INSURANCE
PERSONAL COVERAGE
Home insurance does what it says it does: it insures your home, whether that is your apartment, your condominium or your house.
The biggest question with home insurance is how much do you need? Well, keep in mind that you aren’t just insuring the structure (and in the case of a condo, you aren’t insuring the structure at all), but you are also insuring the contents of your home.
Surprisingly, many people will find that they may actually need more insurance for contents than they need for the structure, especially if they have expensive belongings like antiques, high-quality jewellery, high-end electronics or other costly personal belongings. In the case of a disaster, the whole-scale replacement of those contents can be a significant cost - and much more than most people expect. It's a critical area where people underestimate their needs particularly with regards to the replacement value of their goods.
In addition to covering your home and contents, home insurance also provides liability coverage in case someone is hurt on your property. In a litigious world, it pays to have liability coverage. Government does not mandate it, but you should have it. Such liability insurance will cover you if someone is hurt on your property or in your home. If you live in parts of the country where you have winter ice and snow, you probably know how easy it is to slip and fall on a walkway or set of stairs. Liability covers you in just such a case. Do keep in mind that liability covers you for visitors to your home. You should check your policy to see if it also covers family members or those living in the home, if they have an accident on the property.
COMMERCIAL COVERAGE
With business insurance, your concerns are really three-fold:
Protect your business assets against damage or theft.
Protect yourself against liability claims from your clientele.
Protect yourself from employees (if you have any) who may have a legitimate claim for at work injury against you.
If you have your own business, you should be thinking about business insurance. It’s not just for a big business - it can be for your home business.
Let’s start first with the home business scenario. With a home business, one of the biggest issues is to protect your home business equipment. Often, this will mean insurance on your technology (computers or other equipment) and business assets (like your fax machine). If you run your business from home, you may think these items are covered. However, a standard home insurance policy will not always give you enough protection for expensive assets like computer equipment or specialized machinery.
The answer can be a homeowner's endorsement for your equipment. This allows you to simply add to your existing homeowner’s policy, rather than having to negotiate a completely new policy specifically for your business. Be sure to check the details if you take this approach. You’ll want to be sure that your business is covered properly, even if you are taking advantage of your homeowner’s policy.
What if you have employees? Again, an endorsement to a homeowner’s policy is not a possibility. Once you need business liability and employee liability, you will need your own separate policies.
If you need to consider more comprehensive insurance for your business, you are likely looking at a Business Owners Policy (BOP).
FARM COVERAGE
Crop farming is a business and because of the dependence on weather and other factors, it is a very risky business. There are a variety of insurance coverages available to farmers, but Multi Peril Crop Insurance is designed to protect farmers against the risks of crop failures by protecting a percentage of the farmer's anticipated yields. Multi-Peril Crop Insurance (MPCI) covers most of the crops grown in the county and the farmer chooses the level of coverage. USDA subsidizes crop Insurance Premiums so the costs are not prohibitive. The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation administers the MPCI program so the coverages available will be the same from agency to agency.
Hail insurance is also available during certain times of the year. There are a wide variety of policies available with many deductibles and rates are determined by the crop being grown and the township and range where the crop is located.
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