Vacant houses

When it comes to your vacant home, what your insurance agent doesn't know can hurt you.

I had a woman call me yesterday because she just found out that the insurance on her house in Springfield no longer covered much of anything. Why? Because she put it up for sale when she moved to Texas two months ago.

She never realized there was a problem until last month's wind storms blew through the area and her Realtor told her she had some roof damage. So she called her insurance agent, who told her that since the home had been vacant for more than a month, most of her coverage was no longer in force.

Insuring vacant homes are different than homes that are occupied or even just temporarily unoccupied -- There's no one around to see if the air conditioner has been stolen, or a water line breaks, or any number of other problems arise with the home. And liability risks are different as well — you don't usually have to worry about someone sneaking into your home and setting up a meth lab while you're still living there.

So how do I get insurance on a vacant home?

Foremost Insurance is one of the nation's largest insurers of specialty dwellings -- including mobile homes, properties with too many claims for other companies, and yes, vacant homes.

This is one of those life lessons that I'm lucky I didn't have to learn the hard way. When we moved from Texas back to Missouri, I didn't even think about the insurance until after we sold the house. It never even occurred to me that my insurance would no longer cover my home if I wasn't living there.

It's also one of the reasons having an agent and talking to your agent on a regular basis is a good idea.

Make sure to talk to your insurance agent if you're moving out of your home and find out what your vacant home coverage is, then give me a call at (417) 708 9583 and let's see what Foremost and Farmers can offer.

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Cyber security

Another day, another story about criminals trying to get your credit card data.

So, short of hoarding cash and staying in your home — which carries its own set of risks — what do you do?

I have an app for that. Or at least an insurance policy.

For homeowners, every Farmers homeowners package includes Identity Fraud protection of $30,000. In a nutshell, if someone manages to get your information, Farmers will pay the legal bills to get your identity back.

Think of it as passive detection.

It's included for homeowners, but we can also add it to our renter's insurance policy.

We also have the option for active detection with Farmers Identity Shield. The Shield monitors your credit files and provides an annual report with details of your credit file and public records.

And if someone does manage to get ahold of your information, they will guide you through the identity recovery process and a whole lot more. You can get more information by calling me (417) 708 9583 or you can check out www.farmersidentityshield.com.


That may be all an individual needs, but what what can a business do to protect itself?

Most of the Business Owners Packages that Farmers offers include Cyber Liability and Data Breach coverage.

So if someone does manage to break in to your system and steal your clients' data (Just like what happened at Target) Farmers will help you hire a telemarketing agency to let your clients know what happened. It will also reimburse you for the credit monitoring you'll have to do for your customers.

Sounds a lot better than paying for all of that yourself, doesn't it?

www.farmersagent.com/dgragg