Many people make the mistake of setting up their first insurance policies in their twenties. As they grow older and more independent, they fail to look back and update the coverages to meet new risks that they’ve assumed. This is a big responsibility, but one that can be managed in a few minutes witha a well-placed phone call to your insurance agent. I can promise the call will be worth the time to make it.

If you’ve been through any of the following life changes, you should take a serious look at your insurance liability coverages:

• Job change or career change with more or less income
• Marriage or divorce
• New children, family members and new members in the household
• Addition of young drivers
• Property sale or purchase
• Starting a new business
• New or used vehicle purchase
• New boat, jet ski, camper trailer, motorcyle, atv or scooter
• New pool, trampoline or dog
• Addition to the house, yard or landscape
• Big parties or events being planned

All of these types of changes and events happen everyday, and each one poses different types of risks. Liability coverage is part of your auto insurance and homeowners, and liability insurance protects you against harming other people’s property or causing accidental bodily injury to them. Claims are not frequent, but costs are very low to protect yourself against these risks. This is where a few minutes of preparation pays big dividends.

First, you should do whatever is possible to prevent accidents with safety measures. However, should an accident occur, you need to be sure in advance that you have enough protection to prevent an injured party from seriously damaging your financial well-being. You want to sleep well at night.

Take a moment to gather your thoughts about recent changes to your lifestyle and household. Consider what your plans are for the next year that involve any significant lifestyle changes. Gather your ideas about risks that might occur, then  call or e-mail your insurance agent to be sure your properly covered. You can contact any one of the Haas brothers to discuss your insurance needs by clicking here for our contact information.

We’re happy to help and make policy adjustments to keep your auto and homeowners insurance liability coverages properly balanced when life changes.

We use basically the same principle when configuring the protection balance between assets (home, cars, boats) and income (life insurance, disability income, long term care). It comes down to personal priorities.

The balance of protection people have between large losses and small losses needs to be adjusted periodically. Your objective should be limiting your exposure to large, catastrophic losses to your assets, income and family and take a bigger portion of the small loss — the small losses you can afford to handle on your own.

For example: Most people have what they believe to be an adequate amount of liability coverage, usually $100,000. In effect what is actually happening is they are making sure the insurance company pays all the small losses (under $100,000) with the insured willing to pay the really big losses, those worth more than $100,000. At the same time most insured’s select low deductibles on their possessions, in effect capping their exposure to loss at $500 or less. In this case the insurance company is only liable for the limited value of that possession. To improve catastrophic protection insureds can increase the percentage they pay on the smaller losses.

The best way to solve this problem is speaking with an insurance professional and building a long term relationship with that individual, so that he will be sensitive to the kinds of life changes that we all make over the long term.