Preparing for Winter

Wintertime and winter weather can be tremendous fun, but cold and snow can also pose danger. Slippery roads, downed power lines and limbs, and freezing cold temperatures all bring an added measure of suspense to our daily activities. There are simple steps you can take that will take the chill off your wintertime experience.

In your car. It is not enough to throw a safety kit, including emergency equipment such as blankets, candles, a shovel and traction aids into the trunk of your car and think that you are ready for operating your vehicle in inclement weather. The single most important thing we can do while driving in severe winter conditions is to slow down. A safe speed for conditions might be well under the posted speed limit. Triple the normal driving distance between you and the car in front of you. If your vehicle begins to slip, immediately take your foot off the accelerator and steer gently in the direction you want the car to go.

If your car gets stuck, clear the snow in front of and behind your tires and spread sand, kitty litter or traction mats in the front and back of your tires. Gently accelerate until you feel the tires begin to spin. Put the car in reverse and back up slowly until stopped by the snow. Rock forward again using a low, steady speed.

At home. Have your heating system inspected to make sure it is working properly. If you have an alternative heating source, it should be UL approved and inspected before using.

Good insulation will also help if power is lost. Check for possible air leaks around doors and windows. Seal electrical outlets and switches on outside walls. Stock up on easy to prepare food, first aid supplies, batteries, flashlights and a battery-operated radio.

If you do get snowed in at home and the situation isn’t dire, just relax and preserve heat by hanging blankets over windows and doors. If you use a supplemental heating device, make sure it is UL approved, in good operating condition and maintaining safe distance from flammable items.

Outside. Make sure to remove garden hoses from outside faucets. Hopefully, you remembered to clean your gutters of leaves and debris. Better yet, install gutter guards. These can help keep snow and ice from building up, which can form ice damns and damage your house. Outside heating appliances like heat pumps must be clear of snow and debris to work efficiently.

If you have to go outside, wear tight and layered clothing and sturdy watertight shoes. Make sure to cover exposed parts of the body by wearing hats, gloves and scarves. Failure to protect skin and prolonged exposure to the cold can result in frostbite. The nose, cheeks, ears, fingers and toes (your extremities) are most commonly affected.

Buckle Up Your Best Friend

Dogs are a man’s best friend. So it only makes sense that dogs often travel in vehicles. Sometimes those are trips that are necessary for the dog such as doggy daycare or the vet. However, a lot of the time they are just to keep the driver company as they drive around town or go on a short road trip.

Dogs can be great companions as you drive around in your vehicle but they can also be great distractions. There are times you will see dogs sitting on the laps of the drivers or sitting dead center of the back seat which blocks the driver’s view out of the rear of the car.

In an accident dogs can also be a major hazard. When auto accidents happen they often stop a vehicle cold in its tracks. However, anything not buckled into the vehicle continues to travel at the speed the vehicle was traveling. Often, dogs are not strapped in and therefore become a large moving object in your vehicle. This can cause major damage to your pet as well as possibly to you or anyone else in the vehicle. It is best to have a dog strapped into your car, not only for your dog’s safety but also for your safety and for the safety of those in your vehicle. Visit a pet store near you and pick up an attachment that enables you to comfortably seatbelt in your dog.

Extra Expense Coverage

If your business suffers a major disaster that interrupts normal business operations, what effect will it have on your operations over the long term? Will you be able to retain customers? Will you lose valuable employees? Alternatively, does your business allow you the flexibility to operate from a different location with equipment that is easily acquired? The answers to these questions allow a business owner to determine whether business income coverage, extra expense insurance or a combination of both, is needed.

Businesses, especially those offering a service that can easily be replaced by another business, may face permanent loss of customers if business is interrupted for an extended period of time. Businesses whose operations depend more on employees than on location may not have a serious threat of income loss, since they can continue operating from a temporary location preserving income flow. However, operating from a temporary location and expediting delivery of replacement supplies and equipment can add up to considerable extra expense. Additional advertising may also be necessary to let people know you aren’t out of business. In many cases, a business may need both business income coverage and extra expense coverage.

The promise of extra expense coverage is to pay the actual and necessary extra expenses needed to continue operations, which would not have been incurred if there had not been a direct physical loss to the business. The period of restoration begins on the date of loss and ends when the property should be repaired, if reasonable speed is applied while returning the property to its pre-loss condition. Interference by building ordinance, zoning law or environmental protection law does not extend the period of time when extra expenses are payable. The period of restoration is based on the period

Extended Dwelling Coverage on a Homeowner

Many moons ago all insurance companies used to have guaranteed replacement cost endorsement you could put on your homeowner policy. This endorsement would guarantee that the insurance company would rebuild your house exactly as it was prior to the claim even if your limit of insurance on the house was lower than the cost to rebuild. Today many insurance companies limit that endorsement to only homes that are considered high value (homes valued at $500,000 or more). The endorsements also require that the insurance companies send out professional reconstruction appraisers to figure out as best they can what it would cost to rebuild your home.

For those homeowner clients who have a house valued at less than $500,000 the endorsement that needs to be added to the homeowner policy is Extended Dwelling Coverage. What this endorsement does is give a percentage of the homeowner limit as extra coverage in case of a total loss on the home. For example, if you have 25% Extended Dwelling Coverage and your house is insured for $200,000 then you would actually have $250,000 if your home suffered a total loss ($200,000 X 1.25 = $250,000).

We feel this coverage is important for two reasons. One reason is we do not send out professional reconstruction appraisers to every house. Instead, insurance companies use in house software that helps determine reconstruction cost on your house using things like square footage, construction type, location, year built, etc. to come up with a value. These programs are usually very accurate but nothing replaces the accuracy of an in home visit with measuring tape and details of the type of amenities in the house. The Extended Dwelling Coverage endorsement helps make sure that if for some reason the calculations on the house are a little off, there is still enough insurance there to replace the house to its original state.

The second reason we encourage this endorsement is for catastrophe situations. Let’s say a tornado wipes out not only your house but two other neighborhoods worth of homes. Every builder and building supplier in town will be in demand. Economics 101 will tell you that if demand goes up and supply is the same, then prices are going to rise. That home that only cost $200,000 to rebuild just got a lot more expensive but if you have the Extended Dwelling Coverage on your homeowner you would be in a much better situation.

One thing to note about this endorsement, you can’t use it to underinsure your home. In our example above, you can’t insure the house for only $160,000 and add the 25% Extended Dwelling Coverage (which would put your total insurance at $200,000). That is not the intent of the coverage. The insure companies will use their software to figure out a good estimate of the cost to rebuild your house and you would have to have it insured for that amount in order to add the coverage.

Safe Travels this Holiday!

The Holidays are in full swing and with Christmas just a couple of days away; many have already started their Holiday travels. Being the insurance people that we are, here are a few tips for a safe and secure season of travel.

1) Make your home seem like someone is still there. You can do this several ways. Leave your front and back porch lights on so that at night your house is lit up. Ask a neighbor to collect your mail while you are gone so it doesn’t stack up. You can also ask the post office to hold if for you until you get back. Another way to make it look like you are home is to ask a neighbor to pull in and out of your driveway at some point if it snows giving the appearance that you have been in and out of your house.

2) Don’t show off to the Facebook world that you are on vacation. I know this can be tough for some but letting everyone know you are out of town on Facebook can be dangerous. We recommend waiting until you get home from your trip before you post vacation pictures.

3) Car travelers should be prepared for heavy snow at all times. The best way to do this is to make sure you have extra blankest, windshield washer fluid, ice scrapers and even a small shovel. You never know when you might need any of those things. Also, be sure to have your phone charged during the trip so that you have it in case of an emergency.
4) Don’t skimp on heat in your home: This time last year our big recommendation in our “Traveling Over the Holiday” blog article was to keep the heat in your house at a reasonable level so your pipes don’t freeze. Again, we recommend this.

Those are just a few simple tips. We here at Fey Insurance hope you have a wonderful Holiday and Merry Christmas

Feds urge states to ban texting and talking on the roads

Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced that in their opinion texting, emailing or chatting while driving is simply too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States. They are urging all states to impose a total ban except for emergincies. Presently, 35 states plus the District of Columbia ban texting while driving, and thirty states ban all cellphone use for beginning drivers. Enforcement is sketchy and no states ban the use of hands-free devices for all drivers. The NTSB says they are seeing increasing texting, cellphone calls and other distractions by drivers in accidents involving all kinds of transportation. It is common for law enforcement officers to immediately request the preservation of cell phone and texting records when an accident investigation begins. While no states ban hands-free use, the NTSB's recommendation that hands-free use of cell phones be banned, too, will carry much weight with federal regulators, Congress and state law makers.

Host Liquor Liability (Repost)

Over the next several months there will be many reasons for businesses and individuals to host events and parties where alcohol may be served. Businesses will have parties and happy hours to celebrate the holiday season where they will be providing alcohol for employees or customers. Individuals may use the same reason to have friends and family over to celebrate and consume alcohol. Taking my party hat off for just a moment and putting my risk management/insurance hat on, let me discuss something called Host Liquor Liability.

This is a coverage that often is part of a Commercial General Liability (CGL) policy and also included in homeowner policies as long as the individual and/or businesses are not in the occupation of making, selling or distributing of alcohol for money (meaning bars, distilleries, wineries, restaurants, etc. would have a different coverage simply called Liquor Liability). Host Liquor Liability is a coverage to help protect in cases where injuries happen because of alcohol incidents. One common example would be a participant is driving drunk and as a result crashes and injures people in an auto accident. Wherever the drunk driver last consumed alcohol could find themselves facing a lawsuit for injuries that were caused by the driver. They could be pulled into the situation because it was at their event and under their supervision that this driver consumed alcohol and then got behind the wheel intoxicated and drove off.

So here is one key thing about host liquor liability that all your employees, customers and/or friends and family will like to hear: if you are going to have an event with alcohol you are best to give it away. If at your event money changes hands and people are then able to consume alcohol you would have violated the no making, selling or distributing of alcohol for money rule. If you are having alcohol at a charity event the alcohol would have to be donated for the event or have a very good paper trail showing that none of the moneys collected to get in the event went toward the purchase of alcohol. Now, if your event is going to have a cash bar you will need to look into purchasing two items. The first is a temporary liquor license from the state and the second is a Liquor Liability insurance policy. Both of those can be costly and time consuming to acquire so your best bet is to just give it away… and be more popular with your employees, customers, friends and family.