8 of the Worst Camp Safety Mistakes

 

Venturing out into nature to experience the great variety of available camping activities has long been popular and, with spring here and summer on the way, the time to start making plans is now.  While some folks might be impulsive in deciding to go camping, there's something to be said about being properly prepared.  Like every Boy Scout learns, "Be Prepared" are words to live by to help avoid common camp safety mistakes.

The Worst Camp Safety Mistakes

In no particular order, following are some of the worst camp safety mistakes:

• Failure to complete some minimal pre-planning for your trip could be a big mistake.  Use a written checklist to help keep organized.  This should be checked and double-checked before leaving home for your camping trip.
• Failing to protect yourself from wild animals while camping or hiking can be the cause of inconvenience, injury or even death.  It's important to know what type of wildlife frequents the area you're planning to visit to take precautions to deter visits from critters and to protect yourself and your family.  Click here to find out more.

Bears in the Wild

Besides potential visits from small animals such as raccoons, possums or skunks, bears can be a real problem in some camping areas, especially if you're not in an established campground.  It's a mistake not to know how to deter bears from invading your campsite ore, if they do, how to react to them.  Bears coming into your camp are there for one reason - they want food (and human beings are not their preferred or typical food).  Consider these important tips:

1. Your food should be stored and cooked at least 100 yards away from where you'll be sleeping.
2. Food should not be kept in your tent.
3. Don't bed down in the same clothes you wore while cooking.
4. Food should be kept in airtight containers and a locking cooler.  These can be tied with rope and hoisted up a pole or a tree, at least seven feet from ground level.  As an alternative, lock food in your car trunk. 
5. Bears are attracted to garbage.  Put yours in doubled plastic bags and store in your car trunk.
6. If you meet a bear out on the trail don't make eye contact.  Speak in a low, calm voice while backing up.  Don't turn your back on a bear or run away.  Spray with bear repellent spray.

How To Choose an Insurance Company

 

Buying insurance can be a potentially overwhelming experience due to the vast number of confusing definitions, conditions, exclusions and coverages involved.  On top of this, you want to choose an insurance company that's well-regarded in the industry, financially strong, with a good claims history and top reviews from clients with whom they've done business.  Here's a breakdown of several factors to consider when you're trying to choose an insurance company:

• Understand the difference between an independent insurance agent or broker and an insurance company agent.  An independent agent likely has access to policies from numerous different insurance providers.  While an insurance company agent can only write policies from his or her own company, the independent agent can write whatever policy is best suited to your particular insurance needs.  To make matters even simpler, an independent will do the research and legwork to find the best choices and then provide you with multiple options to consider.
• When considering a particular insurer, research their history and look into their reputation.  How long have they been in business?  What products do they offer and in what states are they sold?  What can be said about their company leadership and community involvement?  What are their professed vision and values?
• Assess the financial strength of a company you're considering and don't accept any insurance offer from a firm with less than an "A" (excellent) rating.  A.M. Best is the #1 independent insurance company rating-company in the U.S., but you can find several others here.
• Choose an insurance company that sells the type of insurance coverage you need.  Many companies give discounts for customers who carry multiple policies (e.g., homeowners, life, vehicle) with them, so check into this.  Check for all other discounts.
• While price is an important consideration for most people when they choose an insurance company, it shouldn't be the only consideration.  A lower price may mean a lower level of coverage, so always compare apples to apples.  Keep in mind the old axiom that you get what you pay for.  There may be a number of reasons for the price differences between different companies.  One may be because the lower priced is new to the market, which may mean it's lacking in experience.

Get with a trusted broker and explore the companies and coverages available.  Seek professional guidance and utilize their ability to uncover the best protection at the fairest price available.

Car Insurance: Teen Driver Discounts

 

As the parent of a teenage driver, you're not only becoming aware of how quickly your son or daughter is growing up to be an adult but also seeing the looming cost involved with teen driver insurance.  Fortunately, help is available.  Read on to learn about teen driver discounts and other ways to save money when insuring your teen driver.

Why Teens Are So Expensive to Insure

The reason teen drivers are more expensive to insure than drivers 25 years and older is because they represent a higher claims risk to insurers.  This may be due to:

• Their inexperience
• Their likelihood to speed, drive after drinking and not use seatbelts, causing them to have more accidents and submit more claims

Money-Saving Teen Driver Insurance Tips

Consider these teen driver insurance tips:

• As with the purchase of any insurance, experts agree that the number one rule before buying is to shop around.  Best advice is to obtain at least three price quotes from different providers.  The easiest way to do this is to utilize the services of a quality insurance broker with access to numerous different insurance companies.  They'll do the legwork and then present you with a number of options for the coverage best suited to your particular needs.  In this case, you'll want quotes from companies that specialize in teen driver's insurance
• While adding a teen driver to your existing car insurance coverage will add significantly to your current coverage costs, it's still less expensive than having your teen obtain their own, separate policy.  Having your teen complete a safe teen driving program or other defensive driving course can help lower the cost of your insurance policy
• Other valuable teen driver discounts offered by many vehicle insurance companies include a good student discount for students maintaining a "B" average (3.0 GPA) or higher at school.  This particular discount can often mean 10-15% off of coverage costs.  Add to this a distant student discount and a low mileage discount

The Advantage of Telematics

Some insurers offer installation of a small telematics device into your teen's car so you can monitor their driving behavior.  Positive results of driving habits may bring a driving insurance discount.  A telematics device can keep track of number of miles driven, speeds driven, times driven and number of hard brake applications.  Knowing they're being monitored in itself may prove to make your teen a safe driver.

How to Know If You Are Underinsured

 

You buy insurance primarily for the purpose of protecting yourself and your family against certain losses from which you would otherwise be helpless to handle financially.  For example:

• Life insurance protects the financial future of the loved ones that depend on your income, so their standard of living can continue at a similar level in the event of your untimely death.
• Auto insurance protects you from losses associated with liability suits if you're held responsible for causing injury, death or property damage to a third-party with your vehicle.  You can also insure against damage or destruction to your vehicle, personal injuries and more.
• Homeowner's insurance provides a long list of protections for what is likely to be your most valuable asset, your home.  If your home is damages or destroyed as a result of any of the perils listed within you insurance policy, the insurer is responsible for helping you deal with the financial costs.

Life Insurance 

Since life insurance is meant to help replace your income should you die prematurely, you're underinsured if the death benefit of your policy falls short of taking care of such things as:

• The income your now provide
• Debts/financial liabilities your have incurred, including your home mortgage
• End of life expenses
• Higher education expenses for your children

Auto Insurance

Almost every state requires a minimum amount of liability coverage for every vehicle driven on public roads but these minimums are woefully inadequate.  In North Carolina, for example, you're required to have liability insurance of $30K per person (bodily injury),  $60K per accident (bodily injury) and $25K for damage to a third-party's property.

An accident for which you're held liable could incur costs many times these minimum amounts and any amount above your policy limits would fall directly to you for payment.  One serious accident could ruin you financially for life.  Unless your auto liability coverage is many times higher than the minimum required, you are underinsured.  For best coverage, look into purchasing an umbrella policy.

Homeowner's Insurance

The worst case scenario for the company insuring your home is if it becomes totally destroyed by something like a house fire or a tornado.  If your insurance policy would pay 90% or less of the cost to completely rebuild your home, you are underinsured.  This includes using the same or similar materials and replacing everything in your home.  Homeowner's coverage should be rechecked every year or two.

What Drives Auto Insurance Rates Up?

 

Many of our clients are noticing that their Greensboro auto insurance rates continue to increase year over year and they're wondering why.  There are a number of answers to this question and they can be divided into two sections:

1.  Rate increases affecting everyone
2.  Rate increases specifically affecting you

Everyone's Coverage Rates Going Up

The auto insurance business is highly competitive and many auto insurance companies are struggling to stay profitable in these days of unusually high claims payments.  This has caused insurance rates to spiral upwards during the past several years.  This affects your Greensboro auto insurance rates as well as rates with companies all across the country.

Like any other business, an auto insurance company must stay profitable in order to remain in business.  They make money in two ways:  by collecting premium dollars from their policyholders and by putting these collected funds into profitable investments.  These funds are then used to pay out claims and to cover employee salaries and other administrative costs.  When claims payments going out surpass premiums coming in, a phenomena that's known as underwriting loss, premium costs must be increased in order to make ends meet.   There are some definite reasons why claims have risen so much recently.  Consider this:  

In the past several years, eight out of the ten largest auto insurance companies in the U.S. have reported losing money in their policy underwriting efforts.  In other words, they've paid out more in claims than they've collected in premiums.  Reasons for this include:

• A record number of disasters occurred in 2018-2019, including wildfires, hurricanes, floods and more.  These disasters not only negatively affected home insurance companies but also those companies insuring automobiles.  An inordinate number of claims were made on vehicles that burned, suffered flood damage or were damaged in tornadoes.
• An increase in distracted-driving accidents, mostly attributed to cell phone use, have been occurring lately.  Millions of crashes are blamed on distracted driving, causing insurers to raise rates.
• Expensive technology added to newer vehicles have made repairs more costly.  What used to be a simple rear bumper repair, for example, now includes repair of rearview video cameras, now required on all new cars sold in the U.S.

Rate increases affecting you individually may result from:

• Too many claims filed
• Adding a teen driver to your policy
• Moving to a higher crime/higher accident-prone area
• Too many moving violations
• You've turned 70 years old

Life Insurance: What Happens If There Are Co-Beneficiaries?

 

The purchase of life insurance is a common financial planning tactic for North Carolina families, providing financial protection for survivors when the family breadwinner has passed.  Your Greensboro life insurance coverage is something that can mean a world of difference to as husband or wife left behind as well as to children who may require financial support until they're able to support themselves.

A primary purpose of life insurance, whether it's whole life, term life or universal life, is to allow the beneficiary or beneficiaries to have continued financial support after they have lost the person who was previously providing that financial stability.  

The benefit received from a life insurance payout may be used wherever it's needed, whether that means paying off outstanding loans such as a home mortgage or taking care of funeral expenses.  As a father of small children, you may be taking out a Greensboro life insurance policy to ensure that, should you pass away unexpectedly, your family may continue living in a fashion to which they've become accustomed and have the funds needed to send the kids to college.

Beneficiaries

Part of taking out a life insurance policy is choosing and naming a beneficiary or beneficiaries.  This could be: 

• A person or persons
• Your estate 
• A charity
• A trust
• A business (as in key person life insurance)

The beneficiary is the person, persons or entity that will receive the proceeds of your life insurance policy when you pass.

There are two types of beneficiary designations:

Primary beneficiary - the person, persons or entity that will receive the proceeds of your life insurance policy at the death of the policyholder

Contingent (or secondary) beneficiary - only entitled to receive proceeds from the policy if the primary beneficiary dies before the policyholder

Multiple Beneficiaries

You may name more than one primary beneficiary if desired, in which case they will receive either equal portions or a stated specific percentage of the death benefit when you pass.  There are two ways to select multiple beneficiaries:

Per Stirpes - beneficiaries are designated by lineage, with policy proceeds being equally divided among beneficiaries and/or their surviving children

Per Capita - policy proceeds are equally divided among all beneficiary survivors.  Click here for a more detailed explanation of Per Stirpes and Per Capita designations.

If a beneficiary dies before the policyholder, he or she must be renamed as soon as possible.

What Can You Do to Reduce Homeowners Insurance Costs?

 

Saving money on expenses has universal appeal, especially when you can save on something you're required to purchase.  Statistics show that approximately 95% of all homeowners in North Carolina maintain homeowners insurance coverage, so ways to reduce homeowners insurance costs should be widely welcomed.  We'll present you with a comprehensive list of tips for reducing your home insurance costs starting today.  Choose your Greensboro homeowners insurance policy with the goal of getting the best for the least.  Try these tips:

Seven Ways to Save on Your Greensboro Homeowners Insurance Coverage

1.  Most experts agree that the first and most important tip for saving on any insurance policy is to shop around.  It's recommended that you obtain no less than three quotes from companies rated highly for service and financial stability.  Consult A. M. Best and/or Standard & Poor's for this information.  Consider using an insurance broker who has access and insight into multiple providers.  Price is important but other factors such as service and stability should also figure in.  Shop around when buying a new Greensboro homeowners insurance policy or when renewing your existing coverage. 

2.  An immediate reduction in your homeowners insurance rate can be obtained by simply raising your deductible amount.  Insurance companies typically recommend a deductible of $500, which is the amount you're required to pay our of pocket when you make a valid claim.  Higher deductibles mean lower premiums and raising your deductible from $500 to $1000 could save you as much as 20% on your policy cost, depending on your insurer.

3.  When deciding how much home insurance to buy, don't include the value of the land your house sits on.  Land isn't subject to the same perils as your home and other structures on your property.  Also, calculate how much coverage you need by the cost it would take to rebuild your home rather than its current market value.

4.  Bundling a variety of policies such as homeowners, auto and umbrella all with one insurer can save you as much as 15% on these policies.

5.  Improving your home's security with smoke detectors, burglar alarms and deadbolt locks can save you 5% or more on your home policy.

6.  Most insurers offer a variety of discounts for which you may qualify.  Often, however, you won't know about these unless you ask.

7.  Review policy limits for your personal property coverage to make sure you're not paying for coverage you don't need.