Morning Blend – Insuring Your Valuables

Bob:
This morning on the Blend, we have Pat Brown back with us, President of the Holt and Diamondale Insurance Agency. Welcome back.

Pat:
Good morning and thanks for having me here again.

Bob:
Absolutely. Well, you know, the holidays are here.

Pat:
They are.

Bob:
And so I’m wondering if you can tell us some important proactive insurance tips that we need to think about during this special time of year.

Pat:
We do. We purchase a lot of expensive gifts at this time of the year. And what we need to think about is the insurance, the jewelry, the computers for the children that are away at college. It’s expensive. The bikes, the guns, the things that we purchase,

Bob:
The iPhones.

Pat:
The iPhone. Exactly. That’s another one. And, and okay, well we’ve bought them, we’ve wrapped them. But we forget about insuring them. Uh, and for the guys that, you know, get the jewelry, a great thing to do is take that receipt to your insurance agent insurance specifically because you get a better range of coverages for that value that you purchased that item for. So the idea of, of insure it now, because after the holidays you won’t think about it until something happens and then it’s, you know what, I just bought this for Christmas and it cost me this…so how much money do I get? Well, your regular policy has limits. And by insuring those items specifically, you get, you get a better deal.

Bob:
So you should have your insurance agent’s number on the quick dial.

Pat:
Exactly. You got that right.

Bob:
Whenever you go out, you call them.

Pat:
There you go.

Bob:
Can, can my insurance carrier remove coverages from my policy for too many small claims though?

Pat:
Let’s take, now we’re going to start having snow. Right. Okay. Road service bills…My car won’t start. My car won’t start. Get pulled out of the ditch, you know, and I’ve had seven, eight, nine of them in a row per month and insurance company says, Yep, they’re, they’re minor, but you know what? They’re a nuisance and they’re going to cost you. You know, we may take that road service off of it because the risk, not great, but you know, it’s tells us about your car. Maybe it’s not a as good maintenance part of it. So we might take that up or, or repetitive windshield claims. Maybe put a higher deductible on it. So there are some things they can adjust. They might not take it all away, but again, some of those nuisance claims might be ones you want to take care of yourself.

Bob:
Real quick. I know that there’s a lot of scooters around like the lime, the bird and all those, do those affect my insurance coverage at all?

Pat:
Not yours, but they could have an insurance play on you. It’s like a person, a pedestrian. If you’re hit on one of those, it’s not like a vehicle because you’re not on the road, so that injured person who’s on there might be able to collect under your insurance.

Bob:
Okay. Holt & Diamondale Agency. We’ve got your information on the screen, holtanddimondaleagency.com…Pat, always great to have you.