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When you think of winter, do you immediately think of snow tires and protecting yourself from wet and icy roads? Most people do. But what about your home? Most people take great care winterizing their cars — tires, anti-freeze, wiper fluid, flashlights and blankets. How many give the same consideration to their houses? Poorly winterized homes can be a source of both property and liability claims unless they are brought up to par before the first snowflake falls.

Follow the winterizing hints below to make sure your coverage is adequate — just in case — and to minimize the risk of a wintertime claim:

WINTER INSURANCE CHECKLIST

• Is your Homeowners coverage sufficient? If your house was recently upgraded, maybe not.
• What about your vacation property? What if someone visits it in your absence and is injured? Do you have enough coverage for damage that might result while it is unattended all winter?
• What about your snowmobile? Some very powerful snowmobiles require insurance above and beyond what most homeowners think about.
• Taking a winter vacation that requires expensive items — jewelry for that trip to Europe, skis for Aspen? Be sure your personal property endorsements measure up.
• What about your college student? If he or she is renting off-campus, think about Liability insurance for that dwelling also, as well as all the winter hazards that apply to the family home.

Once you’ve got your insurance needs squared away, think about minimizing wintertime hassles, and avoiding needless claims that are easily prevented.

WINTERIZING CHECKLIST FOR YOUR HOME

• Remember your vacation home! Make sure all pipes are drained and the toilet empty so expanding ice cannot crack the porcelain.
• Check for dirty filters in all your heating systems; clean or replace filters before turning the systems on. Make sure your units have been professionally serviced. Consider installing both smoke and carbon monoxide alarms.
• Check your storm windows and doors before installing them. Cracked gaskets? Get them fixed. Cracked glass? Ditto.
• Remove or cover and seal window or through-the-wall air conditioners until spring.
• Check the sidewalk in front of your house and all walkways and handrails to make sure they are in good repair; maneuvering through winter is difficult enough without having to step gingerly on broken pavement or to remember not to grasp shaky handrails. Plus, having everything in good repair might help limit your liability in the event of a mishap.
• Make sure your snow blower and other snow removal equipment is in working order. Line up neighborhood help to clean your walks if you are unable to clear public sidewalks as soon as snow hits. Having cleared walkways will help ensure no one is seriously injured on your property by winter weather conditions.
• Check around windows and doors for cracks. Have a contractor repair cracks and gaps, or, if they’re small, fill them in with caulk.
• Before the first freeze, remove leaves, acorns, sticks and debris from gutters so heavy winter rains and snow melt off can flow freely and not damage your roof or walls. While you’re at it, you might install gutter guards to keep all that garbage from getting into the gutters next year.
• Survey your plantings. Trim trees if ice- or snow-covered branches would endanger any part of your house or cars. Consider the walkway, too, so pedestrians will not risk injury walking in front of your house during or after a storm.
• Check the insulation in attics, basements and crawl spaces. Too much heat escaping can cause ice and snow to melt too fast to be carried away efficiently. If the melt off seeps into the roofing, it can cause damage or collapse. If the insulation in your basement or crawl space is sufficient for your climate, you can also avoid the inconvenience and damage of frozen or burst pipes. In unfinished spaces with pipes running through them, such as garages, wrap the pipes with heating tape.
• During the winter, keep interiors at 65 degrees or more. Pipes run though the walls, which can be a lot colder than the air in the rooms. Letting indoor temperatures drop below 65 degrees could risk pipes freezing behind those walls.
• Learn where shut-off valves are for all plumbing. Include both the valves within each room and the main valve. If your pipes do freeze, the more quickly you turn off the water, the less chance of pipes bursting.

If you’re renting a house or apartment, Renters insurance can be one of the best investments you ever make. No one likes to think about it, but burglars might break in while you’re away and steal your computer, entertainment system, jewelry, and other items. Without Renters insurance, you will have thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs to replace the stolen items. By contrast, if you have Renters insurance, you will promptly receive a check that covers either the replacement costs for the stolen items or the current value of the items — depending on what type of insurance policy you’ve bought.

Perhaps you believe there is little risk of a burglary where you live. But what about fire? Fires strike randomly and can begin in electrical wiring over which you have no control. It’s horrifying to contemplate, but you could come home to find that everything you own has been destroyed. With Renters insurance you would have a check in hand quite soon to begin refurnishing your life.

Yet another scenario for which Renters insurance can be of enormous benefit is personal liability. If a guest is injured in your home, for example, by slipping on a throw rug, you could be liable for her medical bills. Renters insurance would cover this liability.

Sometimes renters mistakenly think their possessions are covered by their landlord’s insurance. This is seldom true. Usually, the landlord’s insurance covers loss or damage to his property, not yours. Your landlord’s insurance also covers his liability in case anyone is injured on the property, though not always injuries inside your apartment.

Most renters can get comprehensive coverage for $200 or less a year, depending on where they live. Considering the risks covered by Renters policies, this is a low cost for the potential benefits.

Before talking to an agent about Renters insurance, look around your house or apartment and take an inventory of items you would need to replace in the event of a catastrophe. Take note of high value or difficult to replace items such as antiques, furs, jewelry, or expensive art. Before you get a policy or immediately thereafter, you should record information on all your high value items, including details about the make, model, serial number, age, and costs (both purchase and current replacement). It might also help to have photos of these items for identification purposes.

A basic policy usually pays only for the actual cash value of your items at the time they were lost. In other words, they would be valued not at what you paid for them originally or what it would cost to replace them, but at their actual value as used items. So a three-year-old computer would be covered for its initial cost minus depreciation. Since computers depreciate quickly, yours may be worth little by the time it’s three years old, so your insurance proceeds will be limited.

If you have expensive items like electronics that are subject to depreciation, you probably should consider Replacement Cost coverage. With this type of policy, you would be reimbursed for the current cost of buying a new equivalent item. Thus, in our example of the $2,000 computer at 3-years-old, you would receive a check that would enable you to buy a new computer. Of course, replacement cost coverage is more expensive. It’s up to you to decide which type of coverage — Actual Value or Replacement Cost — best fits your needs and budget.

Like most other insurance policies, your Renters policy will have deductibles, that is, an amount of loss you will have to absorb yourself before receiving any money from the insurance company. For example, let’s say you have a policy with a $500 deductible. You have cameras you bought for $2,000 several years ago. If you have replacement cost coverage and the cameras are lost in a fire, you would receive a check for $1,500 from the insurance company. Of course, you can lower your insurance premium by accepting a higher deductible, but this means if there is a loss, you must absorb more of it from your own pocket.

Renters insurance usually doesn’t cover damage from floods or earthquakes, but you might be able to get endorsements for these and other “acts of God.” An endorsement extends the perils covered by your policy. Obviously, you must pay an extra premium for the extra coverage.

Be sure to discuss any special high value items, such as furs, antiques, or jewelry, with your insurance agent, since you might need extra coverage for these.

As mentioned, a basic Renters policy includes liability coverage should someone be injured in your rented home or apartment. As with Auto insurance, there is a per-incident limit on this coverage, and you should make sure this is high enough to protect your assets.

Do you have enough Liability insurance? If there were a vehicle accident for which you were at fault, and a child were permanently disabled, would your Auto Liability policy offer enough coverage to pay for the skilled care the child would need for years to come? If a young parent were killed in a freak fall on your property, would your insurance cover the support he would have provided his children as they grow up? We’d all like to believe that such catastrophic losses would happen only to other people. But there is nothing we can do to totally eliminate the risk of this type of event in our own lives.

Consider what would happen if there were a settlement (or judgment, if it goes to court) of $800,000 as a result of an auto accident for which you were liable. Let’s say you have insurance with a limit of $300,000 per accident. What would happen? The auto insurer would pay its $300,000. Then virtually everything you own would be fair game for seizure to pay off the additional $500,000, except for assets that might be protected in some states, such as your home. Furthermore, your earnings could be garnished for years to come. With stakes this high, and considering the relatively modest cost of additional liability coverage, it just makes sense for many people to purchase the added protection of an Umbrella policy.

An Umbrella policy is insurance that provides additional coverage once the liability limits on your Homeowners or Auto insurance policy are exhausted. Umbrella policies are typically sold with limits of $1 million to $10 million. In the example above, if you had a $1 million Umbrella policy, once you satisfied the deductible, the auto insurer would pay the auto policy limit of $300,000, and your Umbrella insurance would pay the other $500,000 of the $800,000 settlement or verdict. Your assets would not be at risk.

One myth about an Umbrella policy is that it’s only needed by the wealthy. These days the cumulative value of homes, vacation homes, rental property, cars, boats, savings, investments, and so on, owned by many people, who don’t consider themselves wealthy, make them vulnerable to liability beyond their Auto or Homeowners insurance limits. A good question to ask yourself is whether you have assets that you don’t want to put at risk in the event of a catastrophic liability.

Lifestyle also plays a role in determining liability risk. Do you have a swimming pool, trampoline, swing set, or other recreational equipment that can lead to accidents? Are there frequent guests on your property? Do you engage in sports that could injure others? Do you live in a wealthy town where you might be more of a target for a liability lawsuit?

How Much Do You Need?

People often reason that the amount of umbrella coverage they need should be the value of their assets, but this might not be adequate. If, for example, you have assets of $1 million and buy $1 million of coverage, what happens if you’re found liable for a $2 million judgment? Insurance would pay the first $1 million, plus the limit of the underlying Homeowners or Auto policy, but you could lose a significant amount of your assets for the second million. If you were found liable for $3 million, you could lose not only a significant portion of your assets, but you’d still owe $1 million. Both your future income and any inheritance you might receive would be jeopardized. Just how much coverage you need depends on all your risk factors, your own financial planning, and your tolerance for risk.

There is usually a substantial premium discount if you buy your Auto, Homeowners, and Umbrella policy all from the same company. Additionally, if you have a claim, you eliminate the potential problems of dealing with different insurance companies where each might be trying to shift payment responsibility to the other, leaving you caught in the middle.

The cost of an Umbrella policy depends on such criteria as the amount of coverage, the insurance company issuing the policy, and your own “personal risk factors” (such as the number of traffic tickets you’ve gotten in the past few years, and possibly your credit report). A $1 million policy often costs less than a dollar a day.

For some people another attractive feature of an Umbrella policy is that it provides coverages not found in their Homeowners or Auto policies. You are covered if you cause bodily injury, property damage, or personal injury. Generally, the types of personal injury covered include false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, defamation, invasion of privacy, wrongful entry, or eviction. Some Umbrella policies also provide coverage if you face liability arising from your service on the board of a civic, charitable, or religious organization.

Your insurance agent can help you decide whether an Umbrella policy makes sense for your life style and financial needs.

Trees are a wonderful addition to your home’s landscape, but they can also cause real problems if a heavy wind topples one, and it lands on your neighbor’s property and damages their home. Who is legally responsible for paying to repair that damage?

If you answered, “I am,” you would be wrong.

Your neighbor would have to submit a claim to their Homeowners policy insurer to pay for any necessary repairs. Wind and lightning are generally covered perils in a standard HO3 Homeowners policy, or they are included in a Homeowners All-Risk policy.

Since your carrier doesn’t have to pay, your policy won’t be impacted, which means your insurance premiums won’t increase. However, you still might not be off the hook for liability, because your neighbor might decide to sue you to cover their deductible.

Negligence Hurts
The only instance in which you would be required to pay for the damage to your neighbor’s property caused by your fallen tree is when the damage resulted from your negligence. You could be held liable if your tree was dying or already dead before it fell on your neighbor’s property, and you did nothing to prevent property damage.

In this case, your insurance carrier would have to cover the repairs. In addition, if your neighbor files a lawsuit against you alleging negligence, your insurer would be required to defend you and investigate the claim.

If you are found to be legally responsible for the damage to your neighbor’s house, your carrier will pay up to your policy limits. Your neighbor can also submit a liability claim against your Homeowners insurance policy.

Prevention Is Key
Of course, the best way to avoid a situation like this is to prevent it from happening. If you have a tree on your property that looks unhealthy, consider having it checked by an arborist and, if necessary, removed before it falls. It might seem like a large expense, but it could actually save you money in the long run by helping you avoid increased insurance premiums.

Equally as important, removing the possible risk of damage will help you maintain a good relationship with your neighbors. And as any homeowner knows, that is worth its weight in gold, especially if you plan to stay in your home for a while.

If you’re the parent of a teenager, you might have very mixed feelings about the day your teen gets a driver’s license. On the one hand, you’re proud that your teen has reached this milestone, but on the other hand, you’re worried about reckless driving and safety issues.

You have good reason to be concerned. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control, accounting for 36% of all deaths in this age group. In 2004, 4,767 teens ages 16 to 19 died due to motor vehicle crashes and during 2005, nearly 400,000 teens sustained nonfatal injuries serious enough to land them in the emergency room. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), per mile driven, teens are four times more likely than older drivers to crash. The Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.), together with the IIHS, advises parents of teenage drivers to do more than worry. They should take a proactive role in protecting their teens. This starts with selecting a safe vehicle:

• Avoid vehicles that encourage reckless driving. Teen drivers not only lack experience, they also lack maturity. As a result, speeding and reckless driving are common. Sports cars and other vehicles with high performance features, such as turbo charging, can encourage speeding. Choosing a vehicle with a more sedate image will reduce the chances your teen will be in a speed-related crash.

• Don’t let your teen drive an unstable vehicle. Sport utility vehicles are inherently less stable than cars because of their higher centers of gravity. Abrupt steering maneuvers — the kind that can occur when teens are fooling around or over-correcting a driver error — can cause rollovers where a more stable car would, at worst, skid or spin out.

• Pick a vehicle that offers good crash protection. Teenagers should drive vehicles that offer state-of-the-art protection in case they do crash. Review the IIHS and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration test results when selecting a vehicle.

• Don’t let your teen drive a small vehicle. Small vehicles offer much less protection in crashes than larger ones. However, this doesn’t mean you should put your child in the largest vehicle you can find. Many mid- and full-size cars offer more than adequate crash protection. Check out the safety ratings for cars in this group.

• Avoid older vehicles. Most of today’s cars have better-designed crash protection than cars of six to 10 years ago. For example, a newer, mid-size car with airbags would be a better choice than an older, larger car without airbags. Again, before you make a final choice on the car your teenager will drive, consult crash test results and safety ratings.

With time and experience, your teen will become a seasoned driver and move out of the highest-risk category. Incorporating these suggestions into your car selection will help him or her to get there, safely.