According to statistics from the National Survey of Family Growth, over the past 30 years more and more people live with someone with whom they have a relationship with prior to or instead of getting married- including about half of all men and women under 44 in the most recently available data. No matter the reason, living with your partner when you aren’t married can present some unique (but not impossible!) challenges to making sure you both have the right insurance coverage to protect your belongings and your liability.
Do you both own your home/condo? If you purchase your home together, it makes the most sense to obtain a single insurance policy with both you and your partner as “named insureds” on it, since you both have a financial/legal interest in the home. Did one of you move into a home owned by the other? In cases like this it probably makes the most sense to each maintain a separate policy. If one of you doesn’t have financial or legal interest in the home, most insurance companies won’t allow that person to be added to the existing policy as “Named Insured.” One possible alternative would be to add the person to the policy using a tool known as an endorsement, but even using the Additional Insured endorsement, the person who is added may not have all of their property and contents covered. Therefore, if only one of you owns the home, the best option to make sure each partner has coverage is to obtain separate policies. What about our cars? We each own our own and have our own auto insurance policies? While you’ll have coverage for using each other’s cars the one potential gap in coverage would be if you maintained different coverage limits. Some personal auto policies may exclude some coverage for vehicles you drive that you don’t own but are “furnished or available for your regular use,” a description that would most likely fit your partners vehicle. Suppose you have higher limits on your car than your partner does on theirs. While you would have some coverage under your partner’s policy when driving their car, it would be for those lower limits of coverage than you might have on your own car. If you each have your own cars and policies, you could consider maintaining the same liability limits on both vehicles. What if I own a car and my partner doesn’t? In this scenario your partner could drive your car and have coverage, but if you were to rent a car on a vacation, your partner wouldn’t have coverage if they were to drive it, unless they purchased separate rental car coverage. Another option would be for your partner to obtain a “Named Non-Owner” insurance policy that would allow them to drive your vehicle with their own coverage. What about the car we own together? If you own a car together but aren’t married the easiest thing to do is make sure that you obtain a “Joint Ownership Coverage” endorsement. Good thing you have another partner… Discuss your situation with a Trusted Choice® Independent Insurance Agent, like Jon Jepsen of SentryWest in Salt Lake CIty, UT. While being married resolves many of these issues in a more direct way, the great thing about having a Trusted Choice agent is that they have the ability to represent different insurance companies, so that they can work with you to obtain the insurance coverage that fit your needs and your lifestyle now and into the future as life changes. (content provided by TrustedChoice.com) Yes, as an insurance dude, I can fix seven dollar haircuts (in a sense).
Frankly, if I pulled out my hair clippers, I wouldn’t be surprised if I could actually improve some of the cuts I see out there today. However, I’m only speaking of seven dollar haircuts as a metaphor. I came across this humorous tidbit today and it made me think of some of the work I do in the insurance biz: There was a new hair salon that opened up right across the street from the old established hair cutter’s place. They put up a big sign, “WE GIVE SEVEN DOLLAR HAIR CUTS!” Not to be outdone, the old shop put out their own sign, “WE FIX SEVEN DOLLAR HAIR CUTS!” And, so it is with the service I provide. You may find a cheap insurance policy for your business, home, or autos, but does it amount to a “SEVEN DOLLAR HAIRCUT?” Frankly, I can’t promise I will save everyone a few bucks when they ask me to handle their insurance; and, if I can’t, I’ll tell you up front. My job isn’t to save everyone a few dollars on insurance (or a cheap haircut). However, I will promise to do my best to resolve the problems and pains you have (and, if we can save a few dollars in the meantime, that’s just some yummy frosting on the cake). Frankly, I think of myself more as an insurance doctor – I find the pain and I FIX it. Word from the Insurance Artist: As business professionals we should do our best to determine what problems our customers / clients are having and determine what solutions we can provide. If we can’t find some problems together that need to be solved, then let’s be up front with each other by saving everyone a lot of time and money and just say so. Who can argue with that? A recent Insurance.com survey of 500 drivers found that respondents could only correctly answer three out of 10 multiple-choice questions about the coverage offered by their auto policies.
The results show motorists are likely making mistakes when purchasing policies, especially if they do so through increasingly popular online services that cannot offer tailored guidance like an agent. Women scored the highest—35 percent—while men answered an average of 27 percent of the survey questions correctly. Those who claimed to have read their policies cover-to-cover scored 28 percent, while those who reported never reading their policies got the highest average of 35 percent. Drivers rating themselves as having “excellent” auto insurance knowledge scored the lowest. Experience also seems to matter: respondents aged 40 and older answered 39 percent of the questions correctly, while those ages 18 to 29 scored 24 percent. How do you stack up? Take the entire quiz or answer the survey’s five most difficult questions. |
AuthorJonny Jepsen, CIC Categories
All
|