Often we leave for vacation, whether its during the holidays or during summer months, and we worry about the safety of our home and belongings. Over the years of handling claims at our agency, we have come up with a few helpful hints that will hopefully give you peace of mind as you are away.

Every home should have a main cut off valve for water coming into your home. Many claims from water damage result from a washing machine, dishwasher, water heater line breaking and causing a continuous flood until you come home. Hours if not days go by as the water continues to cause damage to your home and belongings. Damage can be minimized by turning off the main water valve and preventing anymore than a little water in the line from leaking onto your floors or carpet. If a line were to break or come lose, it will only drain out the water in the line rather than having a continuous flow of water being sent through the line and onto your floors.

Put a timer on your lights. Nothing says, “you’re not home,” like a dark house that is silent for days at a time. Timers can be programed to turn lights on at different times. Set up two or more low wattage lights and give the appearance that someone is still living in the home. Leaving lights on at all doors is also a good idea. If you can put a timer on these lights, it is best so they do not burn during the daytime. Back doors, side doors, sliding glass doors, are all easy marks for a thief in the dark.

Have a friend or neighbor come over and check on the house. Most neighbors do not mind coming over every other day and checking on your home. Making sure doors are locked and nothing has happened like a busted water heater. A house being “cased” by a thief will shy away when they see people using the house or visiting the home. While they are there, have your neighbor move your car in the driveway. Lets charge the battery and give the appearance someone has used that idle car in the driveway.

Stop the press!!! The only thing a stack of newspapers in the driveway tells a thief is that nobody has been home for days! If you do not have a neighbor that can help, at least call the the newspaper and have them stop delivery.  Speaking of delivery… avoid ordering anything that the delivery company will just leave on your doorstep. If a package is delivered, have your neighbor put it inside the house out of site or let the sender know not to send it until you are home again.

Unplug unplug unplug! When you are home and a thunderstorm hits, it is always a good idea to unplug your electronics. When you leave your home for an extended period of time, unplug tv’s, computers, modems, routers, stereos. Not only are they using useless electricity, if lightening strikes, you lose all your valuable electronics and are stuck paying a deductible and filing a claim.

There are many other great safety tips on the web to securing your home when you go on vacation. Please let us know if you have any suggestions. Something you do to your home when you leave that might help others. Perhaps you have a claim experience that you could share with us.

As always, please consult your insurance agent about any questions you have about coverage. Often there are limitations when it comes to theft on certain items, so it is a good idea to know what these limitations are before you have a claim. Most of all, try to prevent a claim from happening. Many of us carry higher deductibles now and that is not money out of pocket you really want to spend.

If you need insurance coverage or advice, please call our office at 843-881-2886. We are happy to help you with all of your insurance needs.

Philip L. Bradley is the CEO The East Cooper Insurance Agency in Charleston, SC. He is licensed in SC for Property and Casualty, Life and Health insurance. He is also a Personal Financial Representative.

www.insuranceofcharleston.com

Please consult your personal insurance agent, financial adviser and legal adviser before making any decisions regarding your personal financial or insurance situation.

Does the idea of being involved in a lawsuit scare you? In today’s world, you must protect your assets to the best of your ability and affordability. Buying enough liability coverage to cover your families assets is key to having your wealth insulated the best you can. A Personal Umbrella Protection policy, (PUP,) can help you achieve this overall liability protection.

Imagine you have a friend over to your home, they slip and fall? Imagine your neighbor’s child comes through your unlocked gate and falls in the pool and drowns? What if you are pushing your shopping cart through the grocery store and accidentally hit an elderly lady who falls and breaks a hip? What happens if you are on a hunting trip and accidentally catch a person in cross fire? (remember Vice President Cheney?)  Many other examples exist, but the most common example you probably believe you already have covered. What happens if you are involved in an auto accident that the damages exceed the coverage on your auto policy? What happens then? Typically, these scenarios are going to involve excess liability insurance under a PUP policy if you have it. After the homeowners or auto insurance liability coverage is depleted, then the PUP policy would “kick in” for the remainder of the damages and up to the limit of the PUP policy.

Since this coverage is an “umbrella” over your other underlying coverages on your home, auto, boat, RV, Jetski etc., you will be required by most companies to have those underlying policies under their care. If a company is going to give you “overall” protection, they want to be, and you want them to be, the company that provides the “underlying” protection as well. Often the company will require you to have higher limits of liability on the underlying policies. For example, on the homeowners insurance policy, you maybe required to increase the minimum $100,000 in liability protection to $300,000 or more.

Typically, these type of lawsuits come as a result of negligence on the part of you or one of your resident family members defined in the policy terms. Yes, this will even cover your teenager who is accused of libel or slander and ends up in a lawsuit. But, if you or your teenager is caught in the commission of a crime, the PUP policy offers no coverage. Repeat: There is no coverage for criminal activity of any kind.

The PUP policy usually comes in the amount of at least 1 million dollars. Some companies offer higher limits usually in increments of 1 million dollars. Determining how much coverage you need is a conversation you need to have with your personal insurance agent. They will be able to help you determine the proper amount of coverage based on the risk you have and the assets you wish to protect. Someone who has more than 1 car, a pool, a boat,  jetski’s, a trampoline,  carpools other kids, or even is a volunteer should probably have higher limits of coverage offered by a PUP.

The good news is a Personal Umbrella Policy typically is not  an expensive policy to purchase.  Consult your agent and find out if you meet your companies requirements to buy a policy. Then evaluate how much you need. As always, if you need help or advice, please call The East Cooper Insurance Agency in Charleston SC for help. We have agents that are 100% dedicated to client services and helping you understand the products we sell and you are buying.

Another worthy article on this subject can be found at http://personalinsure.about.com/cs/umbrella/a/aa110503a.htm

Philip L. Bradley is the CEO The East Cooper Insurance Agency in Charleston, SC. He is licensed in SC for Property and Casualty, Life and Health. He is also a Personal Financial Representative.

www.insuranceofcharleston.com

Please consult your personal insurance agent, financial adviser and legal adviser before making any decisions regarding your personal financial or insurance situation.

How many times have you opened your renewal letter of your homeowners or renters insurance policy and second guessed the amount of content coverage you have on your policy? Better yet, you had no clue how much “stuff” you really have and its value. Why not make January the month to document your valuables.

Documenting your contents is essential to knowing you are protecting your valuables to the full extent on your homeowners/renters insurance. What is the point in having this coverage if it does not completely cover your cost to replace your valuables in case of a fire, hurricane or other peril.

Going through a process of writing down your contents on a note pad is one way to accomplish this. Detailing the item and the approximate cost to you and when you bought it. You may even want to go through this process room by room so you know which room the item was located. Do not forget the small items too. Often we overlook the valuable “nick nack” on the shelf or something hidden in a drawer. Most people find the notepad system a bit tedious and less likely of an exercise to be done again, but better than nothing at all. Make sure you keep 2 copies of this list. One at home to take with you in case of an emergency and another copy at a different location. If your house burns or is damaged and the only copy is in the damaged home, you may not be able to recover it.

Most people find the documenting of contents easily accomplished by video taping their home. This gives incredible details of not just contents, but type of molding you have in the house, paint, cabinet work, floors etc. The more you document on video, the more quickly an adjuster will be able to settle a claim.  While documenting on video, you may want to talk about items, mentioning where and when you bought it, and how much you paid for it. Be sure to pull out valuable jewelry, guns, antiques, things in drawers and closets. You should also go into the garage and around the outside of the house.  Again, keeping a copy of this video is important, but make sure one copy is at another location. Don’t forget, any item with a high dollar figure, be sure to save the receipt in a receipt file. It is also recommended that jewelry, art, guns, antiques etc, should be appraised and scheduled on your policy. “Scheduling” is an additional rider insuring that one particular item for its full value based on a receipt or appraisal. Often items like jewelry and guns have a theft peril limitation. So be sure to check with your agent about items you should “schedule.”

Often in Charleston we are faced with hurricane risk. The time to document your contents is not during a hurricane warning. Do this now! Make this your new year resolution for 2009 to have documentation of contents done before the end of January. We suggest you update this as you buy new things, change furniture etc.. but make a point of doing this at least once a year.

If you have further questions about documenting contents, call The East Cooper Insurance Agency and we can help you further.

Philip L. Bradley, agent and CEO of The East Cooper Insurance Agency in Charleston, SC.  For more information please contact our office at 843-881-2886 or 888-375-7108.

As always, Please consult your own agent or legal advisor before making any financial or insurance decision.

Unfortunately, the most festive time of year is also a prime time for crime. Your home is a target of criminals who are looking for an easy way to take things of value from you and make money during the holidays. Often your valuable will end up in a pawn shop either locally or in another state.  The criminals who break into homes are often very clever leaving very little clues as to who they were and how they picked you as their victim.  But there are a few things you can do to prevent your home from being the one in six homes in America that get broken into annually.

- Invest in an alarm system. Although not full proof, an alarm can be a big deterent to a thief targeting your house. It would be much easier to successfully hit a home without an alarm system. Often an alarm does not prevent the break in, but does limit the time the thief has to rummage through your valuables without getting caught. Some alarms are local and only set off an alert in the house. Some are connected to a monitoring center that can dispatch the police when they are set off.  In some cases, having an alarm system can give you a discount on your insurance policy. Check with your insurance agent to see if you qualify.

-Make sure all door and windows are secured. Probably nothing helps more in the security of a door than a dead bolt lock. All exterior doors in your home should have a dead bolt.  Many thieves will look for an unlocked window or door. With the mild winters here in Charleston, many of us leave our windows open on a nice day. How many times do we forget to lock those windows before leaving home?  Sliding glass doors are also a big target. Something as simple as a bar or rod inserted in the track of the door can add protection.

-Leave a light on in and outside of the house. Something as simple as a timer on a light when you leave your home adds protection. Outside lighting is also important. A lit area will deter a thief and give your neighbors better view of your home.  Try not to leave an exterior light on all day. Buy a timer for exterior lights that will turn them off during the daytime. An outside porch light left on 24/7 is a good sign someone is on vacation.

-Speaking of neighbor; nothing could be more helpful in preventing theft than to have an agreement with your neighbor to check in on one another’s home when one is away. Just have someone walk over to your house and check doors and show some activity around the house. If a thief is casing your house, he may move on if there is someone occasionally checking on it.

- Cancel your newspaper and hold the mail. One of the greatest signs someone is not home and on vacation is a stack of newspapers in the driveway. It takes a minute to cancel your newspaper delivery and can save your home from being a target. The post office also has yellow cards to hold mail delivery until you return. Pick up a few of these next time you are at the post office and when you go out of town, throw one in your mailbox to hold the mail.

-Trim the bushes. If you have trees or bushes near windows, you are only giving a thief a shielded area to work in. Cut back tall trees or bushes so that the window is visible to you and your neighbor. Don’t give the thief any cover to do his dirty work.

-Attention RENTERS! If you rent your items of value need to be covered under a renters insurance policy. This is usually not expensive coverage and can give you the protection you need. Your landlord is NOT respsonsible for your belongings if your house/apartment is broken into. Consult a local insurance agent in Charleston to get a renters insurance policy.

-Presents under the tree. If you insist on brightly wrapped presents under the tree, do fake boxes and not valuable presents. Hide the valuables and display the fakes. Although, it probably is best not to put presents (real or fake) out until the night before Christmas. Do not give a thief something to be tempted by, he may take it.

-Itemize and document your belongings. If you do become a vicitim of theft, you should have your valuables itemized. Often homeowners will video or take photos of their belongings. A photo of a room can document hundreds of items, but a detailed list is always best. Periodically taking a photo of a room or videoing your house can give you and the claims adjuster much to go on. Any one item of high value, rugs, jewelry, antiques, art, should be itemized on your insurance policy. Often items like this carry a limit on theft.  Check with your insurance agent to make sure all of your items are covered adequately.

There is no sure way to protect you and your family from crime during the holidays, but there are simple ways to help prevent it. Do not give a thief easy access to your valuables during this holiday time. Take one afternoon to come up with a list of things you can do to minmize your home’s weak spots. If you are planning to be gone for the holidays, make a list of things you will need to do to ready your home. Lastly, consult your insurance agent in Charleston about other coverage you might need specifically for your home and family.

Philip L. Bradley

Philip L. Bradley is a licensed insurance agent and personal financial representative in the state of South Carolina. He is the CEO of The East Cooper Insurance Agency in Mt. Pleasant, SC. 843-881-2886