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Tag Archives: Insurance

You Have Insurance, But Are You Covered for That?

The bubble before we poked a hole in it to let the water out.

I wrote a blog (I think) [nope, Sue Ann checked] about some damage that happened out at the Lady Rattlesnake a couple of months ago. A busted pipe upstairs caused a water bubble to form in the ceiling of my downstairs bathroom. No worries, she is insured right?! Wrong.

I filed the claim, since the water did some damage and I waited several weeks only to receive a denial of coverage. At first it looked like they were denying it because they said it was an ongoing leak. It only leaked for about an hour. Just long enough for us to see the water gathering around the upstairs toilet (through the tile) and a big, dripping bubble in the ceiling. We turned the water off at the meter and called our friend Cody from Choice Builders. He came out and capped off the pipe so we could at least have water to the rest of the house.

It turns out that the denial is actually because we didn’t have the endorsement for sudden water disbursement.

Who could help but smile with an assistant like this? I love getting little visits.

I’m sorry, what? Oh, but we do have coverage for space debris… Cool! I guess…

We are working on getting it fixed now, and checking our coverage on all the other properties. At least it was mine that we found out on I guess. I’m a pretty laid back tenant, because I’m scared of the office manager (also me).

Anyway, the point of this blog is to check out your coverage! Look over all of your endorsements and make sure you are covered for the common things! Water heater leaks, HVAC drain line back ups, busted pipes, storms, fire, smoke, contents, everything you can think of within reason. Don’t forget contents!

And if you are a renter!!!!!! Get renters insurance! Your landlord’s insurance will not cover anything you have, and there are several companies who charge a bare minimum for excellent coverage. It’s so worth it!

In short, just know your policy and coverage and be prepared and diligent. Insurance provides great peace of mind, and it can prove its value with just one claim, sometimes!

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The Importance of Being Insured (Photos Included)

I pay my insurance so that I can concentrate on the great things in life! Like being a volunteer technical designer and director, and seeing my second-to-oldest son perform as Lion in Dorothy in Wonderland this past weekend.

Who loves paying their insurance premiums? Wow. Not only did no one raise their hand, they all left the room while mumbling about stupid questions. That’s the thing though. None of us like to pay our insurance.

Not paying it, though, can really have some horrible consequences. Life altering and life shattering consequences. I know of someone who was uninsured, ran off of the highway, and hit a parked car in the owner’s driveway. That person was found liable in a court of law to pay off the car because the owner’s car insurance would not cover it. Not having insurance = serious consequences!

Some History

This was our first brand new car. It was right around six  months old when this happened on June 25th, 2015.

In 2015, I was the passenger in a really bad rollover. Lots of mechanical failure that day. We all survived, and our insurance came through for us. Medical was covered as well as paying off the car, which was only six months old.

Earlier this year Lady Rattlesnake had damage caused in part to a storm, and now is suffering from plumbing issues stemming from replacing the siding, rotten decking around the windows, and reinstalling and trimming out the windows to be properly sealed to keep the new decking from rotting again.

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Planning for Success!(ion)

Coronation

A wise person told me a long time ago, “We don’t plan to fail. We just fail to plan.” I am constantly amazed by the amount of planning that goes into running a business. Every day is a different plan:

  • General business plans
  • Tax plans
  • Floor plans
  • Construction plans
  • Scopes of Work
  • Budgets

The list seems endless. It probably is.

What If Something Happens to You?

Today I want to talk about something nobody wants to talk about: succession plans. Continue reading →

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Flood Insurance

For a 20-minute overview of what’s wrong with our federal flood insurance program, click the image above. John Oliver has the advantage of being funny, too.

I’ve been thinking about flood insurance since the hurricanes this year. Leave it to John Oliver to steal my thunder and beat me to the punch! Sunday night he summed up the problems with the federal flood insurance program, which I’ve linked to through the sidebar to the right.

Rather than recount what Oliver so brilliantly expounds in his 20-minute rant, I want to talk about a couple of problems I see in a little more depth:

  • We seem to have (intentionally?) forgotten what insurance actually is.
  • With regard to flood insurance in particular, I fear our current system is, like many good ideas, on Locomotive Breath’s train to unsustainability.

What Is Insurance?

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Why We Get Insurance

A few months ago, we had to send a plumber out to our daughter Sierra’s condo, because the drain for the washing machine was clogged. He snaked the pipe and pulled out some tree roots, which seemed to be the cause of the clog. So, last month, when she complained about a leak in the kitchen, I was afraid it was that same tree root doing its damage further down the line.

plumber

Plumbers sure save a lot of messes! Photo from Creative Comments.

The kitchen did have a little water on the floor and it kept pooling up, but only to a point. There was also a small trickle going into the second bedroom (her roommate was away for the summer). When I opened the door, there was 1/2 inch of water over the entire bedroom. And it had been building up there for at least a couple of days. We bought a shop vac to vacuum it up and got a plumber out again. Luckily, the water was coming from the supply line to the refrigerator, not from the pipes. But the damage was done.

Crews pulled up the flooring tiles and padding and set up fans to dry everything out. Insurance paid for that demolition. The insurance adjuster came out and wrote up an extensive estimate for the repairs that were going to be needed. They wrote a check, we hired the contractors and bought the material, and the condo got fixed.

So, why did WE have to take care of this?

From “The Ins and Outs of Condo Insurance”

What HOA Insurance Is Typically Responsible For

  • Damage to the building exterior.
  • Damage to common areas and shared amenities.
  • Injuries guests sustain in common areas.

Based on this, it’s clear that when we thought it might be a leak from the pipe and/or a crack in the foundation, it would have been covered by the HOA policy. The internal source meant it had to be covered by our own insurance.

That’s why it’s important to have insurance on every property, whether a finished house, a house under construction, a condo, or a new build.

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