If you have a second home of some sort, whether it’s a house or vacation home, you might be wondering how to go about insuring it. You know the drill with insuring a primary residence, but what about a home that you’re not planning on living at full-time? Well, you’re right to wonder – insuring a second home will look different than insuring your first and primary home. We’ll go over the coverages you might need for your vacation home.
Insurance
Whether you have just a few assets or own multiple homes, automobiles, and businesses, insurance coverage is vital. Protecting your assets, managing risks, and making sure you have the best coverage for the best price is part of our daily goal here at InsuranceHub. We enjoy getting to know each of our clients and helping them identify the insurance coverages that are right for them. We can’t see the future and we don’t know when disaster will strike, so it’s essential to be prepared for anything.
We understand that you need a policy that’s crafted to protect you from your specific risks, not just a one-size-fits-all plan. You’re one of a kind, so your insurance policy should be, too! Our goal is to not only make insurance easy but also to become a trusted advisor and partner to each and every client. We can help you pinpoint all of the risks that you face, and we can help you get the coverage you need to be protected from them.
The oxymoron that is inland marine insurance and why it’s important
Question: What’s inland marine insurance?
Follow-up question: Does it have anything to do with boats, by chance?
Welcome to the world of confusing insurance terminology! Inland marine insurance is a way for businesses to fill gaps that might be in their coverage. Coverage gaps are not good for businesses – you wouldn’t carry an umbrella with holes in it into a rainstorm, would you? Nope. So, the point is that you need to make sure that you don’t have any gaps in your business insurance. Some aspects of your business might not be covered elsewhere in your insurance plan, and that’s where inland marine can help. We’ll explain how.
Protect your identity: Helpful tips to prevent identity theft
You probably know someone who’s been through the terrible, frightening experience of identity theft. There are plenty of ways that identity thieves get a hold of people’s personal information, and they’re extremely creative and adept at doing so. Lots of people don’t even realize that their identity has been stolen until they receive a bad credit report or notice charges that they didn’t make.
Identity thieves can get your personal information from Dumpster diving, scamming you online with emails or pop-ups (called phishing), changing the address that your credit card bills are sent to, impersonating authorized personnel to get your information from financial institutions, or physically stealing it by snagging your purse or wallet. They take your information for a variety of reasons, including opening bank accounts, getting a loan, stealing your money from an ATM, or getting documents like driver’s licenses.
Identity theft can happen to anyone at any time, so it’s important to be prepared and do what you can to prevent your information from being compromised. We’ve got some tips that will help you protect your identity—and spare you the headache that comes along with sorting out a stolen identity.
Does my business need bailee insurance?
As a business owner, you know that you need to make sure you’re protected from all potential risks. Your building is covered by property insurance, your employees are covered by workers’ compensation insurance, your clients are covered by general liability. But what about the things that don’t strictly belong to you? If your business stores, cleans, repairs, services, or otherwise holds on to your clients’ property, you’re instantly put at risk. If you do computer repairs, for example, chances are that your client wouldn’t be too happy if your sprinklers went berserk and fried their laptop, would they?
To protect your business from the risk that comes along with keeping your clients’ possessions in your care, custody, and control (basically a fancy way of saying they’re trusting you to keep their belongings safe) you might want to consider bailee insurance.
5 tips to keep your home insurance claim from being denied
Filing a home insurance claim can be daunting. The reason that you have home insurance in the first place is to help you replace things that have been destroyed by factors outside of your control. It protects you from losses. Getting the insurance and paying the premiums is easy. Filing a home insurance claim and getting it approved can sometimes feel like another story.
When you’re filing a home insurance claim, it’s important that you keep a few things in mind to make sure that you get the payments that you need to rebuild what you’ve lost. Just because you fill out the paperwork doesn’t mean that the money will magically appear in your bank account. The claim could get denied, which is something that you don’t want to happen. If your claim is denied, you’re kind of back where you started.
To make sure that your claim isn’t denied, make sure that you keep the following tips in mind when you’re working through the filing process.
Helpful tips for insuring your priceless jewelry, art, and other valuables
Take a wander around your house. Or, if you’re not at home, take a mental tour of your home. Chances are there are a lot of expensive things that you’ve forgotten are there – they’re just a part of your home, so you don’t really think about them anymore. It’s not like you dwell on how fancy the décor at your home is, or how expensive the silverware was. Your valuables are just, you know. There.
But the thing is that these valuables might not have enough insurance coverage through your home insurance policy. For example, the limit of coverage for jewelry is often $1,000, and the limit is often $2,500 for silverware. Plus, a home insurance policy might not cover the loss of these valuables due to theft, accident, or natural disaster – it really depends on your policy. Would that be enough to protect all the jewelry and silverware that you own? What about your artwork? Heirlooms?
You know you need to make sure to protect your jewelry and valuables from theft, but to make sure that your valuables are protected from anything that life could throw at you, we’ll go over your options for insuring your belongings.
Understanding the nitty-gritty of your insurance policy in 6 steps
Yep, trudging through the entirety of your home, auto, or life insurance policy is probably not exactly your idea of a good time. Big words, stuffy language, long sentences…oodles of fun, right? Oh, yeah. Insurance policies. Good stuff.
As daunting as the task may seem, reading through your policy is actually very important when it comes to making sure that you have the coverage you need for your family. Your policy spells out the agreement between you (the insured) and your insurance company (the insurer) and explains who’s responsible for what if you’re faced with a catastrophe.
Whether it’s your home insurance policy or your auto insurance policy, you need to make sure that you know what’s going on in that very important legal document. You never know when it’s going to come in handy. To help you out with that little bit of homework, we’ll take a piece-by-piece look at each section of your insurance policy so that you’re in the know when it comes to your insurance.
What you need to know about motorcycle insurance, safety, and saving cash
Riding a motorcycle is a lot different than driving a car. While cars aren’t without without their risks, motorcycles have an even more dangerous reputation. The motorcycles you see zooming by on the road might look cool, and yes, it might be more fun to ride a motorcycle than to be trapped inside a car. But the truth is that motorcycles are far more dangerous than cars, which is why you need motorcycle insurance.
If you’re a motorcyclist or if you’re thinking about buying your dream bike, you need to make sure that you have adequate coverage for all the risks that come with hitting the road with two wheels instead of four. We’ll go over the types of coverage you need for that shiny new bike. We’ll also give you some tips on how to save on your motorcycle insurance and how to stay safe on the roads.
From the Desk of Jim Lloyd: The InsuranceHub Journey
When I look back on the insurance industry, I can’t help but notice how fast things are changing. Today’s insurance world isn’t the same as it was even fifteen years ago, and I think it’s those changes and my observations over the years that have inspired me to share my thoughts on our blog (that and my marketing director said I should.) I’ve been in the insurance and small business world for a long time – just don’t ask me how long! My business, InsuranceHub, has been on quite the journey since we’ve started, and to kick off this new section of our blog I thought I’d reflect on how we got to where we are.
What’s the difference between cancellation and nonrenewal?
When it comes to your business insurance, it’s important to have the right coverages. But what does it mean if your policy is nonrenewed or canceled? They might sound the same, and it might seem like they have the same outcome – you don’t have business insurance – but they’re actually two different things and happen for different reasons.
So, let’s take a look at what these two scenarios mean for your business.