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Who should handle my insurance? Broker? Bank?

Every homeowner has been there.  You are sitting across the desk from your mortgage provider signing an endless mountain of forms and papers for that new place you look forward to calling “home.”  You are flipping through the pages and somewhere in the stack will be a form asking if you would like to purchase property insurance through the bank, and they promise that it will be as easy as 1,2,3.  However, you are hit with a moment of hesitation that asks “is this the best choice?” Rattling in your brain, between the regions of convenience and responsibility, the argument ensues – “Do I just sign the form to get it over with, or should I check my options?”  This existential conflict leaves you in limbo for a few moments while your pen hovers above the line. Suddenly your train of thought is derailed by that oh-so-pleasant bank employee asking you if you would like to purchase home insurance through the financial institution.

Should I?  Should I not?

Of course there will be no surprise at my bias when the recommendation I give is to refrain from signing.  Why? Well, a couple reasons really.  First of all, I am reminded of the wisdom my parents shared with me which encouraged me to shop around, and to not take the first offer in any deal.  All too often a person can save money and find better value by being patient, looking, and doing some due diligence. I know what you are thinking: “Shopping around my insurance is a huge pain, and I just want to get it over with!” This leads me to my second point, which is – Do you think it is a coincidence that the banks are asking you to purchase insurance products in a quick moment like that? No, banks know what they are doing, and they know that the best chance to gain your insurance portfolio is to offer it on the spot, in the moment when you are feeling the excitement of the deal, and the desire to avoid any further work prior to possession.  I would encourage you not to play their game. Not to take away from a banks credibility in handling your finances, they just haven’t been in the insurance industry long enough to know how to handle your insurance portfolio.

In my career as a broker, I have seen many customers come to me with insurance documents issues from a bank.  They are frustrated that their mortgage officer can’t answer their insurance questions, and when they push for an answer they get redirected to a call-centre.  Further, when it comes time to add that new boat or ATV or some other item, to a policy, the recurring answer I have heard people get is that they need to insure those items elsewhere.  In short, the transaction of taking your premiums is made easy, while getting the service on what you have purchased is not so easy.

With an insurance brokerage you have a dedicated person that is there to talk about your insurance needs.  They are a licensed individual that is familiar with many insurance products, not banking products. An insurance broker has a vast array of insurance products that can cover most, if not all, of your insurance needs.

The clincher though? Brokers carry E&O insurance.  This means that if a mistake was made on your policy, or if there is an omission of coverage, a broker has insurance backing the transaction so that an error can even be covered from time to time.

Brokerage or Bank? It’s your choice, but now you know a few more reasons why to consider a brokerage.  Don’t let the bank pressure you. You are in the driver’s seat of your insurance needs. Grab the wheel and make the choice that is truly best for you!

Saskatchewan Health Insurance 101

Good morning everyone. As you are well aware, the cooler weather is unfortunately upon us. Summer has come and gone, but it’s time to think about bundling up, and potentially going on a warm vacation to escape this transition of prairie grass to arctic tundra.

With the cooler weather and the beginning of the school year, you are bound to get sick. It’s not a matter of – if, it’s just a matter of – when. Health is something we take for granted until it is in question. Weather it is a slipped disc, kidney stone, cold & flu, broken bone or torn muscle. We don’t appreciate our health until it’s gone.

Therefore, we always recommend looking into your health benefits. Whether, it is through a work/group plan or by purchasing your own plan, health coverage needs to be a priority in your life. Some major checkpoints to review your plan would be:

Family Changes – Getting Married or having children are important times to review your health insurance policy. You will want to make sure all family members are added on the policy and that coverage is in place. When you have a child, you have 60 days with Blue Cross to simply phone into their call centre and add your child to your policy over the phone. If you miss that window, you can simply fill out a form to add your dependent to your policy.

Job Change – Switching roles or jobs can result in different benefits in your plan. It is important to make sure your coverage transfers and that you continue to be properly covered. Being on the payroll and then hired on as a contractor or consultant can change whether your are insured on their group plan or responsible for your own insurance policy. Please make sure you review these changes.

Retirement – Going along with the job change, when you retire, you will no longer be covered under your employer’s group policy. You will need to file for a individual plan for you and your family. Blue cross has a easy conversion calculator to see what your plan would cost with Blue Cross. You can access the quoting tool on our website here. Or go on blue cross site here.

Basic Health Plans generally include coverage for:

  1. Ambulance
  2. Hospital
  3. Private Nursing
  4. Accidental Dental
  5. Medical Equipment
  6. Hearing Aids
  7. Prosthetic & Medical Appliances
  8. Diabetic Supplies & Equipment
  9. Orthopaedic Shoes & Supplies
  10. Mobility Aids
  11. Blood Pressure Monitors
  12. Ostomy Supplies
  13. Out of Saskatchewan/In Canada Travel
  14. Vision Care

Many of these items have limits in coverage, please check your health plan to see what your policy covers. If you would like us to review your plan, please bring your policy into our office and we can take a look. You can also add other options to your plan. Such as:

  1. Prescription Drugs
  2. Dental
  3. Hospital Cash
  4. VIP Travel
  5. Critical Illness
  6. Term Life Insurance
  7. Student Accident*

If you have any questions about this coverage, please call your insurance provider, or come by with your policy and we can review it for you. Our Health Insurance providers include Blue Cross & Group Medical Services (GMS). We offer Allianz Insurance for more specialty plans.

Volunteer Fire Fighting Coverage – “Is this something I need?”


As most of you have seen, the fires in BC have been problematic again this year. The summer was dry and fires spread ferociously. In Saskatchewan, we had a few grass fires as well. They were not as severe, however they did cause a fair amount of natural damage and kept the fire departments busy.

These wildfires can be very hard to contain. One fire department is usually not enough and it takes a “village,” so to speak, to put these fires out or contain them. For every department that shows up, they will generally have both a call out fee and an hourly fee based on how long they were on the scene. In most urbanized centers, your taxes will include the costs of a fire call-out. However, in the rural areas or smaller towns, there may often be an invoice for these services that you are responsible for. This is something you should look into with your local RM or  Municipal office.


In our local Saskatchewan departments, the average call-out fee is around $1200. The hourly rate is close to $1000 per hour. This means that if you had a house fire, shop fire, machinery fire or grass fire that you were responsible for, and one department spent 10 hours on the site putting out the fire, you could end up with an invoice of over $10,000. Now imagine the fire spreads to other locations and now 2 or 3 local department show up. This could end up being $20,000-$30,000. This seems far fetched, but we had 2 fires this year alone where the fire departments reported invoices of close to $20,000 and $40,000. The invoice usually gets sent to the land or property owner where the fire originated. So even though the fire did minimal damage on your property, if it spreads to other people’s property, you can still be on the hook for all the firefighting costs.


To protect yourself from these potential costs, you can add volunteer fire fighting coverage to your home/farm policy. Most RM administrators are recommending around $20,000 coverage for potential losses. Some insurance companies bundle this coverage with other packages to make them more flexible. For example, with My Mutual Insurance, you can purchase an “Agri-Shield” product which includes: Volunteer Fire Fighting, Debris Removal, Farm Building Contents – including Tack, and Tool Coverage. This package starts at a limit of $60,000, however, it can be increased. The reason that this is more flexible is that you can either use the full $60,000 for fire fighting if needed, or you break down the coverage as needed. For example, you have a shop fire and you need $10,000 for fire fighting, $25,000 for tools, $10,000 for debris removal and $10,000 for misc. farm contents. This coverage can be split up to reach those individual limits up to the total limit you have selected. Another potential scenario is a grass fire is starting on your land and you end up needing $40,000 to pay for fire fighting costs – this would all be covered under this package.

If you were to buy these coverages individually ($60,000 fire fighting, $60,000 tools, and $60,000 debris removal) this premium would end up being much more than the Agri-Shield product. Please give us a call if you would like to learn more about this product or would like to add these coverages to your policy.

Farm Liability – Protect you and your farm.

Harvest is here. The most exciting & insane time – of the farming year. You’ve got sprayers spraying, swathers swathing, combines combining, truckers trucking and augers augering. #Poetic #SixGeeseALaying #StopEatingMyCrops. You’ve got so many moving machines, people going in a million directions and you’re fighting a timeline before things freeze or mother nature decides to bring a heavy rain or an early snowfall. You have to work around the clock to capitalize on the nicer weather. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a free lunch in the farming world – which is ironic since they feed us all.

With all this commotion of people and moving equipment, plus working day and night; mistakes can be made. For example: You accidentally back the combine into your fuel truck parked behind you. You may take a corner too tight and hit a nearby power pole. You spray the wrong field. You spray during a windy day and accidentally overspray and kill your neighbours crop. There are so many things that “could” go wrong. That is why you carry Comprehensive Farm Liability. You never know what may happen, and even though you do not intend to do any damage; being sleep deprived or just zoned out, you can be negligent and cause a mistake.

Comprehensive Farm Liability is designed to protect yourself against such negligence. Most farm policies will automatically include $1 million liability on your policy (Which, of course, can be increased if required). You will likely need to declare the amount of acres your farm (Rent & Own) as this liability will extend to your entire farm operation. If you decide to do some custom work for other farmers, you may need to look into what limit your insurance carrier allows for this as that now becomes a commercial operation and may need to be reviewed. A little bit of work is usually included (as a neighbourly gesture) by most companies. However, if you plan on doing any custom work – make sure you contact us to make sure your insurance carrier is on board with the custom work, as this is a material change in operation and they need to be notified. 

If you are a landowner, but have wound down your farm operation, it is still important to carry Comprehensive Farm Liability. How the courts determine negligence is open to interpretation. So if someone trespasses on your land (even if it is marked) and are injured on your land. You may be found liable for injury or damage to that person based on the arguments in court. For example, a snowmobiler rides onto your property during the winter. They are zipping through the field and collide into an old set of heavy harrows that have been buried in the snow or an unmarked slough/dugout. The harrows and dugout were not flagged and therefore are the landowners responsibility. He may be found negligent and sued for damages.

This seems like an unfair situation affecting the farmer. However, scenarios that can be out of the farmers control, may still find their way into his responsibility. Again, this is why you carry Comprehensive Farm Liability to protect yourself against things that are out of your control. 

We would love to review this coverage with you and if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. We are in your corner and want to serve you in any way we can. Our motto is “Serving our clients, Serving our community,” for a reason. We want to make sure you have a safe, secure and amazing harvest! Thanks for reading!

 

“Only You can prevent forest fires!”

Other than the fire burning inside you, and the one roasting your marshmallows, fire can cause a lot of damage. There are currently some serious wildfires in Alberta, BC and Ontario. Firefighters are working tirelessly trying to put these out and contain the wreckage. So, first of all, thank you to all those putting their life on the line for our safety. Your efforts are appreciated greatly! Next thing, what can we (a typical pencil pushing, hammer throwing, citizen) do to prevent these things from happening?

Well, fire prevention has been pretty fresh on many people’s minds for quite some time now. How our houses are built, the urban infrastructure, the fire departments; they are all designed on how to put out and contain fires as quickly and efficiently as possible. Even the cooking products we buy, and the stoves we cook on – all have been changed over the course of time with fire prevention in mind. That is an ‘A+’ in the “prevent fires” column in society, as a whole.

So, “what can I do about this?”

  • Be responsible – throwing your cigarette out your window, leaving a campfire unattended, or starting campfires in “no fire” zones. People do outrageous things without thinking and it can end up causing a lot of damage. Please use common sense and be responsible. If you see someone do something like this, speak up! We need people to understand that their actions can hurt others.
  • Maintain equipment & machinery – Keeping your equipment, machinery and electrical components clean and in good working order will go a long way in preventing workplace fires or fires at home. Make sure qualified people are the ones working on the equipment.
  • Good housekeeping – Clutter can be a problem in causing fire, spreading it or blocking exits if a fire occurs. Make sure you keep it to an absolute minimum.
  • Test fire alarms – Despite all the technology and fire safety equipment out there, malfunctioning equipment is still a problem in many homes and workplaces, which allows fire damage to start and spread. Please test your systems and make sure your equipment is serviced and ready.
  • Fire Insurance – This is the elephant in the room, but purchasing fire insurance will give you ‘Peace of mind’ if something terrible were to happen. Just because you follow all these tips to a ‘T’, doesn’t mean that something can’t happen. It may start somewhere else and spread. Make sure you do everything in your power to protect you, your family & your business.

The costs to repair the damages from these fires, unfortunately, is still going up. It begs the question as to how this is happening, especially if the number of claims is going down? The answer, well, it’s two things really. First, the costs to rebuild & repair have never been higher. Materials and good fair labour is getting more expensive all the time. The fires that do occur, are so large that the amount of wreckage is astounding. The damage that the Slave Lake and Fort McMurray fires amounted to is approximately $10 Billion. Yes! With a ‘B.’ That is not a small number. Live video footage of Fort McMurray fire below. 👇🏻

Fire is amazing, brilliant and mesmerizing, but it can be extremely destructive if not handled with care. Please make sure you take all precautions to prevent any uncontrolled fire and if one occurs, be prepared and have the equipment and the knowledge to stop it from spreading. This may be grabbing a nearby fire extinguisher, or grabbing a co-worker off the floor and running to the nearest fire exit. Be prepared, be safe and be smart.

 

Farm Coverages that you may have forgotten about


During the farming season, there are many things going on. When it’s spring, you are getting the harrows, drills and rest of the equipment ready to hit the fields, along with the seed and fertilizer. Then after that is in the ground you have to get the sprayer and chemical ready. Then you have a short window before the peas are yellow and you are starting the harvest.

There are so many variables to running a farm and the season is so busy and hectic that something like your insurance policy can fall through the cracks. Generally the big items are remembered: The house, Shop, Bins, Barns, Equipment, Grain, Cattle, Etc. However, we want to touch on a few items that may be forgotten.

If you have a dairy or poultry farm, a big coverage is Farm Expense & Farm Income Coverage. This coverage pays for your expenses if you have a claim that results in a devastating loss which causes your farm to be inoperable and unable to generate an income because of the claim. For example, your milking parlour burns down and you are unable to milk your cows or your cattle have been lost in the fire. You may need to transport your cows to another farm to milk your cows while you rebuild your parlour. There are many different kinds of extra expenses that can be covered under this endorsement. It is a farm version of a “business interruption” policy. You may still have mortgage payments and payroll to keep employees, but you may not be making as much income or any at all. This plan is here to protect you from such a loss.


Another forgotten coverage is Debris Removal. Many people think of the replacement cost of a shop or barn, but they forget on what it would cost to tear down, excavate and haul away damaged materials and buildings. This my be a large job if you don’t have the equipment and manpower to handle the project. Most insurance companies recommend you add a minimum of 5% of the replacement value onto the building value to include for these costs.

Equipment Breakdown (also known as Boiler & Machinery Insurance) can be purchased on your farm policy for your farm outbuildings. Equipment breakdown coverage is not Machinery breakdown coverage. This is not designed to cover your farm machinery, but rather the fixed equipment in your farm outbuildings. This would be like: Boilers, Aeration Fans, Automatic Scrapers, Milking Parlours, Automatic Ventilation Slides, Compressors, Air Conditioners, Electronic equipment, etc. This coverage would apply to any sudden and accidental electrical or mechanical failure to that equipment fixed to the buildings. This coverage is important to cover the loss of any equipment in the claim, but it also removes any loopholes typical to an insurance policy. For example, you have a sudden mechanical failure in your heat exchanger in your furnace. The furnace catches fire and the shop burns down. The shop would be normally covered on your farm policy for the value it was insured for, however, they would exclude the damage to the furnace caused by the mechanical failure. This could still end up costing $5000 or whatever it would cost to repair or replace that furnace. By having this equipment breakdown coverage, the entire claim would be paid for, and you would only have to pay one deductible.

There are many little coverages that we recommend, but you may not have seen value in them when you first purchased your policy, but may now be relevant to you. A few of these are: Loss of use coverage (Farm Machinery), Volunteer Fire Fighting Coverage, Pollutant Clean-up and Removal, Tack Equipment, Vet supplies, Milk Contamination, etc. 

Please give us a call if your operation has changed, or if you would like to review the other farm coverage operations related to your farm operation.