If you’re concerned that burglars are going to pilfer your home when you’re out, then don’t ever go out. Oh, you want to go out? Well, don’t let the burglars know that! Here are some ideas for what you can do to make your home look occupied:
- Keep your lights on when you’re out (or put them on a timer, turning on and off reasonably).
- Keep a radio playing.
- If you’re on vacation, stop deliveries of the newspaper and other such things. A pile of newspapers means no one is home and that a burglar should come on in.
- Don’t leave a note! (”Hey Kelly, we stepped out until 3, feel free to break inside and steal our stuff”)
- Arrange to have your lawn taken care of if you are going to be away for a while.
Let me let you in on a little secret, burglars don’t like the light. Let me let you in on another little secret, burglars are more likely to try to break into a home without a light on than one that does. Why? See secret #1! So, what this means is that if a burglar is scoping out your neighborhood and they see you with a light on and your neighbor without a light on, which one do you think they’ll try to get into? Fortunately for you (unfortunately for your neighbor), it’s your neighbor’s home. Your porch, your yard, and every single entrance to your home should be well lighted - that way burglars know they’ll be seen if they go there.
Now, what if you’re concerned about the electricity use of these lights on all the time? Put them on timers, put them on a sensor/photocell, set it up such that the lights will come on periodically to put burglars on notice.
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) estimates that over 94% of homes in North America have fire alarms but there are more homes with inactive, broken, or dead batteried smoke alarms than those without an alarm. The danger of having a broken or power dead smoke alarm is that you have the sense of security an alarm would bring but none of the actual protection. So, if you have an alarm, make sure to test it every quarter (it’s as easy as pressing a button), to make sure you have a working alarm.
It doesn’t take a hurricane, though they don’t help, to wreak havoc on your home. In fact, sometimes the most benign winds can cause damage if they pick up a hard stick or an errant stone; so it pays to protect your home against wind damage even if the news doesn’t announce gale force wind warnings. One of the other insidious things about wind damage is that sometimes it just causes damage just underneath your deductible. A stone goes through a window and the replacement cost a hundred bucks or so, that’s probably under your deductible, and you can’t get any reimbursement because it’s too low. Or maybe it’s a few bucks over your deductible and you don’t want to risk increasing your premiums over a few dollars. Ultimately, you can do a lot to protect your home against wind damage.
Roofing: Get properly sized and nailed sheathing to protect your roof and ensure that the underlayment material is installed properly. If you are installing a new roof, get water infiltration protection installed so in the event the tiles get torn off you won’t get soaked with water.
Windows: Install impact-resistant windows or buy shutters you can close that will protect against high winds and any projectiles.
Doors: If your doors are solid wood or hollow metal, it’s more likely to resist the wind pressure and defend against flying debris. If you know of an oncoming wind event, remove glass doors if you have a regular door behind it - no sense having them up and having them break.
Garage Doors: Brace these bad boys because they’re the most prone to damage because of wind. They are generally not very strong in the first place so getting a bracing kit, ask the manufacturer of the door, and installing it will help tremendously. Be sure to also brace the panels vertically and horizontally as well. The wind will try to get in wherever it can and those panels are weak points.
Second only to ensuring that all your smoke alarms have working batteries is the fact that you need to position those little guys intelligently. If you don’t have a sense of where you should put them, you should consider following the National Fire Protection Association Life Safety Code 101. They recommend that you put a fire alarm on each floor, include basements, and within 15 feet of each and every sleeping area. If the door to the sleeping area is generally closed, they also recommend putting another one inside the sleeping area. When basic battery-powered fire alarms cost something in the neighborhood of $10, it’s almost foolish not to have enough fire alarms.
In fact, in new construction homes, it’s often in the code to have the fire alarms that are installed be interconnected. That way, if the basement alarm is tripped, the alarm in the third floor bedroom is activated. This ensures that everyone in the entire structure is warned of a fire, even if it occurs in the farthest corner. New rules also order that a smoke alarm be installed in each bedroom.
When it comes to guns and homeowner’s insurance, depending on what happens, the part of homeowner’s insurance that covers you will change. Let’s start with the most simple, theft, and move onto the more complicated, liability.
Guns and Theft
Guns are like any other piece of personal property when it comes to theft, your insurance will probably cover you up to $2,000. Now, if the gun is destroyed in a fire or some other loss that is covered, then it’s covered by your personal property coverage.
Guns and Accidental Injury
Let’s say you accidentally injure someone or damage property with a gun, then it might falls underneath your personal liability coverage (double check if you have a gun). The personal liability coverage would cover the injury itself and any court awards that may result from the lawsuit.
Again, check with your insurance as these are just general points, your particular policy might be different.
Two years ago Hurricane Katrina hit the United States and resulted in the devastation of New Orleans. Today, homeowners in New York are feeling the effects as homeowner insurance companies are becoming fearful of a similar event striking the Northeast. A NYT article discusses how insurers are opting to not renew policies, even with people who have had insurance for many many years. The Grays, who have had a policy for thirty years with Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company, were recently notified that their policy would not be renewed because ” ‘hurricane events over the past two years’ had forced the company to limit its exposure to further losses.” They live on Long Island, a scant 12 miles from the shore, and have never had any water damage as a result of natural causes. Luckily they were able to sign up for another policy with another company but at a higher cost.
Buying insurance based solely on price is extremely risky because there are so many other factors involved when talking about a service as intimate as insurance. Is the company’s policy cheaper because they’re stingier on paying out claims? Or are they cheaper because their administrative costs are much lower? If their costs are much lower, does that mean their response time is longer? Are they harder to work with? Oftentimes we focus too much on price and not enough on the service, when it comes to insurance, service really does matter quite a bit.
Imagine a scenario in which your house burned down (don’t imagine too hard!), you’re stressed out, you’re in a bad place, and now you have to deal with your insurance company. Most insurance companies aren’t going to immediately write you a check, but how they deal with you may depend on how much they cost. That’s not to say that the more expensive plan is better, that’s no guarantee, but if a place is cheaper because they only have a couple representatives… then it’ll be much harder to reach a person.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that you need to go online, read some reviews, and figure out if the company you’re working with is really worth the price you’re paying.
According to the Insurance Information Institute, “renters are 50 percent more likely than homeowners to be victims of burglars.” Despite this glaring statistic, 96% of homeowners have homeowner’s insurance (likely because its mandated by their lender), only 43 of renters have insurance (likely because it’s often not mandated by the landlord). This is especially scary when you consider the fact that any building related insurance won’t cover a renter’s personal property, the very thing that burglars are going to be stealing in the first place. Another scary point to be aware of is the fact that renter’s insurance is notoriously cheap, often only $10 a month. In addition to personal property protection, renter’s insurance will give the renter some liability protection as well - so they won’t be poor if someone slips in their apartment.
I was in Costco the other day looking at one of their safes when I tried to pick it up. I expected it to be ridiculously heavy but it wasn’t. It was heavy but it wasn’t so heavy that one person would have trouble picking it up and that troubled me because it meant that a thief could, if they truly wanted to, pick up the safe, take it to their car, and steal it along with anything else. After they stole it, they would be able to take their sweet time in opening it and getting to the valuables I kept inside.
The paradox is that I’d want to order a safe that was so heavy that I couldn’t lift it… but I’d have to transport it from where I was buying it to my home. Ha! That’s the paradox!
Ultimately I didn’t buy the safe but it’s an interesting problem, isn’t it?