For example,  your home insurance carrier purchases an insurance contract that protects them if the losses from a catastrophe exceed $20 million.  In this case the insurance company that insures your house would pay the first $20 million in claims  and another insurer would reimburse the carrier for any amount above that amount.

The companies that provide reinsurance charge a premium to the primary carriers for the cost of the protection. Recently, the State of Connecticut Insurance Department has allowed  insurance companies to pass along their cost of reinsurance to consumers.

Why is this important to you? Well, if the carrier that insures  your home or business does not have reinsurance they may not have enough capital to pay all the claims as a result of a serious catastrophe. The question is not if a serious storm should occur it is when a serious storm occurs will your carrier have the capacity to pay the claims.

Two questions should be asked of your agent?

1. Does the carrier the agent is placing the business with have reinsurance to cover claims if there is a catastrophe?
2. Will that carrier be passing on the additional cost of the reinsurance premium to the policyholder?

Have you ever returned a leased car that has a few dings in it. Ugh! The dealer charges you for everything.

New car coverage can help, because damages are covered without consideration for depreciation, like normal collision or comprehensive coverage. And they use new parts, not refurbished parts. Check your policy to learn the specific details on your auto insurance.

Also, check with your agent about new car coverage or contact me now, and I’ll explain.

The easiest approach is using a camera – still camera or video – to record images of all of your possessions on film or digital media. Every year or two, you should take pictures of every room, cabinet and drawer in your house. The effort may seem daunting, but the process should take only 30 minutes or so. General pictures are fine – they’re just for recall not finite detail showing model and serial numbers. I explain below that most of the time your possessions will be replaced with new replacement items.

When you’ve captured everything worth noting, store the recorded media off-site in a safe deposit box at the bank, an off-site office location or family members house. The objective is keeping the record safely off-site where you can retrieve it easily.

As for your most valuable jewelry and other items, you should be sure that your insurance agent has a current copy – no more than two year-old copy – of the appraisals of the items scheduled on your homeowners, condo or renters policy. Most jewelers will appraise your valuables for free and you can have them fax or mail a copy to your insurance agent directly.

Both your photo record and appraisals will help the claims adjuster make an accurate assessment of the replacement cost of the belongings you lost. Most policies are written at our agency with replacement cost on contents coverage, which means that lost items will be replaced with like-kind and quality items (e.g same size, brand and same model if that model is still available). In most cases, the replacement items are new, because there is no reduction for depreciation with the replacement cost contents coverage clause.

The objective of keeping good records is is to make you whole again after a loss. You truly will be grateful when you retrieve your photographs or video after a fire. You’ll be able to recall all the details about what you owned, when stress could be at its peak.

Taking pictures of what you own is a good idea. Make time now to “Be Prepared.”