FAQ
At our FAQ section, you can get answers to most frequently asked insurance questions!
The amount that you should buy depends on your needs. Some people buy life insurance policy to pay off mortgage loans after their demise, some do to pay off their childrens’ college education dues and still others buy an amount for multiple reasons. You can calculate the amount you should buy based on your needs here.
Full glass coverage is an additional physical damage coverage which can be bought on a personal or business auto policy.
However, full glass coverage often needs to be purchased in conjunction with comprehensive coverage. Full glass coverage adds glass breakage or shattering as an additional named peril to the policy.
This implies that you have coverage in the event that a rock gets kicked up off the road and it breaks your windshield and in a lot of cases, you pay no deductible. Full glass coverage however, does not cover mirrors in most policies.
There are cases where it makes more sense to have an Actual Cash Value policy versus a Replacement Cost policy. Many contractors who can do most replacements themselves or who have bought a building at a cheap price and are not interested in rebuilding upon a total loss may not opt for a Replacement Cost policy.
At the end of the day, you have to do the costs and benefits analysis for each type of policy.
There’s two ways that partial loss insurance claims are valued:
1. Replacement Cost
2. Actual Cash Value
If the partial loss is valued at Replacement Cost, you get new for old, like kind and quality in today’s dollars.
On the other hand, if it is valued at Actual Cash Value, there is going to be depreciation taken out among other things.
When you sign an application with a new homeowners insurance carrier, they have 60 days to assess the house and determine if they would continue on the policy. If you have filled out your insurance application properly, this is rarely a problem.
However, within that 60 day period, a homeowners insurance carrier can cancel your coverage if they like.
After this time period has passed, they cannot cancel your policy until renewal no matter how many claims you have. But if you do have multiple claims, the carrier can cancel your coverage at renewal.
According to the FTC, based on a number of studies on credit score and insurance premiums, there is a direct correlation between credit score and an individual’s propensity to get into severe car accidents as well as cancelations due to nonpayment.
For such reasons, insurance companies count their clients’ credit scores as a factor in determining their premium. 46 out of the 50 states in the United States allow insurance companies to evaluate their clients’ credit score when determining their auto insurance and home insurance premiums.
Theft coverage for jewelry is included for most homeowners and renters policies. However, the coverage included on an unendorsed homeowners or renters policy can be very limited.
If you want to get a piece of jewelry covered for it’s true value then you need to do one of two things:
- Specifically schedule the piece of jewelry onto your homeowners or renters policy.
- Buy a separate inland marine policy for that piece of jewelry.
In both cases you will need to get the jewelry appraised and give the appraisal to your insurance professional.
There’s two types of business insurance policies:
– Auditable
– NON-Auditable
If you have an Auditable Policy, the insurance provider will get in touch with you ever year to get updated on whatever factors there are that they used to rate your policy (i.e. payroll, sales, square footage).
A waiver of subrogation, essentially, is an endorsement to your business insurance policy that relinquishes the right of YOUR insurance carrier to go after the insurance carrier of any third party you do business with.
You see this kind of deal happen frequently for Contractors. Big organizations hiring you as a contractor may want a waiver of subrogation in case they do something that affects your work in a way that requires a claim.
It is a “cost of doing business” kind of endorsement in many instances. But you have to understand that you are giving away rights if you add this endorsement to your policy.
Hired and non-owned auto liability insurance is a kind of coverage found mostly on business auto policy or business owners policies (BOP).
The coverage provides safety for the business in the event that an employee gets into an at-fault auto accident while driving their own personal vehicle or any other vehicle not owned, or a rented vehicle during the course of performing their work related duties.
Universal life insurance and whole life insurance are both permanent life insurance products. However, the two are distinct in that whole life insurance is a much safer product because most whole life policies have a guaranteed premium which gets you a fixed death benefit and cash value that grows at a fixed and guaranteed rate. However you will pay more for whole life and you are restricted in when you cash in the cash value.
Universal life insurance on the other hand, is much more flexible. You can increase or decrease the death benefit. You also have more liberty in paying your premium (subject to certain limits) in that there is no fixed installment amount as well as time. However, a downside is that the interest in the cash value account grows at an amount that is subject to market conditions (there is usually a guaranteed minimum though). You can actually decide to not make payments if you have sufficient cash value in which to draw off.
Long-term disability insurance safeguards you and your family from lost income in the unfortunate event of you getting injured and unable to work.
With a standard long-term disability policy, you get 60% of your income at an age that you determine. Most common age happens to be roughly 65 years.
Coinsurance refers to the splitting or risk to multiple .
If coinsurance is listed in the coverages of your health insurance policy the coinsurance percentage listed is the percent of the benefit expense which you the insured is responsible for.
The common coinsurance percentages seen on a health insurance policy are 10% or 20%.
If you have 10% coinsurance and $100 health bill. You as the insured owe $10. On most policies it’s that simple.