Surprise Insurance Agent

Are you in a HOA?   If so this is very important to you!!!! There was a case in Nevada that a HOA was sued in court and lost a 20 million dollar lawsuit.   What happened was a kid was sitting on a swing set.   The top bar came loose and struck the kid in the head causing great injury.   Here is a link to the news video below. A typical insurance policy for a HOA is 1 million dollars and there is a policy to cover director and officers for 1 million.   In order for the HOA to pay off the rest of the settlement they would need to assess the homeowners of the association to cover the remaining amount of the lawsuit. The question becomes this.   How can a home owner protect themselves from similar situations?   1.      Make sure to be involved in your HOA. 2.      Make sure the community has voted in competent board members. 3.      Keep an eye out in the community of potential safety hazards.    4.      Make sure you have “Loss Assessment Coverage” on your ho

I’m an honest person so there’s no way that I would commit insurance fraud!!!!  That’s how most of us feel.  I know most people are honest and they wouldn’t think of doing something like insurance fraud.  Insurance fraud cost consumers about $40 billion a year according to FBI statistics .  That cost to every family in the U.S. $400 - $700 a year.  There are two types of fraud.  One is called hard insurance fraud and the other is soft insurance fraud.  Hard insurance fraud is committed by people that scheme against the insurance company for profit.  Some examples of this would be. 1.       Someone that files a theft claim and declare items stolen that weren’t. 2.       Setting fire to a vehicle to get the full payout.  3.       Someone that fakes an injury to be able to not work and get paid. 4.       Agent takes money for a policy but never issues the policy. 5.       Stage an accident to collect medical payments. Soft fraud is more common and people do it wit

One of the most overlooked, but probably the most important coverage on your auto insurance is the UM/UIM coverage.   Why is it important?   UM/UIM coverage goes to cover your medical bills, rehabilitation, and loss of work if someone injures you in an auto accident and they don’t have insurance or enough liability insurance to cover your bills.     In AZ it is estimated that 12% of the people driving on the streets don’t have auto insurance according to an  insurancejournal.com report.   That is about the same as the national average.   On top of that there are a lot of people driving around with state minimum coverage or one step above state minimum.   If there is a major accident this coverage isn’t going to cover everything.         Just to give an example this story from azfamily.com is about a teacher whose son was hit in an auto accident.   He has had to stay in the hospital for a while and the medical bills, rehabilitation, and loss of work is going to get very expe

Congratulations to the High School Graduates!!!!!   It’s that time of year that every high school is having their graduation ceremonies.   It’s an exciting time that the end of the year and primary schooling is done.   For some it is the beginning of their college years.   Not all kids and parents can afford to pay for the college up front.   Some have to take out student loans to fund their child’s college education.   Below are some thoughts as students prepare themselves this summer to attend college.          Life Insurance   Students for the most part are not in a position of having someone dependent on them.  But it’s a good idea to have some sort of life insurance for the following reasons.  1.       Any student loan that the parent co-signs could be a debt that would have to be paid in case of the death of the student. 2.       Having money for burial expenses in case of the death of the student.  3.       This will