Ask me anything about Property/Business Insurance

[night888]

Car Insurance version of thread can be found here: http://forums.beyond.ca/st/269789/as...car-insurance/

Please keep in mind I'm only really experienced in Alberta insurance (rules will differ from province to province).

I have worked as an agent for a large direct writer insurance company, and I have also had extensive experience as an independent broker dealing with several companies. I also have some experience with claims.

I guess the first thing that I will say is that insurance can an inexact science, especially where claims are related. I have seen different claim adjusters respond to the same situation differently, and I have often seen underwriters within the same company make different judgements on the same issue.

With that being said...please ask away and I should be able to respond to this thread daily Monday through Friday. I'm contributing to an insurance blog and I'm hoping that I can use some of the questions asked here to generate some good articles/topics of discussion.

***DISCLAIMER: as always, while the information I post here is believed to be reliable and accurate at the time of posting, I do not guarantee, represent or warrant that the information contained on this site is accurate, complete, reliable, verified or error-free ***

EDIT: Please do not ask for quotes in this thread, and please help keep the thread informative by checking to make sure your question hasn't already been answered.

[extm88]

are you a paid sponsor?

[2002civic]

Originally posted by extm88
are you a paid sponsor?

Calm down. He is not selling anything, just trying to help out the membership.

[night888]

Originally posted by extm88
are you a paid sponsor?

No. I'm just bored. I also regularly contribute articles to an insurance information website, so this is a good way for me to pick up topics to write about while helping a few people out along the way.

Anyway this forum seems kind of slowish so to get the ball rolling here are some interesting facts that you may not know:

- Most home insurance policies will typically cover you if your dog bites someone and they decide to sue you, even if the event occurred off-premise.
- If someone breaks into your car and steals your cd deck and a laptop that was on the backseat, the cd-deck will be covered under your car insurance but the laptop will only be covered if you have a home insurance (or tenant insurance) policy.
- Rooming houses are not allowed under most insurance policies. If you rent out to other people, and you all share a kitchen, this is considered a rooming house by most insurance companies, and you may need a commercial policy to insure you. A lot of people are not aware of this, and this may lead to subsequent claims being denied if the insurance company was not aware of the rooming situation.

[Tik-Tok]

I'm thinking of starting a small side business, that would be based out of my truck... would this be considered a "home based business"?

How does business insurance work? Lets say I need $5mill. liability for myself, and my vehicle, is this covered under business insurance, or would I need both business, AND separate vehicle insurance?

[gofastmerc]

Is it possible to get insurance to cover tools and equipment for a home garage?

Last time I checked it was crazy expensive.

[night888]

Originally posted by Tik-Tok
I'm thinking of starting a small side business, that would be based out of my truck... would this be considered a "home based business"?

How does business insurance work? Lets say I need $5mill. liability for myself, and my vehicle, is this covered under business insurance, or would I need both business, AND separate vehicle insurance?

What kind of business is this? Where are you operating? What kind of stuff do you do from your home, and what kind of goods/services do you transport/provide from your truck?

If you are say a contractor/electrician/whatever, you will probably need:
1) A commercial general liability policy, which covers you for: premises & operations, personal injury & advertising injury, etc etc.
2) A commercial automobile policy, which is basically similar to your normal automobile insurance policy, but also allows for your commercial vehicle usage (which your normal auto policy wont cover)

You may also need:
3) A commercial property policy, which will cover your business contents (computers, machinery, etc that are run from the business premises), and liability issues that arise from property you lease/own.


If all you do from home is like paperwork on a computer or something, your normal property insurance policy may cover some of that (but probably not liability).

[night888]

Originally posted by gofastmerc
Is it possible to get insurance to cover tools and equipment for a home garage?

Last time I checked it was crazy expensive.

I'm assuming you're taking clients vehicles and fixing them up from your garage for pay? This is not something that most insurance companies will want to insure, because most of these operations are poor risks (just like rooming houses), and the specialty insurance policies that may cover for this would no doubt be expensive. I have seen stuff like woodworking shops and such run from large properties that are insured at reasonable rates, but those follow very strict safety guidelines from the insurance company and tend to be quite professionally operated.

[gofastmerc]

Originally posted by night888


I'm assuming you're taking clients vehicles and fixing them up from your garage for pay? This is not something that most insurance companies will want to insure, because most of these operations are poor risks (just like rooming houses), and the specialty insurance policies that may cover for this would no doubt be expensive. I have seen stuff like woodworking shops and such run from large properties that are insured at reasonable rates, but those follow very strict safety guidelines from the insurance company and tend to be quite professionally operated.

No, I mean for personal use.

[alloroc]

Ok pretend I'm 16 in my dad's car making out with the GF in her parents driveway.

Condom breaks she gets pregnant.

I know there is accidental death insurance.

What about accidental life insurance?

Edit and ...

Do I claim the accidental breakage of the condom on the car or the gf's house insurance.

[night888]

Originally posted by gofastmerc


No, I mean for personal use.

Oh, if it's only for your personal use and you just happen to have an extensive collection of tools and such, that is easily insured under your normal house insurance policy. You can add on a tool floater for however much you want to insure, and be charged at a rate per $100 worth of tools.

[night888]

Originally posted by alloroc
Ok pretend I'm 16 in my dad's car making out with the GF in her parents driveway.

Condom breaks she gets pregnant.

I know there is accidental death insurance.

What about accidental life insurance?

LOL I actually don't do much of life insurance so I won't be able to help with this

[D. Dub]

Originally posted by 2002civic


Calm down. He is not selling anything, just trying to help out the membership.

He is likely trying to drum up leads... making this a commercial thread and against forum policy.

[night888]

Originally posted by D. Dub


He is likely trying to drum up leads... making this a commercial thread and against forum policy.

This may be difficult as I am unable to do quotes for people at this point in time due to me not currently working as a licensed insurance broker.

As I said, however, I will referring to the questions asked in this thread for subject material to write about in my blog and articles, and it is certainly my hope that some interesting questions pop up.

Also, I do receive some compensation for the website I publish my articles on...however, as I am not advertising that site in any way on here I don't believe that infringes on the forum rules in any way.

[rinny]

Originally posted by night888


- Rooming houses are not allowed under most insurance policies. If you rent out to other people, and you all share a kitchen, this is considered a rooming house by most insurance companies, and you may need a commercial policy to insure you. A lot of people are not aware of this, and this may lead to subsequent claims being denied if the insurance company was not aware of the rooming situation.

Interesting.

If people are paying rent, yet there are no paper contracts in place, so as to call this an "innkeeper" situation where the people staying are guests, would a claim be denied?

How about some info about Renter's insurance. When would it be beneficial to have Renter's Insurance vs. relying on homeowner's insurance?

[rinny]

Originally posted by D. Dub


He is likely trying to drum up leads... making this a commercial thread and against forum policy.

Cant say I agree. You could characterize this thread however you like but fact is we could use some insurance info on this forum, just as we have articles produced for weekly driving habits etc.

This is helping me out, and no I am not planning on changing insurance companies because of it.

[barmanjay]

What factors will decrease your homeowners insurance policy

ie: close vicinity fire hydrant? and etc?

[night888]

Originally posted by rinny


Interesting.

If people are paying rent, yet there are no paper contracts in place, so as to call this an "innkeeper" situation where the people staying are guests, would a claim be denied?

How about some info about Renter's insurance. When would it be beneficial to have Renter's Insurance vs. relying on homeowner's insurance?

This is still technically considered a rooming house, whether you are doing so on paper or not. Technically it may be grounds to deny a claim, however in practice many people (especially in lower income areas) are unaware that it is even a factor and are blissfully unaware. To be honest, most claims would probably go through anyway and if the company found out about the rooming house they would just terminate the insurance agreement...but for most people it is not worth the risk; if your home burnt down would you want to be arguing with the insurance company over the terms?

As for the second part of your question...I am assuming that you are a tenant living in someone's home. Unless you are a relative of that family, most homeowner's policies will not cover tenants living with them. In other words, you should get a tenant (renter's) insurance policy to cover yourself even if your landlord has his homeowner's policy.

Keep in mind that a tenant policy doesn't just cover your belongings, it also covers your personal liability. So, let's say you own a dog and it bit someone...or you started a fire by accident (read: negligence) and your landlord or other people harmed decide to sue you. Most tenant policies carry standard $1,000,000 liability, and this is what would protect you in the case of such lawsuits.

It also doesn't hurt that many insurance companies will count tenant insurance as property insurance history...so if you carry tenant insurance for 3 years and then decide to buy a house or condo, you would be eligible for claims free discount. Most 3 year claims free discounts are 10 to 15%, most tenant policies are around the $200 mark, so even on this basis it may be worth it down the road.

[night888]

Originally posted by barmanjay
What factors will decrease your homeowners insurance policy

ie: close vicinity fire hydrant? and etc?

Insurance companies give many different types of discounts for homeowner's policies...the following are a sample of some factors that will affect your premium:

- postal code (your neighborhood, basically)
- rebuild value of home
- distance to fire hydrant
- distance to nearest firehall (and whether the firehall is part time/volunteer, or full-time/paid)
- age of dwelling
- alarm system (monitored? fire-monitored?)
- mortgage (no line of credit or mortgage against home is usually a good risk for insurers)
- age of insureds
- occupation of insureds
- property claims history

[ExtraSlow]

Edit: Question answered in post above mine. Guess I need to learn to type faster.