There are two parts to your liability coverage on your auto insurance policy: bodily injury and property damage.

Bodily injury liability covers injuries that result from an accident:

1. Emergency aid at the scene
2. Physician medical bill from accident
3. Restitution for lost income
4. Funeral expenses
5. Lawyer fees

Property damage liability covers the property damage caused by the car in accident:

1. Property damage to houses or other buildings
2. Repair or replacement costs for other stationary objects
3. Automobile restoration or replacement expenses

It is highly recommended from our agency that people get at least a minmum of $50,000/$100,000 for bodily injury and at least $50,000 for property damage. Increasing the limits to those amounts from state minmum doesn’t cost that much at all! Having only state law minimum for automobile insurance can easily be exhausted from just one accident. The high cost of medical bills can severely exhaust your limits resulting in the rest of the costs be paid out of pocket. Here at Insurance Incorporated, we want our clients to be protected properly with the right coverage, so that is why we highly recommend having higher limits than state minimum.

If you are a homeowner or have assets we recommend higher limits with a personal liability umbrella of $1,000,000 to protect you and your assets from lawsuits.

Hired & Non-owned auto liability covers bodily injury and property damage caused by a vehicle you hire, which includes vehicles you borrow or rent, or caused by non-owned vehicles.

You may not realize it at first, but as a business owner, you will find yourself in these types of situation, and without hired & non-owned liability on your commercial auto policy, you may not be covered! Some examples include:

Sending an employee to go get coffee.
You rent a car due to maintenance on your vehicle.
You borrow an employee’s vehicle to run to the store.

You don’t necessarily need a commercial auto policy for this type of coverage. An endorsement may be added to your general liability policy to have this included.

You may not realize it, but this may be your single largest exposure! Virtually all client contracts require proof of Hired and Non-Owned coverage.

Safeco pursues partnerships with best-in-class companies to offer your customers benefits that promote safe driving. OnStar, a company that aims at improving vehicle safety, is offering a free year of service to qualifying Safeco policyholders.

Qualifying policyholders
OnStar currently offers their advanced connection technology, including features such as in-vehicle security, hands-free calling, turn-by-turn navigation, crash response, and remote diagnostics systems, on more than 40 General Motors (GM) car models. Safeco policyholders who own an OnStar^®-enabled car, and who don’t currently use the service, are eligible for this promotion.

*Please note: Safeco will not provide policyholder’s private information to OnStar

Source via Safeco Insurance

It’s no question that insurance claim adjusters have seen them all. According to York Risk Services, a Parsippany, New Jersey-based third-party adjuster, they have handled some unusual claims in the past, such as:

(Keep in mind, this is just from restaurants)

• A husband in Texas filed a claim because he said he became ill after see a fly land in his wife’s salad. He said he suffered hypertension and anxiety that made him unable to eat at restaurants.
• A man sliced his finger while cutting into a steak at a restaurant. He said the knife was too sharp.
• A man claimed he got whiplash in a restaurant after a server dropped a tray and he quickly turned his head.
• A woman filed a claim after saying she got injured when a roll of toilet paper fell on her lap while she was using the bathroom. TOILET PAPER!

Enservio, a provider of contents claims solutions, compiled a list of the Top 10 Weirdest Contents Claims. You’ll be surprised at what people claim. Here’s the list:

1. Flamethrower
2. Multi Person Underwear
3. Dead relatives’ gold filings
4. 3.7 miles of plastic wrap
5. Petrified mastodon tusk
6. Life-size statue of Mike Piazza
7. Half a cow
8. Tub of melted stuff
9. Robot shoes
10. Invisibility potion

As entertaining as these claims are, these are REAL claims!

Named perils are events that a homeowners insurance policy specifies as covered, such as, lightning, fire, hail or windstorm, just to name a few. Depending on what type of policy you have, there are open peril or named peril homeowner policies. Named perils, you specifically name which perils your homeowners insurance will cover, on the other hand, open peril policies have broader coverage.

While a HO-3 policy is a much more comprehensive policy, the HO-2 policy covers 16 named perils:

1. Lightning or fire
2. Hail or windstorm
3. Damage caused by aircraft
4. Explosions
5. Riots or civil disturbances
6. Smoke damage
7. Damage caused by vehicles
8. Theft
9. Vandalism
10. Falling objects
11. Volcanic eruption
12. Damage from the weight of snow, ice, or sleet
13. Water damage from plumbing, heating, or air conditioning overflow
14. Water heater cracking, tearing, and burning
15. Damage from electrical current
16. Pipe freezing

Keep in mind, flood and earthquake are excluded from any homeowners insurance policy. They are their own seperate policies!

There’s been an on-going debate as who is the better driver. Is it men? Or is it women? Well, according to a national drivers test that was organized by GMAC Insurance, it was determined that men do.

According to the 7th Annual GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test, men had a test score that was slightly higher than 80%. That is significantly higher than females, who averaged just above 74%. What is more telling is that 27.2% of the women who took the test, failed. Compare that to the 13.6% of men who failed the National Drivers Test and we get a real sense of who knows the rules of the road better when it comes to men vs. women.

Men scored higher than women on a multiple choice test. That being said, it doesn’t really relate to the reality of driving on the road. To really be able to see who is the better driver, each man and woman would have to individually drive and be tested on their reaction, judgement, errors, etc.

Visit www.gmacinsurance.com and click on the National Drivers Test button to take the test and see how you size up when it comes to knowing the rules of the road.

Whether men are better or women are better, one thing is for sure that we all want to make sure we have the right auto insurance in place. The better driver would have the right protection in place.

Are you a LA Dodger fan? Are you a licensed California driver over the age of 21? Until June 30, 2011, Mercury Insurance has a promotion for those who complete a quote for auto insurance on www.mercuryinsurance.com to receive a redeemable voucher for two tickets to a LA Dodgers game!

Quotes must be completed by 11:59 p.m. June 30, 2011, to receive a voucher redeemable for your complimentary Dodger tickets