucchini are great for grilling.
- Make your own fruit juice.
- Forget the ice cream, get the frozen yogurt. Mixed it up and add more than one flavor.
- Add more fish to your grill.
This summer spice up your grill, menu and health!
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
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Divorce is a fact of life.
If you should find yourself needing to divvy up assets and liabilities during a divorce settlement, you’ll have to consider insurance coverage for your kids.
Determining how to deal with your teen’s auto insurance can create problems because there’s no set formula. The decision should be something that’s negotiated between both parents. If Mom has sole custody, the teen driver should be on her policy. However, if Mom and Dad share custody, both should include the teen under their coverage.
The premium you pay for your teen’s auto insurance will depend on where you live. When setting rates, insurance companies look at the claims history in the locale where the car is garaged. Premiums vary from city to city, and even among ZIP codes in the same city. So, if you’re moving from a rural to an urban area or from a low-crime neighborhood in a city to one where there are more vehicle thefts and auto burglaries, your premiums will increase.
Homeowner insurance is linked to ownership of the property and who is listed on the mortgage. If the home is in both parents’ names, coverage would also be under both names. In this case, you should have a written agreement dividing responsibly for mortgage and insurance payments.
If you move from the family home into an apartment, you’ll need renters insurance to cover your belongings, as well as your children’s personal items and additional liability protection – even if you’re still named on the homeowners policy.
To receive expert advice from our agency’s personal lines specialists during this difficult period, free of charge, please feel free to give us a call.
Content provided by Transformer Marketing.
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Homes take a beating on the outside, from wind, rain, sun, insects and snow. Summer gives you a chance to repair damage, protect your home and keep its face to the world looking bright.
Home maintenance is like housework, flossing and exercise: You might as well work it into your routine, because the penalties are worse than the jobs themselves.
Here’s just one example: Cleaning the gutters costs nothing if you do it yourself, and roughly $100 to $200 if you hire a service. Ignore the job, though, and a ruined roof or damaged foundation could cost you thousands or tens of thousands of dollars to repair. Here’s why:
Leaky or overflowing gutters can rot fascia boards (the roof edge under the gutters), soffits and rafters.
Water may drip onto window trim, rotting it.
Leaky gutters let water pool at the foundation, causing basement leaks, mold and even foundation damage.
1. Paint
Fresh paint doesn’t just make your home look great. It’s a protective skin against UV light and moisture.
Earth911 tells where to get free paint:
Many household hazardous waste (HHW) facilities around the country have product exchange rooms, sometimes called swap rooms or swap shops. These rooms offer safe, unopened HHW items for public consumption, keeping them out of the landfill and letting you save some money.
Call your city to ask about your local HHW facility. Other sources for cheap paint:
- Habitat for Humanity’s ReStores (find one near you) sell “gently used” tools and supplies for home projects at low cost.
- See EcoBusinessLinks’ national directory of recycled and surplus building materials and suppliers.
- Search online for a city’s name and “salvaged building supplies” or “recycled building materials.”
2. Mulch
Laying a 1- to 3-inch layer of mulch on garden beds spares a lot of weeding. Mulch smothers weeds by depriving them of oxygen and light and it holds moisture in the soil, saving water and giving plants a consistent source of moisture.
Mulch includes many materials placed on the ground to prevent weeds from growing, including rocks, gravel and plastic. Leaves, grass clippings and tree bark are organic materials most often used on garden beds. Hay and straw also are used in vegetable gardens. Organic mulch breaks down into nutrients that feed plants.
Be careful in vegetable gardens to avoid mulch with pesticides, herbicides or other garden chemicals. Also, used incorrectly, mulch can damage or kill trees and ornamental plants by depriving them of oxygen, so leave a 3- to 5-inch space around stems of younger plants and give mature tree trunks eight to 12 inches. North Carolina State University’s Cooperative Extension Service explains how to safely use mulch.
Free or cheap sources of mulch:
- Grass clippings. Let them cool down before mulching.
- Raked leaves. Shred first with a shredder or lawn mower so air and moisture can reach the soil beneath.
- Shredded wood or bark. Electric utility companies and tree services may have cheap or free wood chips or shredded bark. Also, some cities collect leaves and branches, chipping them for use by local residents.
- Cardboard. Ask recycling centers and appliance stores for free cardboard. Wet it down, cut it to fit and place it around plants, covering with soil or bark mulch. This is best in wet climates where cardboard breaks down into the soil. WikiHow gives instructions on using cardboard and has more ideas for cheap mulch.
3. Seal wood decks
The cheap way to approach this job is to do it yourself. It’s not difficult, although it’s nice to have help. You’ll spend a couple hundred dollars on supplies and rented tools. Do it annually or every two to three years, depending where you live. Ignore the job long enough and you’ll need to replace the deck, at a cost of thousands of dollars.
Read the entire article here.
Read more at http://www.moneytalksnews.com/2014/06/02/12-cheap-and-easy-summer-home-projects/#4f2LmYs5xjDE2Rbw.99
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Summer is right around the corner, and with it comes a parade of graduations, barbecues, holidays and other gatherings with family and friends. Although summer parties are a source of excitement for most people, these get-togethers can also raise the risk of expensive liability claims. Whether you are throwing a birthday party or hosting a Father’s Day picnic at your home, you never know when an accident could occur. As more people enter your home, the risk of someone sustaining an injury on your property increases dramatically. For example, if you are operating a grill during a summer barbecue, your guests could be burnt accidentally. Likewise, if you own a pool, guests could injure themselves diving in, or they could slip and fall on the wet ground next to the pool. If someone sustains an injury on your property, they may file a lawsuit against you in order to recover medical expenses and/or lost wages related to the injury. If you don’t have enough homeowners insurance coverage to pay the damages awarded to the individual in court, you will be forced to come up with the money on your own, which can lead to serious financial problems. In some cases, a large liability settlement could even require you to file bankruptcy or sell your home and other valuable assets in order to pay the amount you owe. If you are planning to host any parties this summer, review your homeowners insurance policy before you send out the invitations to ensure that you have the proper amount of liability coverage. If you discover that your coverage is lacking, consider investing in additional coverage to protect yourself against loss. If you aren’t sure whether your policy provides sufficient coverage, consult our office for guidance.
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If you rent out residential property, you face a variety of financial risks, everything from damage from fires and windstorms, through fines for building code violations, to a disgruntled tenant who sues you.
