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Oh how the times have changed. In 1950, eight in 10 households were occupied by married couples. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, that number declined to 51.7%; the balance being singles and couples living together who are not married. The former includes individuals who either live alone or with roommates; the latter encompasses both opposite and same-sex couples who consider themselves partners. It is the latter segment which now makes up approximately 10% of American households.

A benefit to marriage that is often overlooked (perhaps because of its dismal ranking on the romantic scale) is insurance. Married couples experience advantages that are not available to others living together. If you are not married and living with a significant other (SO), there are some important things you should understand about your home insurance.

Standard home insurance is designed to cover damage to personal property like furniture, electronics and clothing that is owned by residents of the home who are related to the person named on the actual home insurance policy (i.e., you). The term “related” is where your SO’s problems begin.

Certainly the cost to replace that stolen television or incinerated clothing is essential. But home insurance has another important role: personal liability coverage. Personal liability is insurance that will cover expenses for which you are liable, like when a guest slips and falls on that lose step or your amateur attempt at controlled brush-burning sets your neighbor’s home ablaze.

Following are some important limitations found in a standard home insurance policy that you and your SO should know:

First, there is no personal liability insurance offered to individuals residing in the home who are not related to the person whose name is on the home insurance policy. For example, did your boyfriend move his dog in? Does your girlfriend’s son host football games in the yard? Examples like these (dogs can bite and children will hurt themselves) serve as a reminder of the unpredictable nature and expenses of a liability claim. The good news is that your personal liability is covered by your home insurance. The bad news is your SO isn’t—a potentially devastating expense that he will have to pay for personally unless he has his own insurance (discussed below).

Second, personal property of a non-relative is not covered by your home insurance. This means no coverage for claims like when your SO’s laptop is stolen from home or school or if that plaid recliner he can’t live without is burned in a fire.

Not all hope is lost. In some cases it is possible to modify a standard home insurance policy to cover losses to your SO’s personal property. However, this won’t fix everything. The best solution is for your partner to purchase a home insurance policy (often called “renter’s insurance”) that will offer your SO protection for expensive property losses and/or a significant liability expense.

TLIG is a local Trusted Choice^® agency that represents multiple insurance companies, so it offers you a variety of personal and business coverage choices and can customize an insurance plan to meet your specialized needs.

Visit us online at www.tligins.com or call them at (434) 582-1444.

You pay for home insurance to avoid incurring large out-of-pocket expenses after a something damages your house and personal property. The last thing you need is an insurance company explaining “adequate limits of insurance” after the fact; especially if that explanation means more cost to you.

According to Marshall & Swift/Boeckh, an organization specializing in building cost research, 59% of homes were underinsured by an average of 22% in 2005. Some reasons for the high number of underinsured homes include inaccurate valuation methods, complacency with current home value and failure to report value-changing improvements and betterments.

The penalty for underinsurance is costly. Your home insurance company requires that you pay for enough insurance to cover the value of the home at the time it is damaged, not when the policy is issued. Most home insurance policies contain a provision requiring the limit of insurance to be equal to or greater than a specified amount for the insurance policy to pay for the full cost of the damage.

For example, say your house catches fire and one-fourth of it is damaged. While adjusting the claim, the insurance company determines that due to increased construction costs, your home’s current replacement value is $100,000. If just a portion of your home is damaged, most home insurance policies require that your limit be at least 80 percent of this amount, in this case $80,000. If your limit is less than $80,000, you will only receive a portion of the $25,000 and will have to pay the difference out-of-pocket…yuck!

Despite the above example, you should never carry a limit of insurance lower than 100 percent of your home’s current replacement value. Here’s why: Consider the previous example, only this time the fire damage is so severe that your entire home must be torn down and rebuilt. If your policy limit is anything lower than $100,000 you will have to pay the difference yourself.

To make matters more difficult is the constant flux of property values. According to the National Association of Home Builders, the cost of common construction materials such as cement, drywall, lumber and nails have soared over the past two years, two to five times faster than gasoline prices! According to Marshall & Swift/Boeckh, some homes that were built just two years ago for $125 a square foot may now cost over $200 per square foot to rebuild.

People also forget to count improvements. According to the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies, homeowners spent $149 billion on owner-occupied home improvements in 2005. And this amount doesn’t include home repair costs or the amount spent by landlords on rental homes—two factors that would exponentially increase this dollar figure. Have you added a burglar alarm system, closed in the garage, put in new floors or redone the kitchen? Improvements like these are fair game in determining the current value of your home. In addition, many homeowners do not understand that factors like market price, property tax appraised value and mortgage amount are not the same as the cost to repair or rebuild your home after a loss.

Preventing underinsurance is tricky but not impossible. Most home insurance policies can be modified to increase insurance limits automatically. Regular communication (at least annually) with your insurance agent will help you understand limits and trends. And reporting improvements will help keep your limits up-to-date.

These steps will help ensure that your home insurance policy will do what you expect it to come claim time.

TLIG is a local Trusted Choice^® agency that represents multiple insurance companies, so it offers you a variety of personal and business coverage choices and can customize an insurance plan to meet your specialized needs.

Visit us online at www.tligins.com or call us at (434) 582-1444

A cool swim on a hot day is an American tradition. As temperatures rise, most folks want to get into the water—whether at the ocean, lake or pool.

The combination of high fuel prices and an economic slowdown may keep Americans at or near home more than usual this summer. But water safety is a concern wherever you—and especially your children—venture this summer.

Pools present dangers, particularly for young kids. Each year, some 3,500 deaths—about 10 per day—are cause by drowning, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And another 4,000 people are treated at hospital emergency visits total for injuries and trauma related to pool accidents.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) notes that drowning is the second-leading cause of injury death for children ages one to 14. Each year, 283 children under age five die in America’s pools and spas, a statistic that has worsened since the turn of the century. Most deaths and injuries related to pools occur on residential properties. Most involve children ages one to two, according to the commission.

Here are the problems that lead to children drowning in pools:

Unprotected pools. Pools must be treated as attractive nuisances, meaning children will want to get to them to play. One risk: Pools with a three-sided fence where the home forms the fourth side of the barrier. That simply means children can gain access to the water through a door rather than over a fence. Other problems include frost heaving that opens a gap in a fence gate, and wooden fences that rot and break.

“Little children are fiendishly clever and they can get away,” pointed out Dr. Jonathan Midgett of the CPSC. “For those brief moments when children elude us, we need layers of protection around our pools. The more obstacles between your child and the pool, the better! Fences need to isolate the pool from the house; have well-maintained self-closing, self-latching gates; and [have] back-up layers of protection, like sensors and alarms.”

Faulty equipment. Suction outlets in pools and whirlpools are a hazard to catch hair and fingers. Anti-entrapment drain covers must be secured in place.

No rules for the pool. Parents may rely on a neighbor, friend or caregiver/babysitter when children are in a pool this summer. Children must be made to understand that, whoever the authority figure is, they must respect that person’s directions. Make safety rules for the pool clear before anyone sets foot inside the pool area.

Poor supervision. Doctors put it bluntly. “Never leave your children alone in or near the pool, even for a moment,” advises the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The doctors’ group adds a rule of “touch supervision” with children younger than five years. This means that the supervising adult is within an arm’s length of the child at all times.

Children can drown in a pool full of people. This happens when no one adult is designated to supervise the pool or if the supervisor isn’t paying proper attention. The CPSC recommends at least one adult taking responsible for watching children around the water.

“This person should avoid distracting activities that can take their attention away,” explained Dr. Julie Gilchrist of the CDC. Distractions include: playing cards, reading, checking e-mail, and talking on the phone. In the time it takes to do these things, a child may quietly slip under water. “Drownings happen quickly and usually silently,” she added.

Anyone who owns or uses a pool should consider learning basic first aid and cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR). “CPR can make a big difference by reducing the likelihood of brain damage in the few minutes it takes for 911 emergency responders to arrive,” Gilchrist, a medical epidemiologist, noted.

Swim lessons. Learning to swim is not just recreational, but a way to teach children how to save themselves, noted the CDC. Yet even strong swimmers must be supervised, no matter what age.

Any homeowner who has a pool – whether in-ground, above ground, or inflatable/temporary— should have liability insurance coverage, including umbrella liability coverage.

TLIG is a local Trusted Choice^® agency that represents multiple insurance companies, so it offers you a variety of personal and business coverage choices and can customize an insurance plan to meet your specialized needs.

Visit us online at www.tligins.com or call us at (434) 582-1444.

It’s summer, and thoughts of Americans everywhere turn to water. Whether it’s in the pool, on the lake, at the ocean or in the river, water draws people almost magnetically as the weather turns hot. In fact, swimming pool trade groups teamed up to make May “National Water Safety Month” in the United States to make consumers “water aware.”

Swimming pools are popular but also present a risk to a homeowner. While homeowners are welcoming friends and family with a clear, clean pool, they’re also assuming significant financial risks by doing so. What’s more, they are unwittingly facing liability from strangers since pools are an attractive nuisance that can pose a risk to uninvited guests, children in the neighborhood and intruders. Homeowners can be found liable for injuries to uninvited guests.

Drowning is the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for children ages 1 to 14 years, reported the American Red Cross. Its survey of more than 1,000 adults showed that more than 90% of families with young children plan to be in the water this summer, and almost half (48%) plan to swim in a place with no lifeguard. If that’s on your property, be prepared.

Insurance plays a key role in protecting consumers who have pools on their property. Homeowners and liability insurance cover bodily injury and liability protection in the event of an injury or claim. Plus, insurance carriers, by virtue of inspecting or requiring compliance with building codes, can make a swimming pool safer.

If you have a swimming pool:

1) Let your insurance agent or insurance carrier know. Coverage is most likely to be provided if the structure and risks are known prior to a claim. Insurance carriers view pools as presenting a unique and heightened set of risks. Put simply, a swimming pool will increase the risk of property damage or a liability claim, as compared to a home without one.

Typically, a homeowners insurance policy covers property damage to a home and additional structures. An in-ground pool usually is considered an “additional structure” in insurance parlance, as are sheds and detached garages. An above-ground pool may be considered “personal property” and insured under that section of the homeowners policy.

Homeowners insurance also offers liability coverage in the event a homeowner is hit with a claim or lawsuit as a result of an incident in or near the swimming pool. Friends and family who are injured in a pool accident may not want to sue, but may need to sue in order to pay medical bills and replace lost income.

2) Check the amount of homeowners property coverage. A standard coverage amount for additional structures on a property is 10 percent of the amount written for the home itself. Thus, a $500,000 home might have $50,000 of property damage coverage for other structures. Ask your independent agent to help you determine the proper amount of property coverage.

3) Check the amount of homeowners liability coverage. One claim can pierce a standard homeowners liability insurance limit, so check with your insurance professional to discuss increasing the limit and/or adding an umbrella policy. An umbrella (or excess liability) policy pays up to a limit (usually $1 million) for claims.

4) Check the perils covered. Homeowners insurance comes in a variety of types, and some policies protect against additional “perils” in addition to fire, lightning and windstorm. Other perils may be excluded. Check which type of policy you have and whether it suits your needs. For pool owners in the north, note that damage by freezing/thawing is usually not covered by homeowners insurance.

5) Check that your pool is up to code, and whether any features are specifically not permitted or insured. Plumbing, fencing and deck requirements all can vary by state and locality. A homeowner increases the risk of loss if a pool is not up to code. Additionally, amenities such as diving boards and slides are particularly hazardous and may be excluded by building code or can be uninsured.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control noted that drowning prevention requires appropriate adult supervision while children are in the water, as well as multiple layers of protection (such as four-sided isolation fencing, pool alarms, and locked gates) to keep children away from swimming pools.

TLIG is a local Trusted Choice^® agency that represents multiple insurance companies, so it offers you a variety of personal and business coverage choices and can customize an insurance plan to meet your specialized needs.

Visit us online at www.tligins.com or call us at (434) 582-1444.