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With people’s incomes often times fluctuating and car insurance rates rising every year, it is important to take the right steps to ensure auto insurance rates are as low as possible. Those who don’t have a car but still drive from time to time and who eventually want to buy a car need to maintain liability insurance for themselves. If they don’t, they will be stuck paying high-risk rates for their auto insurance for at least the first six months they own it, and that greatly increases the cost of owning a vehicle.

Auto Insurers Require Continuous Coverage

When going without a car for a period of time and not having any kind of auto insurance coverage, auto insurers will hold that
against people when they start to drive their own vehicles. A simple solution is to have a relative or friend carry someone as a named insured on their auto insurance policy for liability coverage only when possible. That gives the individual a recent history of being insured and won’t cause auto insurers to make them pay for high-risk car insurance. Individuals also can buy open auto liability insurance to any vehicle they might be driving for low rates and help to ensure they won’t have to pay high-risk rates for up to a year when they get their next vehicle.

Motorcycle Insurance Does Not Count

Motorcycles can be fully licensed, insured and ridden regularly, but if the owner of the motorcycle does not also have at least liability auto insurance, the motorcycle insurance will not count as maintaining auto insurance. Because motorcycles generally pose a greater risk to motorcycle riders than other vehicles or property, insurers want to see auto insurance coverage in place to help ensure no accidents or other driving mishaps have occurred involving the potential driver and policyholder. So if only riding a motorcycle, it is wise to also carry minimal levels of auto liability insurance.

Are you looking to buy a car but don’t have current auto insurance coverage?

Term life insurance is what many insurance experts consider to be the purest form of life insurance. The reason is because it truly does provide life insurance protection instead of making the policyholder pay premiums that provide the eventual cash benefit. Most term life policies also expire with no death benefit paid. That happens because the insured individual almost always outlives the term for which the life insurance policy provides financial protection. With term life, policyholders don’t have to undergo health exams or pay high premiums like whole life insurance plans require.

Actuarial Tables Determine Term Life Rates

Term life is much easier for insurers to underwrite than whole life insurance. Those looking to buy term life coverage need to just give their basic personal and health information, which insurers then use to compare to actuarial tables and determine the amount of the premium needed for coverage. Most term life insurance plans do not require any kind of health exam. Many also can be converted to whole life insurance if the policyholder so desires, but the premium will rise. Most term life insurance policies also have guaranteed renewals so they can be extended when a term expires.

Most Insurance Parties Outlive Policies

Term life insurance works best for helping to ensure home mortgages can be paid off if the main breadwinner should suddenly die. Most families in the United States do not have enough life insurance to prevent a sudden drop in a family’s standard of living if the head of household dies, and that means a lot of home mortgages likely won’t be paid off due to a lack of life insurance coverage. Term life insurance offers many affordable options to prevents such things from happening, and a decreasing term life insurance policy is ideal to protect family homes and other financial interests.

Have you considered buying life insurance to protect your family?

Most homeowners insurance policies do not give homes the full protection they need from various perils. While all homeowners insurance policies provide coverage for losses caused by fires, lightning, internal flooding and other possible perils, many other perils often times are not covered. A basic homeowners insurance policy only provides coverage for 11 standard perils with only limited protection for personal belongings. But homes in many areas of Nevada as well as other states can have more common localized perils. Kansas is famous for its windstorms, New Orleans for its catastrophic flood vulnerability and California for its earthquakes, for example. That means many homeowners will need specialized coverage for their homes and valuables.

Named-Perils and Open-Perils Policies

Homeowners insurance policies generally protect homes based on one of two means. The most common is a named-perils policy that specifically lists those potential hazards for which the policyholder will be indemnified. They include internal flooding, fire, lightning, power outages, vandalism, theft, falling objects and other common perils. Some homeowners insurance policies will name much more than 11 perils, and anything other than those perils that specifically are listed will not be covered. An open perils policy is different. With an open perils policy, only those perils that are excluded are listed, such as earthquakes, external flooding and other threats that are not insured against.

Commonly Excluded Perils that Nevadans Might Need

External flooding is one of the most common exclusions from coverage and requires either a separate flood insurance policy or a special rider to additional flood insurance protection. Earthquake insurance is another peril that most policies exclude but that could come in handy for Nevada residents. Nevada is among the nation’s most active states for seismic activity, but not nearly to the extent of nearby California. But homeowners might benefit from buying an earthquake insurance rider to protect against potential foundations cracking, damaged walls and other possible defects caused by Earth tremors. Flash flooding also is a common peril for which additional insurance coverage can be bought through the National Flood Insurance Program.

Does your home have any additional insurance riders protecting it?

While Las Vegas is located in the Mojave Desert and annually gets maybe 5 inches of rainfall, it also is located in its own basin, meaning any water falling in the vicinity ultimately winds up in Las Vegas. Complicating the problem is the rocky soil and steep mountains surrounding the area, which means the soil can’t absorb much rainfall. The result is rapid water runoff that quickly becomes a potentially deadly and highly destructive flash flood that can cause a lot of damage. Area officials have done a good job of improving flood control measures, but there still are a lot of homes at risk of suffering flood damages.

National Flood Insurance Program Raising Rates

Homeowners insurance policies do not provide coverage for external flooding. If the water comes in through your door or windows, it won’t be covered unless you have flood insurance protection. Most homeowners insurance plans will pay for damages caused by internal flooding, but additional protection is needed for external flooding. People living in areas that are at-risk of flood damage generally have to buy their coverage through the National Flood Insurance Program, which is administered by the federal government. But the program is deep in debt and has been raising flood insurance rates to as high as $10,000 per year for homes in high-risk areas.

Flood Plain Maps Expanded

To help recoup its steep losses, officials with the National Flood Insurance Program busily have been expanding maps of flood insurance plains and requiring flood insurance protection for all homes located within them. Homes located at or below the 100-year flood plains are charged very high rates for a maximum $250,000 in flood insurance coverage. The rates are reduced for taking steps to mitigate potential damage, like raising homes on stilts or moving them to higher ground.

Do you live in an area where flooding has occurred in recent years?

When the summer monsoon season moves into Arizona, it many times can find its way over into the Las Vegas Valley, which in fact is a basin. The distinction is meaningless to most people, but a valley has numerous outlets for water runoff. A basin does not. The only place water has to go when it falls anywhere in the greater Las Vegas area ultimately is the Colorado River. That means flash flooding is a serious concern for many people and especially those who do not have the right kinds of insurance coverage.

External Flooding Not Covered by Homeowners Policies

Homeowners insurance will protect against a lot of perils, but external flooding isn’t one of them. If it comes through the door or windows, there better be flood insurance to cover it. A homeowners insurance policy generally just has insurance protection for internal flooding, as might happen when a water heater ruptures and no one is around to shut off the water supply. Because internal flooding mostly is under the control of homeowners, insurers can better assess risks and underwrite coverage. But when the flooding is external, the cause is Mother Nature most of the time, and no one controls Mother Nature.

Mud Slides Also Need Protection

As many homeowners near Mt. Charleston learned last year, mud slides and landslides can be very destructive and excluded without an additional insurance endorsement on a homeowners policy. With the many steep hills and mountains in the area and the potential for wildfires as well as flash flooding, mudslides and landslides can be a real danger to local homes and require additional coverage. Standard homeowners insurance for the most part covers everything from the walls on in for a home and some external structures. When it comes to Mother Nature, a lot of her perils need special protection.

Does your homeowners insurance protect against external flooding and land movement?