I hope you’re all staying safe as we tiptoe back into the world.
When you first sit down with Desert Insurance Solutions to review your risk situation and insurance options, we want the resulting program to be solid. In other words, nothing should fall between the cracks because there shouldn’t be any cracks. But there are two issues to watch out for:
1. Your situation changes later and we don’t know about it.
2. You have risk exposures handled by multiple insurance brokers.
We welcome meeting with you in person for check-ups to look for situation changes, but a lot of time can elapse between check-ups and meetings are becoming more difficult in this new world of social distancing. As an alternative, I’ve prepared the following checklist for you to quickly look over. If any of the items apply to you, and we don’t yet know about them, you should call or e-mail us. Of course, you are always welcome to contact us at any time for any other concerns.
General
- Change in name or address
- Change to marital status
Home Insurance
- Buy or sell a house
- Major home renovation
- House placed in new entity (e.g. trust or LLC)
- Change in occupancy status (e.g. home now vacant)
- Start in-home business
- Change your owner-occupied home to either long- or short-term rental
- New risk management items installed (alarms, water sensors, etc.)
- New valuable articles (e.g. jewelry, art)
- Interest in supplemental property coverage (e.g. earthquake, flood)
- Interest in cyber coverage against hackers
- Interest in EPLI coverage against domestic employee lawsuits
Auto Insurance
- Buy or sell a vehicle
- Change in drivers
- Personal vehicles used for business (e.g. Uber/Lyft or delivery)
- Adult children become emancipated
Liability/Umbrella Insurance
- Change in net worth/inheritance
- Added a domestic employee (20 or more hours per week)
- Started a home business
- Bought motorcycle, boat, RV, ATV or other motorized toys
Business
- Thinking of starting a new business
- Changed name of business
- Changed ownership structure
- New legal entities
- New services or products
- New, remodeled or sold buildings
- New valuable equipment
- Change in commercial autos or drivers
- Major changes to employee payroll
- Significant change to revenue projection
Professional
- Note that professionals with E+O or medical malpractice coverages should not cancel insurance without an extended reporting period policy commonly known as a “tail”.
Keeping your insurance program up to date for these changes is important. Let’s take one example I see a lot: children emancipated (leave home, get job, become independent). Many parents will want to “help out” the child by letting them continue driving a car owned by the parent and leaving them on the parent insurance. That means if the child is liable in a serious accident that blows through limits, the victims can come after the parent assets. Not good. It’s much better to transfer the title to the child and let the child get their own insurance. If the parent wants to help out, they can pay for the adult child’s insurance. The parent is then protected from losing everything…that’s what I call “sweating the big stuff”.
Regarding the other potential crack in your program, multiple insurance brokers, obviously Desert Insurance Solutions would like to serve all your needs. We offer every type of insurance and are licensed in all states. And a single point of contact for insurance is more efficient for you, can result in lower costs and is less likely to result in anything being missed.
Some clients require multiple brokers (e.g. clients with properties in both Canada and the US), but the above checklist items still apply.
Let’s work together to make sure your insurance program is so solid over time there are no cracks for anything to fall through! Stay safe!