Insurance is an essential purchase when moving home; whether you are moving within the same country or overseas, accidents can and do happen. During shipment there is always the chance of a container being dropped or something breaking, no matter how well the items are packed there is no guarantee they will not be broken. What is important is how that damage is dealt with, how the removals business handle the claim and that the item is covered. Replacing the article, or giving you the money to replace it, Insurance compensation gives you the piece of mind should an accident occur.

Different Types of Insurance
Each removals business, by law, has to provide a basic insurance cover to the consumer without cost, the insurance against accidents. When you look at the scheme itself you will observe that the amount covered in nothing like the real cost of replacing the items. This equates to a compensation of 60 cents per pound per article meaning the movers would be liable for a maximum of $60 for a 100 pound item. Some movers may compensate you for the total weight of the container in which the damaged article was in. If the removals business do not pack the item themselves, then it is unlikely the item will be covered under their insurance agreement. As we can see, this sort of insurance is quite often not enough to actually cover the losses. Added Value Protection Cover. This is extra coverage supplied by the movers business and just raises the amount of money you get per pound per article. This policy differs between each firm but normally it is about $2. You can clarify the particular coverage with your removals firm. Bits and pieces that are expensive to replace but are light are not really covered in this type of scheme as the cover arranged by the company is still paid out on weight. For a policy that pays out the cost the specific item when you bought it, or pays the depreciated value of the item lost or broken you can get Market Value or Depreciated Value policies. There is still a disadvantage to this type of scheme as you would need to go through every item you possess, find the price of each item, then declare it to the removal business and/or insurer before you move. Today most people use a Replacement Value scheme rather than have to do go through the inconvenience of the other type of schemes. Replacement Value schemes are usually called the ‘Like for Like’ or even the ‘New for Old’ insurance. Higher premiums are the downside of this scheme, but the upside of it is, your items are replaced or you are paid out the market value of your belongings as they are priced today.

Items that you can’t Insure

It doesn’t matter how hard you search, there is always going to be a few of your belongings that are not covered. Keep these items with you, rather than put them in the removals vehicle. Belongings not covered under the plan agreement include such items as cash, photographs, personal papers and jewelry. Objects that show no outward sign of damage such as TVs and computers would not be covered unless you can show carelessness by the removal firm. If you are moving fine art, valuable musical instruments or antiques, you should think about special measures to assure their safety and protect against their loss or damage such as having the piece wrapped and crated for maximum care.

As with all aspects of moving, make a list! – This time an Inventory File

A list of your items is a must, and should be completed before the removals firm turn up. This list should have all objects that are being moved, their value, replacement price and type of condition they are in. Pictures of your items, at least the valuable ones, are a good idea and should be kept with the inventory list. If the objects are smashed or lost then you will grateful for the work it took to do them. When moving abroad, this list will be very advantageous because many customs and inspections will need it.

Some Further Helpful Information
Before signing any contract for insurance, look for any exclusions that the policy may have and read through before signing. Ask questions about the policy if you are unsure about anything in it. When moving abroad, find out if you are covered in that country as well as the country you are leaving. Keep hold of a copy of your photographs and inventory until they are safely put in your new home. Whilst every care will be taken by the removals firm, check to see if your insurance covers any damages done to your property.

Delivered by Jay Banks, Vancouver Condominiums professional.

Running a business is tough. There is the need to reduce costs and outgoing whilst maximising income. This is particularly difficult with taxis. Cheap insurance for taxi drivers may seem the best solution, whereas really the best way is to look at what the policy offers for the price quoted.

When there is cheap insurance for taxi drivers quoted, you can guarantee they will flock to it. When purchasing, making sure the policy covers you for all eventualities is the main priority. An insurance company which does not have windscreen replacement cover, might not sound like a big deal, but as taxis are generally on the roads more than any other motorist they are bound to encounter a crack or a scratch. Defective windscreens can become illegal and more importantly have an affect on the rigidity of a vehicle. This in turn affects the handling and can cause, if the windscreen hasn’t already affected visibility, an accident.

An alternative solution is to speak to your current insurer regarding next year’s policy. Sometimes insurers offer cheap insurance for loyal customers. Before your policy is ending, a quick phone call could help you get a general idea of what to expect. This is fantastic if you are currently happy with the plan you are receiving, but are wanting the same, but cheaper.

Sometimes cheap insurance for taxi drives is not always the best option. Choose the policy first before the price and speak to your current insurers to arrange discounts for being a loyal customer. If there has been no claims within the year, then look out for insurers who offer protection on that which will guarantee lower prices for years to come.

Cheap insurance for taxi drivers is similar to most things that do not cost much. They are almost always superseded by a better version. Look into the policy to see what you need and what is on offer. Do not just look at price, and even browse the market watchdog site, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), to see which insurers are performing well.

When looking for monthly taxi insurance you may notice that insurance companies require a full year paid in advance. However, many find that the amount the company require you to pay is too high, therefore payment plans are provided.

Payment plans allow you to pay for your insurance in installments. These range from weekly, monthly to quarterly payments. The frequency of payments will vary from company to company so it’s best to compare quotes prior to making your final decision to find a plan that’s suitable to your needs.

The most popular of plans are those which allow customers to pay for their insurance on a monthly basis. This allows you to factor in your monthly insurance payment in your budget as most people are paid on a that basis also, thus it is easier to meet payments.

One thing to bare in mind when opting to pay for your monthly taxi insurance in set installments is many companies will additionally charge you a premium fee on top of the basic annual quote. Again this will vary depending on the provider you select so it is in your interest to check these amounts that will be applied to your specific payment plan prior.

For example, many insurance companies require you to pay the premium fee the day you start your monthly taxi insurance policy in full. Some may ask for a percentage or a set amount. Others may simply require the amount which is equal to two of your monthly installments.

If your initial quote sees a premium that is still high, there are ways in which you can reduce this amount. For instance, within the quote form provided, you will need to complete the amount of excess you will pay if you should have an accident. The higher the amount of voluntary excess you will pay could reduce the initial premium fee and your monthly payments should be lower.

If looking for low payment plans with low premiums for monthly taxi insurance, you should obtain many quotes online and compare all to get the best available.

E&O insurance stands for Errors and Omissions Insurance, which protects a notary from getting sued. There are a lot of companies that will not hire mobile notaries because their insurance policy does not go over $100,000. Why is that? Well for a few reasons, the title, escrow, or lender has to make sure they cover their bases. If you are not insured for enough of what they would get sued you will not get hired. It is not too expensive to upgrade or go with the 100K policy anyways and worth it so you don’t get snubbed on that job and you do not want to be held personally liable if you were to get sued.

A lot of notaries do it for the peace of mind, that way every signing you are not freaking out if you did it right or not. Missing a signature is not a reason to be sued directly. There would have to be multiple implications to raise a law suit. Messing with documents, breaking the law, and not adhering to company requests could implicate a notary in court. That is why it is a good idea to get E&O Insurance. In all states it is required to have E&O Insurance so make sure you check online under your particular state for specific details. I emphasized the importance of the amount of the coverage because you will be able to choose how much you want your business to be covered for. I can’t tell you how many stories I have heard from notaries who didn’t get the insurance upgrade, then not put in a directory, or thrown out of an Escrow companies Rolodex just because they didn’t want to pay the higher monthly premium.

Prices for E&O Insurance vary and are paid yearly. The cheapest coverage is for $15K and will cost around $19 a year, very inexpensive when we are talking about protecting yourself. The $100K Liability limit tends to get steeper and costs about $195 a year. This amount is again not ridiculous and is doable for most notary publics.

Think about the bigger picture. If you don’t protect your self you can hurt your business and even family. There are plenty of notaries who get away with not paying for Insurance and come out fine. There are also horror stories of the guy next door who lost his home because the Mortgage company sued him for negligence. It doesn’t happen often, but its good to protect yourself.

Insurance agencies have long been in the relationship business and most would agree they are in a rapidly commoditizing business. And that creates an inherently challenging scenario, for commodities ultimately get purchased on price and availability, ease of access and simplicity of transaction. Another challenge faced by insurance agencies revolves around insurance agency marketing. After all, if you’re in a relationship business, you need to drop by, shake hands, build rapport and grow the relationship. For many, however, those days are ending. Yes, referrals can help with insurance agency marketing, but often these referral methods lack consistent pipeline growth effectiveness, or add insufficient opportunity to sustain effective growth.

As we move into the era of Generation Y purchasers, instant access, pervasive connectivity and comprehensive comparative information available at the touch of a button, sales and marketing methods must change to conform to the new model. For example, I purchased my company’s health insurance plan without ever having met with my insurance agent. After all, why would I need to, and to be candid, why would I want to take the time to do so? Granted, larger plans with more employees, particularly plans which insure 100, 500 or 1,000 or more employees, encompass greater complexity and cost, and these types of purchases often warrant an on-site visit. But even these visits are now often preceded by a web meeting or web seminar, few executives these days want to invest 30 minutes or an hour with a prospective insurance agency representative chatting in their office.

Current insurance agency marketing methods are trying to embrace this virtual paradigm shift. Recently agencies have started to update their web sites and embark upon eMarketing, web seminar marketing and even SEO (Search Engine Optimization) campaigns. This is an important first step, though it is a step that many consider to be happening very late in the current marketing evolution. Sadly, some of these insurance agencies are embracing poor practices, the foremost of which is the “talking head”. One of my pet peeves is the talking head, a cyberspace insurance agent who automatically screams at web site visitors as soon as they navigate to an agency web page.

I use the word scream, because the volume is often poorly calibrated and the cyber agent automatically yells at the website visitor while said visitor scrambles to turn down the volume or find a way to make the virtual agent “shut up” virtually and pragmatically. It’s bad enough when your PC speakers are on, but it’s even worse when you are using a PC headset – think of this as placing iPod headphones on your head while somebody immediately turns the volume to the highest level, playing a head banging, hard rock group. Why do agencies think talking heads are appealing to their existing or prospective clients? Have they ever heard of the term “interruption marketing”? This is interruption marketing at its’ worst, after all, I never gave this cyberspace insurance agent the right to scream at me! Seth Godin’s blog says, “Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them. It recognizes the new power of the best consumers to ignore marketing. It realizes that treating people with respect is the best way to earn their attention.” These screaming cyberspace agents don’t seem to be giving me, or other visitors, the respect we deserve!

Recently I was speaking with a West Coast Insurance Agency CEO and we were discussing eMarketing. He lamented that, “I sent out 30,000 emails about our insurance offerings to prospects and received no response, no results at all from my email campaign.” I tried to break the news gently. “You shouldn’t send out unsolicited emails, you should never try to sell something in your initial offering, and you should always provide an educational opt in opportunity when approaching prospective clients via email marketing.” Where did you get the emails I asked? “I just bought them from a vendor, he said, my eMarketing company offers some list brokers to contact.” This is a good example of having the tools, but not understanding of how to use them. Think of this as if your agency is handed a scalpel and medical monitor to operate on a patient, but has not been provided with any surgical training.

It’s great to see that insurance agencies are beginning to update their marketing and sales methods using new virtual tools, but even with updated tools, they need to leverage the experience and know how to use these tools professionally and effectively. In conclusion, I’d just like to say to all those cyberspace talking heads on those agency websites, “STOP SCREAMING AT ME!”

Businesses that provide lawn care and general landscape maintenance operations are a common start-up every spring. According to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor, there were 402,000 self-employed grounds maintenance workers in 2008. This number continues to grow as the entire industry expects substantial growth over the next decade. The report stated that “more workers will be needed to keep up with increasing demand for lawn care and landscaping services both from large institutions and from individual homeowners.”

Homeowners that hire a new business to mow their yard should request proof that the business is properly insured to cover the liability for property damage and bodily injury. This exposure will be covered under a typical general liability policy and commercial auto policy. The business owner can provide from his insurance agency a ‘certificate of insurance’, which is a current listing of their liability coverages and limits.

For new lawn care businesses throughout the country, there are four standard insurance coverages to protect the business venture:

1. General Liability Insurance – Pays losses arising from real or alleged bodily injury, property damage, or personal injury on business premises or arising from business operations.

2. Commercial Auto Insurance – Pays losses for damage to company vehicles and trailers as well as injury and property damage to others as a result of vehicle liability when used for business purposes.

3. Equipment Floater Insurance – Provides protection for tools and equipment from a number of exposures such as theft.

4. Workers’ Compensation Insurance – Covers the cost of medical expenses and disability payments to employees that are injured at work, and it is required by state governments.

There are additional insurance coverages to consider as the lawn care business expands and the exposures increase. For more information about those coverages or the ones mentioned above, visit BearWiseLandscapers.com, an informative insurance website exclusively for lawn care and landscaping businesses. BearWise Landscapers is a division of an independent insurance agency and specializes in serving the unique insurance needs of the Florida landscaping industry.

The #1 Challenge for most staffing companies, aside from the marketing and operations aspect of the business, is insurance. Insurance costs (worker’s compensation, general liability, professional liability, E&O, etc.) can make or break a staffing firm.

Take Worker’s Comp for example. In the first years of business, most staffing companies have to purchase state fund workers compensation insurance. Most states require an initial deposit, then a monthly premium based on the type of temporary worker that is sent out. Rates tend to be lower for a company sending clerical and administrative temps vs. those sending out light industrial and industrial temps. Workers comp rates can vary from state to state, and the rate is affected by accident incidence. Then generally there is an experience modifier (a “mod”) that is placed on the premiums, most of the time after a year.

This mod is a “premium” on top of the actual rate (for instance a 1.5% mod rate). So if “normal” premiums would be $10,000 for the year, with a 1.5% mode, the actual rate would be $15,000. With staffing owners having to keep such competitive rates in place in order to gain or keep business, this mod rate can really affect the bottom line. The cost can hardly ever be “passed” on to the client company in the form of higher bill rates. Care needs to be taken to prevent workplace accidents (through proper training and education) so that workers comp claims will be kept to a minimum.

Accidents happen (which is why they call them accidents), but I have seen many staffing firms go out of business just due to workers comp rates skyrocketing. Other insurances are just part of doing business, but many insurance companies don’t understand the staffing industry, so it pays to find an insurance company or broker that really understands the business, in order to obtain the right policy so that your business remains intact. If you are a start up staffing company, be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time securing your initial general liability and workers comp insurances.

Business insurance is vital for a new business. If you are in the planning stages for starting a new business, you’ll need to plan for your insurance coverage. You likely already have insurance for your home and automobile. But the insurance needs for a business are somewhat different and you must address all of your new business exposures.

Here is a list of the four basic components of a business insurance policy:

1. Property

a. The building you own. If you’re leasing a building, your lease may require you to insure the building.

b. Your business personal property, including your furniture, machinery, computers, office equipment, inventory and raw materials.

c. Your vehicles.

2. Liability. If your business will be dealing with the public, there is a chance that you will cause a loss to others due to negligence. This covers errors you may make and personal injury or property damage to others.

3. People: If you will have employees, Workers Compensation insurance will be necessary. You might also consider Health Insurance and/or Life Insurance for your employees. “Keyman” life insurance protects the business from loss of a key owner or employee. Worker’s Compensation is mandatory, other coverages are optional.

4. Income: The lifeblood of any business is its income. If that income is interrupted or stopped, the business will likely not survive. Business Interruption coverage provides replacement of the lost income due to a covered peril.

When you are preparing your business plan for your new business, you should be able to generate the information necessary, such as property values, number of employees and anticipated revenue. Share this information with your insurance agent so that together you can design a business insurance policy for you that meets all your needs.

If you have experience a Business Insurance loss, whether property, liability, people or income, you need to know winning insurance claim strategies. The insurance company will not tell you the claims process, but I will. I will show you how to take control of your insurance claim, and add hundreds or even thousands more dollars to your claim settlement. For more information, go to the website listed below.

Most pub insurance policies that are sold do not cover the actual structure or buildings. A standard policy will include contents, stock, liabilities, money and business interruption with other covers available.

There will usually be a commercial building insurance policy in place with a single insurer that is arranged by the property owner, which will usually be a pub group or property owning commercial landlord. As part of their insurance arrangement, they will need to declare, under the business building insurance cover, if the premises are of non-standard construction.

Each insurers interpretation of “non-standard” can be different, but in essence what they want to be notified of is if the building is constructed of combustible materials. For example, brick, stone or concrete block walls are fine, whereas timber walls (even in part) need to be declared. It is the same story for the roof, slate or tile is fine but insurers need to know if there is any flat roof, glass roof or felt/asphalt on timber roof. If the roof is thatched then you really do need to notify the insurers as this will cause a sharp intake of breath, particularly if there is an open fire.

If you do not insure the buildings and are the tenant arranging the insurance, you will still need to declare if the property is non-standard, as defined by the particular insurer that is providing the quote. The reason being that a non-standard building could still be susceptible to a loss that will cause damage to the contents and stock. Water ingress into a building, for example, following a storm can cause immense damage.

You will, when looking for your particular quote, be asked certain questions about the construction. If you do not know or are unsure then you will need to speak to the landlord, property owner or managing agent to clarify exactly the materials that have been used to build the property. If you do not declare, to your insurer, the correct details you could potentially be faced with a claim that is turned down.

Most insurers will accept non-standard construction at around 20% of the overall structure. This means that where an extension has been built or there is a conservatory that a claim cannot be turned down due to the mis-declaration of the construction of the building.

As ever, the best thing for you to do is to only ask an independent business insurance broker to arrange your insurance cover. The brokers job is to serve you, the insurance purchasing customer. They will ensure, through the questions that they ask you, that the correct details are declared to the insurers that ultimately underwrite the risk.

Do you own or plan to own a rental property? If so this guide will show you the most important aspects of landlord insurance and some often overlooked coverage. Let’s face it; you don’t own a rental property because you enjoy dealing with tenants. Your bottom line is profits and asset appreciation right? The cost of owning a rental property can be overwhelming when you consider the mortgage payment, insurance and unexpected maintenance. If done properly you can have a profitable source of income for years to come but there are risks involved.

Being a landlord involves many risks including asset depreciation, destructive tenants and unexpected maintenance. Some of those risks can be contained with a proper landlord insurance policy. Most people don’t understand the difference between a standard homeowner’s insurance policy and a landlord policy. While most of the coverage remains the same there are distinct differences between the two.

When I sold insurance most of my customers did not understand why they needed to have a different policy when renting out their home. This is a common issue when someone decides to rent out the home they have been living in for sometime. Initially they purchased homeowners insurance but now they have tenants in that home so what do they need. The number one reason why you want to get a landlord insurance policy is so that you are properly covered in the event of a claim. If you don’t change the policy when you begin to rent the property any claim can be denied by your insurance company for failure to notify them of the change in status.

Here are two coverage’s that a landlord policy includes that is vital to your rental property business:

Liability Protection

While a standard homeowner’s policy includes liability protection it is not meant for landlord liability. Take for instance a tenant who causes a fire to your condo unit which damages two other units attached. The other condo owners can file suit against you for the damage to their property. If you don’t have a landlord policy your insurance company may not cover you based on the intended use of the condo. Most landlord policies will provide anywhere from $100,000 to $1 million in liability protection. Always opt for the higher coverage as it is only a few dollars more per year.

Loss of Rental Income

Most landlords rely on having tenants paying each month in order to afford the mortgage on a property. If the unit were to become unlivable due to a fire your tenants would have to move out and you would not have that rental income while the unit is being fixed. This is where loss of income coverage is so vital to your business. You can be reimbursed for any loss of rental income you suffer up to your policy limit during the time it takes to repair or rebuild.