If you own your home and have a business, then you may have heard that you will need to have two separate policies in order to have everything covered properly. Home insurance is designed to cover risk exposures that are related to a person’s personal home. A business will need its own policy in order to be protected correctly. Here are a few reasons why you will need two different policies.

Why You Need Two Policies for Your Home and Business

• A business has a lot more risk exposures that need to be covered by a business policy. Most personal line agents may not write any policies for insurance companies where the applicants home is the place of business.
• A business policy carries a higher liability limit than a normal home policy. In most cases the lower limit starts at one million in coverage and can be increased to cover the increased customer exposure.
• A normal home policy only covers personal belongings so if you have a business in your home, then none of the companies merchandise would ever be covered should there be a total loss.
• Your home policy will have limited coverage for high dollar items. A business policy is more comprehensive in what it covers.

If you live in the Wayzata, Minnesota area and have questions about your home policy or a business policy, then you need to contact your independent agent today. As your agent we can help answer all of your questions that you may have about your insurance options. It’s important that you give us a call so that we can give you specific details for your circumstances and help you get the policy that you need for your business and home.

Identity theft can happen to anyone, even people living along Lake Minnetonka in the small city of Wayzata, Minnesota. Well Wayzata is a nice quiet place to live and everyone is friendly, but, there are evil-doers out there, lurking on the Internet and trying to find ways to steal your identity.

If you use a computer to bank online, make purchases at Amazon, or stay in touch with your friends on Facebook, you are at risk of becoming a victim of identity theft. No insurance can protect you 100 percent of the time from having your private information compromised.

The best thing you can do is take as many steps as you can to make it harder for an identity thief to steal your identity. Chang passwords frequently. Don’t open emails from unknown senders. Check your bank and credit card statements to make sure there are no withdrawals or purchases that you don’t recognize. Even with all that, you still are at risk.

Your standard home insurance policy will not cover identity theft, but many home insurers will offer you some protection against the hideous invasion of your privacy by giving you the option to add an endorsement for identity theft to your policy.

An endorsement under your home insurance policy will not reimburse you for the monetary losses you may suffer if someone hacks into your bank account, but what it will do, is pay for the expenses that you incur to restore your identity and credit.

For instance, when you find out that your identity has been stolen, you might want to do things like cancel all of your accounts and open new accounts. It can take a lot of time and be expensive if you have to get a new passport, birth certificate, or driver’s license. You may have to send certified letters to all of your creditors, need notary services and even miss time at work. When you add an endorsement for identity theft, it will cover some, if not all of those expenses.

As your independent agent, please give us a call and we can see if adding this type of coverage to your home insurance policy makes sense for you.

The premium on your Albertville, Minnesota home insurance policy is calculated by assessing the different level of risk associated with insuring your home. Anything you can do that significantly reduces the chance of loss, and thus the need of your insurer to possibly have to pay a claim, can help lower your premium.

For instance, installing an alarm system can make you less susceptible to loss by burglary. Smoke detectors protect against fire and installing storm-resistant shutters can minimize the chance of broken windows and other damage from flying projectiles in a strong windstorm.

While Albertville, Minnesota is not in the path of tropical hurricanes, it is very possible that a big thunderstorm can generate winds with speeds great enough to blow over trees and send branches hurtling through the air. Tornadoes, while fairly rare, are a possibility in the Gopher State.

Storm-resistant shutters that can cover your exposed glass windows, do an excellent job of protecting those windows in severe weather conditions. Such shutters also provide a level of security, making it a little harder for a criminal to gain access to your home.

Insurance companies in Minnesota will reward you for taking proactive measures to help protect your house, and the people inside, from damage or injury as the result of a severe storm. While your premium is not going to change by much just by installing storm-resistant shutters, every little bit helps.

Even if your storm-resistant shutters do not do a perfect job of protecting your home, they will at least mitigate the amount of damage that can be caused by loose- flying debris.

As your independent agent here in Albertville, we would encourage you to have a visual audit done of your house to see if there are ways to make it safer. Give us a call and an independent agent will be happy to review your policy and see if they can find ways you can get some discounts of your home insurance premium.

As much as you love living in Albertville, Minnesota, you do have to accept the fact that winters can be extra cold and you will have to deal with the task of clearing snow from your premises. If you are in good shape and don’t mind doing some hard work, you might be okay getting a shovel and clearing the snow from your front path and driveway.

If you choose to hire someone to clear the snow and ice on your premises, that can run into quite a bit of money over a long winter with frequent snow storms. While it would be nice if your home insurance policy in Albertville, Minnesota covered the clearing of snow, the fact is, your home insurance policy does not cover such costs.

Snow clearing is considered routine maintenance, just like mowing your lawn or pressure washing your patio. If insurance companies were to offer a policy for snow clearing in a snow-prone state like Minnesota, the rates they would have to charge would be outrageous.

While your home insurance policy is not going to cover the costs of removing snow on your paths, patios and driveways, it will cover you if the weight of those snowflakes falling on your roof causes your roof to fail. You can file a claim to get that heavy wet stuff off of your roof and make any repairs that the forces of Mother Nature inflicted on your roof.

If you have been a resident of Minnesota for even one winter, you probably don’t need your independent agent telling you that heavy snow and ice can be dangerous. Even though your home insurance policy provides liability coverage for slip and fall accidents, you still have a duty to make sure your property is as safe as possible. As your independent agent, we would tell you, and every other homeowner in Minnesota, to keep snow off of your roof and walking paths..