The next coverage that is very important to boat owners is the physical damage coverage. The damage for the boat itself, in case it’s damaged in a fire or a theft or a sinking or a collision, hail damage, those types of things, that’s what the physical damage coverage will protect you against.

Now, first what we need to do is determine the value of the boat itself. The boat, the motor, the trailer–that’s considered a package. And a good agent should be able to help you determine the value of your boat. Once the value’s been determined, then you decide on your deductible. The higher deductible you take, the lower your premium will be. But remember, you’re responsible for the deductible portion at the time of a claim.

So we have liability coverage and the physical damage coverage. There’s also coverages for added-on personal equipment. If you leave a lot of equipment on your boat or if you’ve added additional equipment to your boat, you’re going to want to make sure you protect against that as well. And a good independent agent should be able to help you discuss that and decide what coverages are going to be best for you.

There’s several other coverages involved with boating as well, some of them you may or may not need, and there’s other determinations on types of boats and what the boat is used for that will determine on how much you pay for a boat-insurance policy. If you need help with that, here at the Philleo Agency, we do a lot of boat insurance. We’re very familiar with that, and we’d be more than happy to help you. Give us a call here at the Philleo Agency if you need help with your boat insurance, and make sure to check out our other videos here at philleo.com. Thanks for watching.

We recommend doing that, but one of the things I want to remind you to do, is to update your jewelry list. If you do have your jewelry scheduled, or even if you don’t, now is a great time to review that because the price of gold has gone way up and the price of silver has gone way up.

We recently had a client who lost an expensive gold bracelet. He has not updated his jewelry list in years. Considering the bracelet was almost all gold, the value had changed dramatically from when he insured it several years ago to what it would cost to replace that item of jewelry today. Now since he only had it insured for a set dollar figure, that’s all he can collect under his insurance policy.

So again, we want to remind you to call your agent. If you don’t have your jewelry scheduled, get it scheduled. If you already have your jewelry insured, now is the time to talk to your jeweler, get a new appraisal, and make sure you have the correct values on that. Now, gold may change again in value, so you’ve got to keep an eye on this. If the values go up or down, you want to adjust those, too. You don’t want to pay for more insurance than you need, but you obviously don’t want to pay for less insurance than you need, too. Update those jewelry lists for your gold and silver pieces.

If you’ve had an auto accident, the first thing you need to do is render aid to anybody that’s injured. If you can physically help them yourselves, great; if not, call 911 and try to get them help as soon as possible if injuries occurred.

If there’s no injuries involved, then what you want to do is call the police if the accident took place on a public road, and it’s a substantial accident. If it’s a little bit more than a fender bender, you want to make sure the police are involved. If it’s a smaller accident or took place in a parking lot, those types of things, you can usually handle it on your own.

Either way, the step that you want to take next is to start gathering information and exchange information. The information exchange is very important after an auto accident in order to help the claim go smoothly. You want to get the information from the other party: their name, their address, their license plate number, their driver’s license number, and all of their contact information. You want to do that with everybody involved in the accident if there’s several parties involved.

The next thing you want to do is get witnesses, if there’s somebody that saw the accident but wasn’t involved. Whether they are in another vehicle or a bystander, you definitely want to get their information because they will be invaluable — especially if you were not at fault in this accident – to help your case and let everybody know what they saw.

The other thing that’s very important to remember is: do not admit fault at the scene. Even if you think you are at fault, do not admit fault. You want to talk with your insurance carrier first, and let them straighten it out. Admitting fault on the scene can make it very difficult down the road if perhaps you want to file a claim with another carrier or if something wasn’t quite the way it may have appeared and you’ve already admitted fault. So don’t admit that.

The next thing you want to do is contact your carrier as soon as possible, because they’ll help you walk through the claim and help you start to file the auto claim. If you’re interested in seeing how to file an insurance claim, watch our other video on “how to file an auto insurance claim.”

I’m Ron Philleo with Philleo Agency Insurance. Thanks for visiting philleo.com. Make sure to check out our other videos.

So you had an “at fault” auto accident, and now you need to get the collision damage repaired. There are a few things you want to do. First of all, contact your carrier right away. They’re going to need to talk to you. They want to get a statement from you, what happened in the accident and find out all the details. If there’s another vehicle at fault, they’ll need that party’s information as well.

The next thing to do is to assess the damage. How much damage did the car get? Either the insurance adjuster from your insurance company can come out and take a look at the vehicle and let you know how much damage it is, or you can go and get an estimate. Sometimes there’s an in between area that you can kind of do where the insurance company has a preferred shop and that preferred shop can actually do the estimate for you and they can repair the vehicle right there for you, as well. So check with your carrier and find out if you need to talk to an adjuster or if you need to get an estimate from an auto body shop or if there’s a preferred shop you can work with through your insurance carrier.

And remember that if you have rental reimbursement on your vehicle policy that you can get a rental vehicle and the insurance company will pay for that. If you opted to purchase that coverage ahead of time, that’s what it does cover, rental reimbursement. If you do not have that coverage, you can arrange with an auto body shop to get a rental vehicle. Some of them provide free cars, some of them you have to pay an additional fee for.

So you want to make sure that you contact your carrier, get some estimates, and then get the vehicle repaired. If you have a deductible on your policy, typically a five hundred dollar or a thousand dollar deductible is very typical on a collision coverage, talk to you carrier and make sure you found out what deductible that is. You’ll be responsible for paying that deductible portion when you pick up your vehicle.

An instance would be: let’s say you have three thousand dollars worth of damage and you have a five hundred dollar deductible. The insurance company would write a check for twenty five hundred dollars. It would be three thousand, and they would deduct the five hundred dollars off of there. Your portion would be the five hundred dollars when you go to pick up the vehicle. So talk to the insurance carrier about that, make sure you know what your deductible is so that you can plan for that when you do pick up your vehicle.

Thanks for watching philleo.com, and make sure to check out our other videos at philleo.com.

The first thing to do is to find out if the other person has insurance who hit you. Gather their information, get their policy number if possible, their name and address and all their contact information.

The next thing you want to do is contact the carrier who will ultimately pay the claim. And, that will be the other person who hit you. So, you call that carrier and you let them know you were involved. They’re going to want to get a statement from you.

When you give that statement, make sure you use words that are definite, not use words like I think or maybe or possibly. When you give your statement, be definite about the facts of the case because if somebody else was at fault, you need to know exactly what happened.

So, you gave your statement. Now you need to get your vehicle repaired. Well, you’re entitled to take your vehicle to any auto body shop you want. So, if you have a favorite auto body place you’d like to use, that’s fine as long as their charges are reasonable and customary.

I recommend that you let the adjuster of the carrier who is going to pay and the auto body shop negotiate directly to get your vehicle repaired. It’s usually more difficult if you actually get involved and try to negotiate with the auto body shop and the insurance company. Let them negotiate directly.

So you take your vehicle in, it’s being repaired, but you need a rental vehicle in the meantime. You are entitled to a rental vehicle to be paid for at the insurance company’s expense while your vehicle is being repaired.

So, if your car is going to be in the shop for a week or so, the insurance company should pay for a rental vehicle for you to use in the meantime.

If you have problems with filing a claim with somebody else’s carrier, you can always file the claim under your own carrier. You will be responsible for your deductible and the insurance company will generally try to recover that money for you, but it’s not guaranteed. So, we usually recommend filing the claim with the carrier that’s going to pay the claim to start with.

But if you can’t get satisfaction that way, you can always go to your own carrier and file a claim.

If you have any questions on how to file a claim, whether it be your own claim or a claim for somebody else, feel free to contact us here at the Philleo Agency and make sure to check out our other videos at Philleo.com.

Thanks for watching.

Now, snowmobile insurance, the biggest thing you want to protect yourself against is liability coverage. That’s if you injure somebody or if your actions cause somebody else to be injured or if you damage someone’s property under the course of riding your snowmobile. You’re going to want to carry liability insurance.

There are different levels of coverage you can buy. Typically it starts at 50,000 and goes up. If you have an umbrella policy, you can add a snowmobile under your umbrella policy to give you upwards of a million dollars of liability coverage. But again, you want to make sure you have liability coverage.

You also have the option to purchase uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. That covers you in case somebody hits you while you’re riding your snowmobile, and they don’t have any insurance or not enough insurance to cover your injuries. You can talk to your agent about that or you can talk to us here at Philleo Agency as well.

There’s a couple of other coverages that you may want to add to your snowmobile too. And they fall under the headline of physical damage, physical damage for the sled itself. It would cover if the vehicle is damaged while you’re riding it. It can cover it while it’s in storage. So if you have it stored in a garage and there’s a fire there, or a theft.

So physical damage is going to be a wide array of coverages. It could be damaged while it’s being towed, if you’re taking the sled from one place to another and it’s damaged. Again, physical damage is what’s going to protect you on that.

Typically you select a deductible, anyway from 250 all the way up to a $1,000 is common, and the higher deductible you take, the lower your rate will be. You do not have to have the physical damage coverage on your snowmobile policy. You can get a basic policy with liability only and that will protect you as well when you’re riding, but make sure you have the minimum policy of liability coverage when you’re out riding. You have to have that to protect yourself.

Again, being from Wisconsin we’re very familiar with snowmobile coverage. If you’d like to learn more about snowmobile coverage or your particular situation, what the cost may be, or how to protect yourself best, just give us a call here at the Philleo Agency, or you can reach us through Philleo.com.

“How much home insurance should I buy?” It’s a common question. There’s several different ways to look at this.

If you want to insure for what is known as “replacement coverage,” you need to keep in mind several different things. The biggest thing is: “how much is it going to cost me to rebuild this home or this building if there’s a total loss?” Your insurance agent can help you determine that: what’s known as cost estimates for construction. What we take into account is square footage, features of the home, site locations, and there’s a couple other items that we take into account, but those are the largest ones. What you want to do is you want to work with your agent, give them as much information about the home as possible so they can come up with an idea of what it cost to rebuild this home if there’s a total loss, fire, tornado, whatever.

There’s some other ways to go about it, too. If you go with a policy known as “actual cash value,” you’re basically insuring for what the building’s actually worth and claims will be paid on a depreciated value. That is a less preferred way than replacement. Replacement is always the way to go if you can get that coverage. It’s a little bit more expensive usually, but it’s usually worth it, because there’s no depreciation involved when the claim time comes.

A common people mistake make when they’re insuring their home is they think the assessed value or what they purchased the home for. Those are completely different things. With the insurance, we’re concerned about what it cost to rebuild the home. The assessed value is basically a fair market value. What you purchased the home. It was the purchase price. Those are different things than what the reconstruction costs are and that’s what you want to go off of. A good agent should be able to help you develop the cost of what it would cost to rebuild that home if there’s a total loss.

If you have any questions about how much insurance you need for your home, certainly you can feel free to call us here at Philleo Agency.

There are several different ways to insure items, whether it be buildings, your personal property, business property. Two of the most common ways are replacement coverage or actual cash value. I’m going to help you decide which one is right for you, and I’ll give you a little information on both.

Let’s start with actual cash value. Actual cash value is a depreciated value. It’s what the item is worth today. A good example would be most auto policies are settled on an actual cash value basis. Let’s say you buy a car for $30,000 and three years later it’s totaled up in an accident. Well, that car might only be worth $15,000 at that time. So they pay you the value of what it’s actually worth at the time of the loss. That would be an actual cash value settlement. It’s the value of the vehicle minus the depreciation or value of any item minus depreciation.

Replacement coverage is a little different. Replacement coverage is the preferred method of insuring buildings and business property and personal property. Most auto polices and boats and motorcycles are all set on an actual cash policy. Real estate and other policies are settled on replacement if possible. The way replacement works is you buy an item, and we give you the value of not what it’s worth when you bought it, not what it’s worth at the time of the loss, but what it costs to replace that item for you.

Whether it be rebuilding a home or whether it be replacing some personal property. So if you bought a TV and it was ten years old and maybe it was worth 50 bucks if you sold it, but to replace it maybe cost you $800, we’re going to give you the value for replacing the item if you have what’s known as replacement coverage on your property. It’s usually the preferred method to insure some item. Some items have to be settled on an actual cash value basis. Talk to your agent. They’ll help you decide which coverage is right for you, whether it be replacement or actual cash value, because there are some price differences and there are some requirements to meet for each coverage.

You know, sometimes the most basic concepts are the most important concepts. I wanted to talk to you about why you should have insurance. A lot of people ask that question, “What should I insure?”, or “Why should I have insurance?”

Well, let’s start with the most basic premise of what insurance is. Insurance is a tool to transfer risk. And typically, the risk you want to transfer is a risk you couldn’t afford to absorb yourself. Let’s say if you injure somebody in an auto accident, or if your home burns down to the ground.

Those would be very expensive items to have to pay for out of your own pocket. So what you do is, you transfer that risk to an insurance company. The insurance company sets a premium, you agree to pay for it, and if one of those occurrences takes place, then the insurance company will reimburse you for your loss.

That is the true point of insurance. Now many people sometimes start to insure for things they can afford to lose. And at that point, we try to advise our clients to maybe reevaluate their insurance needs and say, “Do you need to pay a premium for something that you can actually afford to pay for out of your own pocket?”

Now, no one ever wants to suffer a loss, but sometimes you are better off not insuring for a loss, and absorbing that yourself. In return, you get to keep the money for yourself, instead of paying a premium to an insurance company.

So what we do with our clients is, we evaluate their risk to see if they have a need to insure all of the items that they want to. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, but we want to make sure that we’re not wasting our money or insuring items that you can certainly afford to manage the risk yourself.

And that’s the true definition of insurance. Make sure you have an agent though, that can work with you regarding that. If you have any questions of what to insure, or how to insure it, you can always visit us here at Phileo Agency, or go to the website at phileo.com.

Hello. I am Ron Philleo with Philleo Agency Insurance. A lot of insurance companies are using credit scoring to determine your rates and your eligibility in order to be able to get insurance. Today I am going to talk to you a little bit about how that you can benefit you or how it may hurt you.

Why do they use credit scoring? Well credit scoring is just another underwriting tool. It is like your driving record or your claim history. Insurance companies have found there is a strong correlation between people with good credit scores and people who file less claims.

They way I like to explain it to a lot of my customers is they are very familiar with good student discounts. Students that get a B average or better usually get a little bit lower rate on their auto insurance. Well this is kind of like good student discounts for adults.

People who tend to be responsible in one area of their life with their credit scoring, making sure their bills are paid on time and take that part of their life seriously tend to file less claims, and they tend to keep a closer watch on things, which help minimize the losses for the insurance companies. That is why they give the credit scoring discount.

What can you do and how can it benefit you? Well, insurance companies may rely heavily on credit scoring. If you have a good credit score, you are going to want to use one of those companies because they are going to reward you and they are going to give you lower rates for your high credit score.

If you have an average credit score, well you will want to shop around because some companies, they way they do their credit scoring model, it can vary widely from one company to the next, so make sure you shop around. We recommend using an independent agent. They will have a lot of companies they can shop around for you.

And if you have a poor credit score or possibly a bankruptcy on your record, you are going to want to make sure you are talking with independent agents because they are going to have more options for you than what is known as a direct writer that can only write for one carrier.

If you do have a poor credit score, you might want to try to use a carrier that does not take your credit into account. If you have a bankruptcy, almost every company looks at that. But depending on your circumstances, that may be OK. Make sure you tell the circumstances of your bankruptcy to your agent so he can work with the underwriters to try and get you a policy that is going to work for you.

But credit scoring can be good, can be bad, can be indifferent. It depends on your situation. Work with an independent agent. Let them know what is going on in your life, the circumstances of the credit, and they will be able to help you. But we always recommend, again, working with your agent closely on these issues with credit scoring. They are happy to answer any questions you have.

And of course, we are happy to answer any of your questions here at the Philleo Agency. If you would like to contact us, feel free. You can go to Philleo.com or contact us by phone or fax.