‘Tis the Season for… Insurance?
With the holiday season here again, I thought I would offer up a few reminders of insurance issues you may need to consider this holiday season.
Renting a car soon? Here’s what you need to know about auto insurance and rental cars.
General rules include:
- Your auto insurance probably covers you to drive the rental car.
- If you have full coverage, you probably don’t need to buy all of the expensive rental car company coverages, but come claim time you may wish you had.
- Make sure all drivers are explicitly listed on the rental agreement.
- Carefully consider what benefits each of your credit cards can provide when renting a car, usually for free!
- For a more comprehensive guide to insurance issues with rental cars: Check out my prior article on rental car insurance issues.
Buying jewelry or anything expensive this holiday season? Make sure your homeowners insurance covers it properly.
Lots of expensive gifts are best protected if they are scheduled. For example, did you know that most homeowners insurance policies won’t cover the stone in a ring if you lose it? Just a simple snag of one of the prongs on a ladies wedding ring could mean the disastrous loss of the diamond. Not to mention that most homeowners insurance policies will pay very little for the theft of jewelry to begin with. Most schedules will cover those items for almost any kind of loss, anywhere in the world. Scheduling any commonly worn jewelry is a far superior and affordable way to protect it. And it’s not just jewelry that can benefit from this extra protection. Cameras, watches, musical instruments and much more can be scheduled.
Winter flood season is here! Flood insurance is not expensive. So why don’t you have it?
Still one of the most overlooked gaps in all homeowners policies, coverage for flood (water flowing in from the outside of the house) is specifically excluded from every homeowners insurance policy. To get coverage for flood damage, you must get a flood policy. The good news is that most homes in California qualify for preferred flood insurance rates which can give basic coverage for under $200.00/year.
For more information, see the previous article I wrote on flood insurance a couple of years back: Flood Insurance Article. If you are wondering how much flood insurance costs for your home, get an estimate from Floodsmart.gov.