Homeowners insurance is a policy that most everyone who buys a home has to purchase at some point in time. Often though, for the first time home buyer out there, this is just one of many distractions in the process that have to be checked off before the loan can close.  In that kind of scenario it is pretty easy to see home insurance as something you have to buy rather than something you want to buy.   Of course if the fire engines are racing toward your home a year or two later, you may suddenly find yourself wondering what you left off or rushed through in the process.   Here’s a list of a few of the most common mistakes that homeowners make when buying home insurance.

Let’s start with a real biggie.  Under insuring your home.  Often when people engage in the insurance buying process they are primarily focused on one thing, how much it will cost.  This is basic human nature.  For most people, insurance turns out to be nothing more than buying a promise.  If you never have a loss, you could feel that you aren’t really buying anything at all, even though you are actually purchasing peace of mind and the promise of financial stability in the event of a large loss to your property.  I mean, as boring as it is to go mattress shopping or washing machine shopping, at least you do come home with something tangible for your efforts and for the drain on your pocketbook. 

The problem of underinsurance can be accentuated by the fact that when it comes to insurance protection you should be focusing on the replacement value of your home – you will have to build it back after all, and this can often exceed the price you just paid for the home.  Your agent should help walk you through the process of determining the replacement value of your home so that you can insure it for full value.  This won’t leave you with as much of a queasy feeling as those sirens are getting closer.

Another huge mistake that can be costly for homeowners is not checking to see if their home is in a flood zone area.  Homeowners insurance policies in North Carolina do not cover flood losses.  Imagine for a minute where you would come up with the money to clean up after a flood loss that does damage equal to 1/3 of your home’s value.  For those with mortgages, this will often be caught by the bank, whose job it is to look for this kind of thing.  In fact, I’ve seen several situations where a bank might require a flood insurance policy when the flood zone might only cross a lower corner of the homeowner’s back yard.  Again, if this happens, your agent can be very helpful in speaking with the bank to attempt to waive the flood insurance requirement.

Insuring valuable items separately is another place where homeowners often make a mess of their policy.  If you have valuable items like jewelry, painting, musical instruments, guns or silverware, then you should consider adding coverage for these items under a separate endorsement.  The advantages of doing so can be better coverage and protection as coverage for these items may be severely limited under your homeowners policy.  If these things are important to you, take a few extra minutes and make your agent aware of them and discuss the best way to protect them.  Some homeowners policies will allow you to add a blanket endorsement for a low limit of coverage for these types of items.  This is a simple, quick and inexpensive way to protect these items if your collections are not extensive.

At Clinard Insurance Group, located in Winston Salem, NC, we insure thousands of homes all across the state.  We will take as much time as you need to listen to your story and to help you fashion a homeowners insurance policy that best suits your needs and your budget.   If you would like help with your homeowners insurance or you auto insurance, please call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557.

Workers compensation injuries are expensive to business owners in so many different ways.  The most obvious is down time or lost business due to the fact that your injured employees are not able to work while they are recovering from an injury.  But since workers compensation insurance policies are experience rated, there are the increased costs of workers compensation insurance as a result of your losses.  In addition, it has been proven that injuries and illnesses cause increased absenteeism, decreased productivity and reduced morale among the non-injured workers.  But among all of the workplace injuries, some in particular are more costly than others.  Read on to see if your company is at risk for any of these types of injures.  If so, now is the time to take concrete steps to help prevent them from happening.

The following 5 types of injuries account for 72% of all the direct workers comp costs for employers.  The costs for these types of losses total $35.7 billion dollars each year in the U.S.  They are, overexertion, fall to the same level, fall to a lower level, bodily reaction, and struck by an object.  I would suggest that you take a moment to carefully think about each one of these types of accidents and try to envision how one might happen to one of your workers.  Once you have done this, think even more carefully about ways in which you could establish procedures or rules that would help to prevent that type of accident.

Of course you don’t have to go it alone in this process.   I recommend that you carefully consider which workers compensation company that you choose to purchase your insurance from because they are all very different when it comes to loss control and safety programs.  Many of the companies that offer only workers compensation insurance and no other lines of insurance policies will have more generous loss control and safety offerings.  The U.S. Department of Labor says that employers can save $4 to $6 for every $1 spent on safety and health programs.  In addition, workplaces with successful safety and health management systems are usually able to reduce injury and illness costs by 20% to 40%.  With loss productivity from injuries and illnesses in the U.S. costing companies an estimated $60 billion per year, you can see why taking some time to look into better safety and loss prevention programs for your employees can pay off big.

So check in with yourself on these most costly types of injury causes, then check in with your workers compensation insurance company to see what they can offer you to help you prevent these types of losses.  If you find that your insurance company is not particularly helpful, or if they don’t have a rich offering of tools and knowledge to help you prevent more injuries, then I suggest you start looking for another workers compensation insurance company.

At Clinard Insurance Group, we represent a number of workers compensation insurance companies who specialize in this type of coverage only.  They have ways to help you reduce and prevent injuries in the first place, and they also have tools and knowledge to reduce the overall costs of injuries once they occur.  Give us a call, toll free at 877-687-7557 and put us to work for you today to lower your workers compensation costs, both now and in the future.