Talking Insurance Ep3: Renters Insurance

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Talking Insurance Episode 3: Renters Insurance in West Virginia and Kentucky

About the episode

This is our third “Talking Insurance” roundtable from Bray & Oakley Insurance Agency. We are excited to share with you the answers to common questions, dive deep into the information you really need to know and share our stories and experience from over 100 years in the insurance industry.

For our third episode a few of our Bray & Oakley team members sat down to discuss renters insurance, coverages, qualifications, important steps to take and some information not commonly known about making sure you have the right policy. If you have questions about renters insurance in West Virginia and Kentucky, this is time well spent.

Michael Winter, Claude Stapleton, and Danny Crum are your hosts for this week’s “Talking Insurance”.

Listen to Episode Three:

Transcription

All right. Hey, everybody. We’re sitting down with Bray and Oakley today for our talking insurance podcast. And today the topic on the table is renter’s insurance. So guys, if you guys don’t mind, just take a second, introduce yourself. And let’s talk about insurance.

I’m Michael Winter with Bray and Oakley Insurance Agency.

I’m Danny Crum. I’m the Vice President of Sales here at Bray and Oakley insurance.

Awesome, Claude Singleton. I’m the manager of Lexington, Richmond offices of Bray and Oakley here in Kentucky.

Great to have you guys. So we’re talkin’ renter’s insurance. Who needs renter’s insurance?

That’s a good question. And I get that quite often. And I tell people all the time that if you think you need renter’s insurance, there’s a good possibility you probably do. Anyone that is occupying a home that they do not own is eligible for renter’s insurance. Okay, and it goes deeper than that. So we’re thinking, you know, college students who are at a dorm, you’re renting a home, you’re renting an apartment. Even possibly, you know, you’re older. And maybe you move back in with your parents or relatives for some reason, there’s a good possibility you could need renter’s insurance for that as well. It just really depends on the primary homeowners insurance policy, whether it will respond or not. It’s a good question.

Also, Danny, like your landlord, or your property management companies that are overseeing the apartment buildings or the student housing complexes, they usually will require, it’s more common now that they will require renters insurance. So that’s just another area that you’re going to start seeing a lot of.

I’ll share something further if I can. It’s not just the contents that you’re insuring. That particular the management companies are concerned about, it’s the liability part of the policy. And in a way, the liability part of the policy can be much more valuable than the contents part. I will get in more detail, but I’ll just share this with you that the contents would cover your belongings up to a limit that you determined for fire and theft and things like that, like some type of a claim. And that’s so many 1000s of assets that you’ve got with a liability part if someone sues you because of a home situation, that can be several $100,000. And so your liability part of that policy is a critical thing, and can be extremely important. Out of nowhere out of the blue. Here’s this claim. And that’s part of what happens with the renters policy. You got this other coverage that can be extremely beneficial for a bad claim that you didn’t see coming.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you’re seeing a lot of landlords and stuff require their occupants to have renter’s insurance now than you used to. We’re seeing a lot around here in West Virginia, and most certainly in Lexington. Almost every renters policy we write and Lexington, they’re giving requirements for liability coverage and things like that. And one of the largest claims it’s funny that you see when it comes to renter’s insurance if you’re if you’re quoting someone’s renter’s insurance, and you run an NVR something I see a lot is water claims so, say if you’re in a multiple unit apartment, and the neighbor above you, they leave their faucet on and they leave and it floods and drips down and ruins your laptop. You’re seeing a lot of that stuff on the claims when it comes to these apartments and complexes and stuff

So what as far as contents, what does renters insurance actually cover

You know, for a lot of people, I always try to explain it like this. I mean there’s a lot you know, a lot of people that have costly electronics. I mean, you have your iPhones, your smartwatches, your iPads, your laptops, your clothes, your furniture, your beds, mattresses, anything like that. If you take, like, if you could take the building, turn it upside down, shake it whatever falls out is your contents so it’s a good idea to always take a little bit of an inventory of your items. You know, keep it, maybe a video of them to help if you ever do have a claim. But that’s, that’s what we consider contents.

Yeah. And it’s a good point too. And a lot of people don’t realize how deep and how expensive that can get. When you talk about content. Like Michael said, you take the roof off the home. And this is an analogy we use all the time for our customers. And we’re trying to explain okay, what’s the difference between a dwelling coverage on a structure and the contents coverage? And like Michael said, you take the roof off, you turn the house upside down, anything that can fall out contents. Well, when you get in thinking about that, I’ve had customers claim as having total losses, you’re talking about stuff that towels, rag, silverware, furniture, like Michael said, anything not bolted down, and it can really, really get expensive. Most people don’t realize what they lost until they lose it. When people call me and they’re like, how much coverage do I need? Well, that’s a good question. You probably need more than what you think you do. And I’ll start breaking that down with them. And they’ll think, at $15,000, which is usually the minimum limit that most insurance carriers require on flood insurance. Then I start saying, Okay, so do you have a living room suit? Yeah, yeah. All right. Do you have a bedroom suit? Yep. Sure. Do dressers, all that good jazz? How about your silverware? How about your towels? How about your toiletries? But think about all that? Yeah, yeah, that’s stuff that most people don’t think about. So usually, when it comes to the limit, a loss limit, it’s much higher than what most people think they really have.

Another thing was that coaching, that is the policy limit. It does not go past that. And so the client determines that amount. And that’s what we will put in there for him, we will coach them to make sure you’ve done this in your mind. Count of what you’ve got. And that’s a big deal. That’s a big, big number. Pots and pans anymore. extremely expensive. You know, that stove, and brother. Yeah, there you go. There we go.

There’s stuff that you guys get out of conversation with your clients that they think is normally covered under renter’s insurance, and maybe isn’t.

I’d like to address that a little bit if I could. There are different kinds of policies that look very similar. And there might be a good thing, might be a good reason to give us a call. And let us analyze if you’ve got a quote with someone, it’s possible for you to have a lack of coverage, on your policy on your contents policy, your renters policy, it says, I’ve got a $50,000 limit on my contents. But the quote I give you actually also says 50,000, but it’s got a higher coverage. And why do I say that mine has got replacement cost contents on it means that we will pay the full price of what it takes today to replace that same like, kind and quality item. You had that wooden table that your parents gave you back 10 years ago. It’s a nice wooden table. It’s not an antique or not a priceless heirloom, but it’s a functional table. But you said well, it’s 25-30 years old. It’s gonna be depreciated. No, not if you get the right kind of policy, so call us. And we’ll say what does it take to rebuild or replace those items, instead of a garage sale price that other companies will actually give you that will allow you a lower value, whereas we’re going for replacement cost. And that’s a big deal. Big deal.

Awesome. I see. I guess with a lot of families at school starting back up, is it important for college students to have renter’s insurance?

Yeah, it’s well, I’ve been doing this for 20 years at least. And one of the things that’s important is that we’re an independent insurance agency we represent at least you know, 10 quality standard insurance carriers and all the policies language reads differently when it comes to like, like temporary housing or property away from the premise one of our one of our big carriers is Erie Insurance Group and with in the the jacket language for a homeowner’s policy is different for Kentucky than it is for West Virginia. So they you know, what’s covered in West Virginia way from the premise at a temporary residence might not be the same for Kentucky so one of the things that’s really important is that when you’re getting your insurance is that you’ve actually talked to somebody that’s knowledgeable about that. The big thing is like with Erie, they give you up to 10% of your personal property limit at like a temporary residence. So you have up to 10% of your your mom and dad’s contents coverage limit on their homeowners. So you know that might be enough it might not be but that’s but that’s something that you got to look at. So you know, you need definitely need to review these coverages with your you know, your advisor at your agency like like Claude singleton in Lexington, Kentucky, he can tell you about the the you know, the Erie jacket language for homeowners policy and how it would protect their students at the dorm or on campus living.

You had a good point there, Michael. And in fact, I was just on the phone just before starting this meeting with a family who I’ve helped with three different daughters who went away to college. Wow. And all three of them, we were able to use the parents homeowner’s policy, as opposed to the brand new renters policy. And they said, Yeah, but we need a certificate and all that kind of stuff. Yes, we were able to do so. And it’s, it’s if you deal with us, you deal with a knowledgeable agent, we will find the ways and they had money to, they could have bought a renters policy, but there was no need to based on the certificates we could provide in real coverage. So it took care of each of the management companies for the girls. And by the way, to have graduated, there’s one remaining. That’s what’s going on.

So really, depending on the carrier, whether the primary homeowners policy of the parents will respond or carry over to the rental property or dorm room for the children and even in storage units. Right, Michael, didn’t you and I look at that one time, people renting storage units, sometimes the primary homeowners policy will extend to that provides some coverage as well.

Awesome. So is it I know that you guys cover a couple different states. Is it a law? I know that you had said to Danny that it looks like some people are starting to require renter’s insurance before you can rent from them?

Yeah, a lot of landlords. Again, you’re seeing it here more in West Virginia than you used to. But when we went into Kentucky, you see it all the time, especially some of these big complexes and things like that, where the landlord will actually require you to carry specific limits of liability insurance under a tenants policy before they’ll sign a lease with you. And it’s becoming very common here as well, a lot of times the sub limit is going to be $100,000 or $300,000 of liability. And then of course, it’s up to the insured how much content coverage or personal property coverage they want to carry on their belongings. Something else to do then since we’re talking about too, is a lot of people don’t think about and I think Claude and I ran into this question before his loss of use when it comes to a renters policy. Remember that? It was a question we got. And from a student, I think that was renting in Lexington, he was like, hey, what happens if the building I’m in is a total loss, fire loss or something that is loss of use coverage. And what that means is the policy will actually pay to put you up in another residence while that was being repaired or whatever for a certain amount of time. And some renters policies do contain that. And that’s a really good important coverage as well.

It’s really important right now with the supply chain issues with things getting rebuilt, it’s taking longer. So that loss of use limit is going to be used more now. I mean, that’s really important. When you start looking at the renter’s policy, that loss of use now, it wasn’t always that big of a deal. But now with the supply chain issues and stuff where how long you’re having to wait for building material or just you know, I mean, I know people’s waited over a year for appliances. So that’s really important as well.

That’s an excellent point, because we are actually right now, because it’s what we do. We are when we’re looking at policies for our customers when it comes to renters policies, and even homeowners policies and auto policies as well. We’re trying to give that maximum bundle the best bundled package that will extend that loss of use, or that rental car coverage or things out because of the supply and demand right now. That’s a really good point. Michael.

Is there any policy online for say college students if they have to burn their couch in Morgantown after a WVU game?

It may happen tonight.

After we beat Pitt, West Virginia we exclude fire damage to couches.

Intentional game related.

Let’s go mountaineers.

Yeah, the same thing happens in Lexington. And there’s a specific Street in town where it all happens and protects your couches. Wow.

What about I know, as far as add on policies, do I need to buy? Like if I’m renting? Do I need to buy flood insurance? Anything? Is that included together? Is that something you guys can help with?

Typically, I’ll answer this if you don’t mind. Typically, flood insurance is going to be with the responsibility of the building owner. Okay, all right. So the person that I’m renting off of the landlord or the owner of the home that I’m occupying, but I don’t insure the structure typically flood insurance to fall back on them because they’re gonna you know, that’s the big deal of flood insurance especially when it comes to the government issue policies covering the structure of the home.

Okay, one thing about this flood insurance we want to hit on some there’s there’s other carriers that are starting to dabble in flood insurance. What they’re trying to do is they’re bolting on to another line of coverage like sewer and drain backup. Yes. Sometimes what they’ll do is they’ll give you actually a sub limit of flood insurance with your like, if you have sewer and drain backup coverage on your renter’s policy, they you know, I think some of them might be able to bolt on some flood sublimit coverage for flood. And you can also get a tenants policy for flood insurance, I think through the NFIP program. So it’s important to look, you know, if you’re in a flood prone area, you definitely want to look at getting flood insurance, it’s important. Or ask your, you know, your trusted advisor, independent agent at Bray and Oakley, that little plug there for us. But if they can, you know, endorse their policy to give them some sort of flood coverage. Claude might be able to… Claude, Did you sit in any of those new flood coverages that are Erie’s offering on some of the home owners.

Yes, and it depends upon the state that you’re in the introduction date is it’s a little out from us. But they do have Erie has got plans for a much improved over the National Flood program. It’s a much improved policy. And that several companies are doing this. And we’ll be glad to look further into this, as you call if you want to visit about that with us. But they’re looking at how the companies can pattern premiums that will be lower and coverages that are better than the National Flood Insurance Program, because there’s certain limits on that program that are pretty rigid. And so they’re banking on the fact that they can pick out the right type of coverage at the right places, and perhaps not offered in all places, but they will do a hopefully better job for the future. And Sunday was a positive thing in the marketplace. More coverage, more types of coverage, but it’s not quite settled yet. Not here yet. But it’s coming.

Yeah, yeah, Erie here in West Virginia. And there’s a plug as well, great carrier, but a lot of other carrier carriers, too, are working on adding that flood endorsement to their homeowners policy. And as of right now here in West Virginia, Erie is doing that. Depending on what flood zone you’re in, you know that you can actually if you buy the top level endorsement on the homeowners policy with sewer and drain backup, they will actually sell you some flood insurance within the homeowner’s policy. Pretty cool.

That is good. Yeah.

So how does renter’s insurance work the difference between a house and an apartment? Or? I guess? And if you have roommates, how does… if I take out a policy on a place that I’m renting and I have roommates, something happens you know, how is that covered? So two different questions. Different angles, who wants to take that one?

Yeah, yeah, I’ll jump in if you like your roommates may not have coverage depending on the company you’re dealing with? It’s your stuff is your stuff. And your protection is your protection and sorry about your luck pal. You chose not to take it. I took it because I was planning ahead. Yeah, so they may have the same loss that occurred they may be without and you would be with and so that is a big deal. We’d like to know if there’s other roommates whenever possible. It’s not always possible because things change with people. But if we know about them, then we will warn them of that and offer them the opportunity to have this coverage also, because they’ve got their own contents, you know, that they brought with them, they may share some things but the policy will cover what it will cover. It won’t just be to anyone unrelated and all that stuff.

Yeah, I think Michael brought this up early in the conversations, it’s such a great idea to document your belongings, do it with a video do it with camera whatever put it somewhere where it’s saved because you know if you have a big loss of carriers especially in this scenario where you could have multiple roommates the carrier’s gonna want to go you know, potentially what you know, what was yours? Do we have proof and that’s always a great idea. It’s a good idea. It’s a good idea on any homeowners occupied policy, whether it’s a renters policy homeowners policy, you should always document what you have. Put in a safe deposit box somewhere where it’s safe. These iPhones make it really good because of the cloud service, now you don’t lose it. But document what you have.

You know, you brought up having roommates that, you know, we’re insurance agents. So we, we evaluate risk, and we’re, you know, so you know, you got three boys and I, you know sharing a house, the likelihood of you know, something happening to like they maybe have a, let’s say someone come in to the home that you know that you don’t know, and that person could, or they could have a party and that person steals your stuff. There’s a theft, there’s an increase of theft there. That’s why it’s more important. That’s why you think about how important it is to have the renter’s insurance. The other thing is to say you got three roommates, everyone falls asleep smoking a cigarette, he’s probably not as careful as you are. You could have a fire loss. I mean, those are some really good reasons why when your kids go off to college, it’s important for them to have, you know, this is coverage of personal property coverage and liability coverage. You know, a lot of kids when they go to college, they get a dog. What if this dog bites someone, you know, it’s, you know, where some of your liability coverage comes in. So it’s really important, you know, something? So we always have a lot of people say, Well, how much liability coverage do I need? You know, we can easily tell how much property coverage they need, we can tell them to add it up, and we can get coverage for it. But I’m like, Well, can you tell me how much someone’s going to sue you for and you really can’t. So as much as you can afford on the liability side is, you know, is what we generally like to tell our customers, because it’s really important to carry enough liability limits to protect yourself.

Yeah, there’s two points there that I want to elaborate on. And Mike, I’m gonna get you to help me on one of them. Theft when it comes to homeowners policy or renters policy, how does that work? Are there sub limits?

There are some set limits when certain items I mean, like firearms, there’s usually with some carriers, there’s a fifth sub limit on firearms and jewelry, unless they’re scheduled to the policy. And that’s another thing you could do with the renter’s policy, it gives you the ability to actually schedule these items at a, you know, an appraised value ahead of time. So that’s another good thing to think about as well. But there’s a lot of differences. We have 10 carriers, and the way they would treat firearms is probably different sub limit, they have theft of firearms sub limit coverage. That means if somebody comes in and breaks into your home, steals your firearms, some carriers give you up to about $10,000 worth of firearms coverage. Well, that’s not enough in certain areas for certain insurance. Because there’s a certain point, you know, I’m a gun collector, I’m sure $10,000 won’t be enough for me. So what we try to do is encourage our customers to either look at a carrier that doesn’t have a theft sub limit for firearms, which we actually have one carrier that does. Yeah, believe it Safeco, which is a very good carrier. So it’s good to review your policy, go over these limits, theft sub limits with them and make sure they have the appropriate coverages. If they’re not, we can actually schedule them onto the policy so that it takes care of that.

Another thing with sub limits and all the deductibles usually it’s $1,000. That can be different. But with certain items, very important items, your computer, your smartphone, some of our carriers give a $100 deductible on a $1,000 policy 1000 deductible policy, here’s $100 deductible for that kind of item. That’s a big deal. You just saved $900. Now the agent advises you with that particular company on a claim that involves your smartphone. And that was just awesome. Absolutely.

And let’s get to the point.

Yeah, in scheduling. I want to elaborate on when Claude and Michael are referring to scheduling to your policy. Okay, what that Oh, so you’ve got your renter’s policy, your homeowners policy, and Michael mentioned scheduling like a watch or firearms, what you’re doing is you’re specifically listing that item out with a description, okay. And then you’re putting a value on that either appraised value, purchase price, whatever it may be. So then you’ve got the coverage for that. And it also will cover you off premises, if it’s scheduled. So if you’ve got a nice watch that you’ve got scheduled on your policy, and you go to the lake with some friends, you lose your watch, there’s coverage for it not necessarily theft from the home on the premises if you’re occupied. That’s good. The other thing that Michael talked about was how much liability coverage do you need? And like he said, you know, how much can you afford? But we always like to educate our customers on an umbrella policy as well. And umbrella policies and extra limited covers that go over top of your policies. If your policy limits are exhausted, this will pick up that stuff. And this is stuff that we do at brain Oakley, you call us we’re gonna explain that to you. We go in depth with it, we explain how these policies react. What happens if you have a loss, sub limits and all this good stuff. A lot of information there. Yeah.

So what I’m hearing is, if you’re a college student in Morgantown, and you buy the couch, you need to have a policy in your name.

Hopefully, tonight you do.

Are there any other major differences between renter’s insurance for a home versus an apartment?

Well, obviously, the obvious difference will be we’re not concerned about the shell of the dwelling for a renters policy. We’re concerned about the contents and the liability with your hope that’s it. But that’s really the biggest difference, it’s still what we consider to be a home policy to talk about policy.

Yeah. You can experience different claims, like I was talking about earlier, if you’re renting an apartment, you get people over top of you or you know, I guess there’s some more risks there. Like as water claims, you’ve got people going in and out all the time. And anytime you’ve got a lot of people occupying different spaces, different things can happen. There’s some liability exposure there, there’s potential theft, because you don’t know who your neighbors are bringing in, but they’re bringing in people like that. Again, one of the number one claims I see when it comes to apartments, and renters policies are water claims from the neighbor, you know, leaving something on or whatever. And then possibly, they didn’t have renter’s insurance. So the policy that the tenant has is actually responding.

I know it’s a mundane question. Some of you guys have answered a couple times, but how much renter’s insurance should somebody actually carry?

You know, the conversation, and I deal with a lot of the conversation I had with customers is, of all ages is, you know, first thing I asked him off the top of your head, what do you think you need? Okay, most policies, most companies we have will do a minimum of 15,000. So you have to carry at least $15,000? The typical answer I get, there’s $20-$25,000. So then I’ll go into more detail that just like you would on life insurance, or homeowners insurance, or auto insurance, and I’ll start pointing out things that I know that I see daily, that you know, they don’t do insurance, they don’t see claims, they don’t cross their mind. So again, I’ll start pulling, pointing out, you know, accepting the toiletries and things like that. And typically, we’ll end up with a coverage of about five to $10,000, more, possibly more than what they actually call for. And again, that’s where it comes down to having an experienced agent who does this every day who can advise you correctly. You know, it’s just like, if you’re sick, you don’t treat yourself, you go to the doctor, they see that stuff, you call your agent, call one of us and offer the plug in there www.Brayandoakley.com. On our website, you can call any one of our offices, all of our office locations are listed on our website, one of our agents will help you determine what you’d need, what we think you need, and we’ll kind of come to a solution there together. Again, on the liability insurance side of it, a lot of landlords are requiring certain limits for liability. But again, we all know, if they don’t require that we’re always going to try to, you know, have that conversation with you. You don’t know what you’re going to be sued for. You don’t know what’s gonna happen. Sure. Leave by as much as you can afford.

Yeah, just take your window unit air conditioner. Yeah, let’s say you’re on the third floor of an apartment building. And, you know, you didn’t get it secured in there properly, and it fell out the window and struck someone. I mean, could you really mean how much is that going to cost? I mean, that’s definitely bodily injury, that the liability policy would probably have to defend you for and, you know, I mean, was $100,000 going to be enough? You know, I mean, probably not. So these are things to think about when you’re a tenant or renter, I mean, your property is important. But you know, you could pretty much put a set limit on your property, but your liability can be unlimited. So always encourage everyone to purchase as much as they can.

And we use the you’ll hear out disclaimer course we’re not doing a specific interview right now, but you hear disclaimer at some point. We’re not attorneys, don’t pretend to be any but here’s the insurance part of it. You better protect yourself and what do you feel comfortable with being protected for current income and future income assets? Where are you in life? Are you near retirement? Do you have assets stacked up that people would really go after and attach? Well, that’s a problem. So let’s talk about that. That’s where what Danny said earlier was wonderful, but the umbrella liability to go on top of like an umbrella. That’s a big deal on top of your car insurance on top of your renter’s insurance, or on top of your home as well.

And the discounts. I mean, there’s a discount score that I had this discussion with a doctor today. I’m actually working on his home auto life insurance and everything and, when I present it to him, I always, always call it an umbrella, always. And I included my email. And he said, I don’t think I need it. I said, why? He said, Well, I’ve got limits on the homeowners and auto insurance. I said, Okay, let me give you a scenario. And I gave him a scenario about the time our conversation was done. It wasn’t, am I purchasing an umbrella? How much of one can I purchase? Yes, yes. Yeah. And you know, that’s us really just showing you what can happen. Yeah, we do this for a living. We see it every day, every

day. And often, often we will hear that no one’s ever mentioned an umbrella to us before. Is that important? And that’s, I used to point that out. There’s a reason we do it. And we are aware of claims and we prepare as if you’re going to have a claim. So that’s how we need to prepare. That’s the Bray and Oakley way, if you will another commercial,

most affordable insurance you can purchase for the most coverage and umbrella policy, typically 2-300 bucks for a million dollars coverage. Everyone should have one. Yeah. Everyone on this call has gone. Except for maybe you.

Mike, we need to talk more!

I’ll have to jot down the number there. Yeah. I couldn’t help but get tickled when Michael talked about the window unit, you guys have ever seen, remember Happy Gilmore, the Adam Sandler movie.

I never thought about that. But I will probably use that in my conversation for renting apartment buildings.

So are their qualifications? I mean, does everybody qualify for renter’s insurance? How does that work?

You can’t, you have to be renting the space you’re occupying. Other than that, I mean, of course, 18 years of age, there’s got to be some legal stuff there. You gotta be able to sign your own application, you know, be on your own to be able to do that, and so forth. But no, you got to be renting, that you can’t own the building. Because of course, the coverage, you would have the homeowners, it’s got the property coverage included with it, but you got to be renting the space that you’re occupying.

Awesome, okay.

Other than that, it’s very simple.

It’s probably the one of the cheapest policies you ever buy in your life that gives you probably some of the broadest coverage so a renters policy is pretty important. And it’s very affordable. So when you start calculating some of the bundled discounts you’ll get for having an auto and renters together, that helps offset some of the costs. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Especially I heard somebody say, just talking about the cost of what you know what everything costs. Now the you know, with inflation going up what buildings costs, what it costs to rent a place, like you talked about, you know, policies being able to help you if something were to happen, your displaced, gosh, how much money you would be out trying to find a short term, an Airbnb or something like that for a month while they remodel your kitchen or bedroom or something. Shew, you’d be in for a ton of money? Yes.

That’s all stuff that most people don’t think about Mike. Until it happens. Yeah, until it happens, because, you know, most people have the mindset and even myself at times is, you know, probably won’t happen to me. But when it does, that’s when your insurance matters. That’s when what you buy and who you purchase it from matters.

I may have said on one of our previous videos, because I repeat myself often but my age. That would be it not a week goes by that someone didn’t call and said, Claude, I never thought this would happen to me. Well, what are they about to say? It’s a claim! And that’s, that’s what we prepared for. So that is that way with renter’s insurance, or home insurance, regular home insurance or auto insurance, all of that stuff? Things happen. And that’s what we do, we prepare for it.

Yeah, yeah. And I’ll repeat what Michael tells our customers all the time, we insure you, with the mindset that you are going to have a claim. Yes. So that’s how we do it in the beginning. And when you when you have a claim with Bray and Oakley, you’re going to call us and thank us, you’re not going to say why didn’t you and I’ve had this happen many times I’ve had customers call me that’s had total losses that have, you know, been weeping because they just lost everything they own. But, you know, we’ve done the right thing and we had these discussions and they were insured properly and it’s tough, but their life picked up and they were able to move forward. So yeah, the emotional part we course you can’t replace that and what they what they lost but do To be able to financially to pick up, and also not be waiting for someone else to donate something, or waiting for an offering or something which you’re you’re it’s wonderful to see our outreach from the community. But it’s wonderful also not to have to wait on that and have this protection from the time that fire department finishes putting out the fire. You know, it’s, you know, that’s wonderful. Yeah, exactly.

So since you guys cover both states for your all’s customers, or is there a difference between insurance renter’s insurance coverage from West Virginia to Kentucky?

If there is a very small difference when there?

Yes, yeah, yeah, the most different state to state is typically going to apply to your auto insurance. But when it comes to homeowners and renters policies, typically they’re pretty much cut and dry. You may see some small stuff like we’ve talked about flood insurance earlier, and things like that, that some companies may offer in one state, but not the other. But typically, you’re looking at the you know, the nuts and bolts of the policy, the contents coverage, the liability, exposure, liability coverage, and then each company has their own endorsements, like we call bundles. And usually there’s three to four tiers of that, starting with the least up to the most, you can just kind of make your package a little more broad by purchasing these things such as firearms, settlements, which we talked about siding restoration, when it comes to homes, roofs, and things like that.

One of the things that, you know, just going back to having a knowledgeable agent that actually operates in both states, like we do, is that like with one of our carriers, and one state, they, you know, if you have a renters policy and you move to another location, you don’t have to rewrite the policy, you just have to re you know, endorse the policy to add a new address. But however, like in Kentucky, I think you have to rewrite the policy, or rewrite, rewrite a new policy, it’s not an endorsement. So you know, it’s always really important. Whenever someone’s got a renters policy, and they’re deciding that they’re going to be moving or going somewhere else, that coverage doesn’t automatically follow you to that new location, sometimes, just depending on the carrier, depending on the state. That’s why it’s always good to stay in constant contact with your agent.

Yeah, and like Michael said, we do have circumstances being in two states, Kentucky and West Virginia, that sometimes we do have Kentucky, clients that move to West Virginia, or vice versa. And even if we can’t transfer the policy internally, by changing the address, most of our companies do what’s called spin offs. And we can put the previous policy number in, and you keep your experience with the customer. It’s not like starting over. So if you’ve been with, let’s say Erie for three years, and we do that spin off, you’re still going to have that credit for being with Erie for three years, because you’re staying at the same carrier who’s moving states with the same agent.

So how does, if a client calls, reach out to you guys, for information? How can Bray and Oakley help with renter’s insurance? Give me a quick rundown.

We are insurance professionals. And we take pride in what we do. When you call us if we don’t have the answer, we find it for you. But more times than not we’re able to advise you on the phone. We usually answer your questions within five or 10 minutes. We can advise you correctly on you know, we want to listen to what you have to say first. All right, that’s the frontline. We want to hear what you think you need. And then we’re going to start giving our opinion and helping you decide. And we always find a policy that’s right for you. That’s what we do that goes for all of our offices. We have six offices in two states. Each office is run independently by the management in that office. It’s a face that, you know, it’s a voice that you know, when you call, you don’t get a  1-800 Number with us to where you’re going to call an operator and you’re going to talk to someone in Atlanta, when you call her off. You’re going to talk to Claude Singleton, you’ve talked to before you’re going to talk to Michael Winter, you’re going to talk to Danny Crum, you’re going to talk to Betsy Peeples and that relationship there. It gives us some experience with you. It allows us to get to know who you are, some of your exposure to what you need, and we can help you make the right decisions.

Yeah, I think the emphasis is on we can give individual attention and we will do that. Whereas specifically why, how to fix what you’re looking for, and then make that advice that we need. So it’s individual attention. It’s a big deal. Absolutely is.

Awesome. If somebody’s thinking about somebody’s thinking about renting, family, maybe sending a kid off to college, how do they get a hold of you guys who do they call?

Best way honestly is if you’re local, you’re gonna see our number everywhere you’re gonna see on social media, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, We’re in all that. But you can always go to our website at www.Brayandoakley.com. When you get there, you’re gonna see all of our office locations listed. You can find the one that’s closest to you is going to have a number there. You can reach out to us. You can or you can also reach out to us via social media, Facebook, we monitor it throughout the day. Very easy. If you can’t get a hold of us, it’s because you didn’t try.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, guys, I appreciate you taking some time talking about renter’s insurance today.

So thank you, Mike. Yeah.

Question real quick. Sure. How do you pronounce the capital of Kentucky? Is it Louisville or “Lewisville”?

Is that me? You’re asking me? Yeah. Yeah, I’d say Louisville. I think it’s Frankfort. Just saying.

Gotcha, gotcha. Gotcha. One more well, we’re kind of joking around a bit. Somebody famous moved from West Virginia to Kentucky. You know what his name is? Oscar Tshiebwe. Thank you West Virginia. We take that basketball.

Yeah, it’s a great he’s a good he’s a good guy.

What a guy. What again? I say Go Big Blue.

Well, in closing statement, WVU will beat Pitt tonight as always. I’m not gonna leave any more room for conversations. Great having you. I’ll see you bye.

Talking Insurance Ep2: Church Insurance

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Talking Insurance Episode 2: Church Insurance in West Virginia and Kentucky

About the episode

This is our second “Talking Insurance” roundtable from Bray & Oakley Insurance Agency. We are excited to share with you the answers to common questions, dive deep into the information you really need to know and share our stories and experience from over 100 years in the insurance industry.

For our second episode, and our personal experience in churches, a few of our Bray & Oakley team members sat down to discuss church insurance, coverages, qualifications, important steps to take and some information not commonly known about making sure you have the right policy. If you have questions about curch insurance in West Virginia and Kentucky, this is time well spent.

Claude Stapleton and Danny Crum are your hosts for this week’s “Talking Insurance”.

Listen to Episode Two:

Transcription

Welcome back to Talking Insurance with Bray and Oakley Insurance Agency. I’m Danny Crum. I’m the Vice President of sales here at Bray and Oakley Insurance Agency. And I’m here with Claude Singleton, who is the manager of our Lexington and Richmond locations. Hey Claude how are ya?

 

Really good. How are you doing? 

 

I’m doing good, good, good.

 

We’re outside of one of our nice churches here in Lexington, and we’re going to visit today about church insurance.

 

Yeah, absolutely. I’m involved in my church. And when I got into insurance, and I started doing some things such as learning coverages, I started applying some of that to our church. Most people don’t really understand that churches operate like a business.

 

Absolutely. And there’s some risks involved that you have to be careful with. And if you’re affiliated with a church, and you have something to do with the church insurance, we’re glad to help you through that it can be a minefield, and if you don’t have the right coverages, you can have some serious problems. And we’re here to help.

 

Absolutely. And, you know, being a part of the church and, you know, being involved on the inside, we see some things that most people probably don’t realize. And today, we want to talk about some of that, some of the risks that’s involved in the church, some of the coverages that are essential for churches that you really must have. And Claude Singleton, he’s got a long history in insurance. He’s worked on church insurance for quite a few years, right?

 

Absolutely. Two or three, yeah, one or two years is pretty good. I do have a good experience. And I do like sharing with churches and the different committees I work with, about what they can do to protect themselves better. 

 

Absolutely. Because you’ve got an asset, if you will, building, but a bigger asset as a liability concern that you’ve got that you don’t want to have your ministry to be destroyed, either in reputation or  in financially to where you would not be capable of doing future service. And insurance can help you do that. So it really is a tool to help. 

 

Absolutely. One thing that most may not even realize is a lot of your church buildings are pretty old. That really you can’t put a replacement cost value on is that right?

 

There’s different ways of calculating that. What we want to do is to help you to determine what’s best for you all, and to help if you’ve got works of art or certain types of architecture that’s special to you. Do we need to insure it that way? Or do we need to do it as a functional church, as do you want to have this as a functional church building later, not exactly designed the same way not with the same exact materials, and that affects things. So that’s part of our discussion. And it can also affect your pricing. It can also affect the value of the church building that we would need to rebuild. All that’s important. And we do it one at a time with each customer, each church that we work with. 

 

Yeah, absolutely. So pertaining to church insurance. What are some coverages that stick out? I mean, as far as you’ve got building coverage? Of course, you’re gonna have liability, just like any other business would have. But what about like, directors and officers, and protecting the volunteers and things like that?

 

Absolutely. And that’s part of the coverage that we discuss. And sometimes when we’re reviewing coverages with people, we will see that that’s not been addressed or not been addressed adequately. So we talk about what is the exposure, what is the risk for a volunteer sitting on the church board, who’s doing the right things, but can still have an allegation of a suit against them, because we’re doing the right things with the congregation. And so we need to protect those individuals. And we help you do that. You determine the level, but we’ll show you that we’ll discuss those options. It’s a very important thing for board members to have that and decision makers, because they’re not, most of them are not even getting paid for this and what a risk they’ve got going on. You mentioned another sexual misconduct. Yeah, things can happen. And, and we’ve got different companies that we work with, and we will fix that coverage to the level that you want. And there’s certain guidelines that we will deal with, there’s ways of you getting a better price on your insurance, which I think is a very big deal. Gives you a better value. If you do certain steps and we’ll talk you through those steps. If you do this, it’ll give you a better help on your insurance premium and have better coverage.

 

Yeah, and you know, that’s something that we don’t like to think about. You’re okay. It’s a church, you go here for comfort, you go here for safety, and nobody wants to think about sexual misconduct and those sort of things. But, you know, the reality is, whether you’re guilty or not of that. It can be an accusation, right?

 

That’s correct. And there has to be a defensible thing. Hang on, we want to help you with a defense of that. And if there is something that occurs where they do hold you, the congregation responsible, we want to have a company who is willing to help with paying penalties and things like that, which is a serious thing. And that’s not just the sexual liability. But that is something that has been a headline type of thing over many, many years.

 

And so for the directors and officers and board members that are volunteers that make all the decisions along with the pastor, there is coverage for that. 

 

Oh, absolutely. directors and officers coverage is what it’s called. It’s also in a business policy. Because as you said, Danny earlier, church insurance is for a business of insurance, business of churches well, and as part of that coverage, that is really important, because it will take a large amount of money perhaps to handle the liability that was involved that was alleged to have occurred. And then if it settles that way to where you’ve got, you got money from the big bucks from the insurance company, they help you. That’s critical. And again, it keeps your ministry going on, as opposed to no, we won’t have that coverage. We’ll just hope we don’t have that need. We would rather be proactive and help your ministry out that way.

 

Absolutely. Another coverage that I have seen working with churches is conscience coverage. Right. So the personal property that the church owns, yes. But it goes a little farther than that, really; because most churches have worship teams. Yes. They have instruments. Yes, some of these instruments have really high value. Yes. And we talked about that. What’s the difference between Okay, well, I’ve got personal property on my policy. Yes. Would my music equipment be covered there?

 

Oh, good. That’s a good question. Someone else owns the equipment. They’re volunteers, and they’re wonderful musicians. And they bring them there, maybe leave them there at the congregation at the church building. All of this depends upon that coverage and which company we select with you that you can determine. Do you want that coverage to be handled by your policy? And can we do that? I think it’s a wonderful thing when we can, because these often are volunteers who are using their wonderful skill to help with the worship service. And if the guitar was to be stolen, or something that’d be such a shame, or there would be a fire and then they’ve lost it. They left it there. Assuming it would have been well taken care of there at the building and something happened. So that’s a big deal.

 

Yeah. So what about being mobile with your musical equipment? In my church, we have a worship team. And a lot of times we’re invited to revivals and other churches to lead worship and things like that. So is that something we can cover?

 

We can talk about that. And we need to determine that carefully. We prepare at Bray and Oakley insurance agency, we prepare for the eventuality that we will have claims. And so we provide the discussion before a claim happens, here’s what would happen if this occurs. Here’s what happens if that occurs, and let you make the choice. Because there’s different policies that have different ways of handling that. And we will want you to have the broadest coverage that you want. And then the fair premium for that exposure. Because sometimes there will be a limitation on the coverage, to where, okay, you’re on the road with it, it’s no longer affecting the church policy, you’re on your own with that, or whatever. And we’ll need to determine that. Also something else with the contents, the valuation of the contents is critical. And what parts of the inside of your building are considered contents versus building, we go through that in extreme detail, we have very good analysis on that. The premium for building type items is lower than the premium for personal property type items. We’ll talk about that when we visit with you. And so if it is part of the building, it makes for a lower premium. For example, if you have a built in organ, built on pipe organ or built in whatever we’re going to add, there’s another attachment that may be part of your building, not part of a content item.

 

That’s really good. And something I have seen also and you can confirm this is your church pews. Yes, there’s a lot of money in church pews. Yes, it really matters if are they attached, or are they free?

It really does really matter. And we want flexibility into the worship centers. We have to have flexibility and all that stuff. And so how are we going to count the chairs are all part of the valuation that we’ll talk about. Some congregations also have really works of art, and how we value those is a big deal. Or this congregation does not have stained glass windows, but many of our buildings do have stained glass windows. How do we value them? So all these are big deals. If you will allow us the opportunity to, we will be glad to discuss and give you more detail. This is really a snippet of what we’re doing. But we have a wealth of knowledge about it. And we have several companies that we work with because we’re an independent agency. And we’re most glad, very glad to help you walk through these things. Anything else you want to add to this?

 

We appreciate everything you’ve told us, Claude, thank you for being here with us and going over this. As always, you can visit our website at www.brayandoakley.com this is where you can see this you can also follow our YouTube channel and on Apple podcast or you can call one of our offices. We have offices in Logan, West Virginia; Chapmanville, West Virginia; Pikeville, Kentucky; Richmond, Kentucky; Lexington, Kentucky; Weston, West Virginia and we’re here to service you. We’ve got an office close by wherever you’re at. Let us sit down with you, with some of our insurance professionals, discuss what we do, some of the coverage we go over and I think I think you’ll really enjoy it.

 

I’ll also say this, thanks for wearing a  Kentucky shirt today buddy.

 

Go Big Blue!

 

He’s a West Virginia guy. 

 

When in Kentucky do as the Kentuckians do there. I’ll burn the shirt. 

 

Yeah, no, you won’t!

 

Talking Insurance Ep1: Flood Insurance

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Talking Insurance Episode 1: Flood Insurance in West Virginia and Kentucky

About the episode

This is our first “Talking Insurance” roundtable from Bray & Oakley Insurance Agency. We are excited to share with you the answers to common questions, dive deep into the information you really need to know and share our stories and experience from over 100 years in the insurance industry.

For our first episode, with the recent flooding in our area, a few of our Bray & Oakley team members sat down to discuss flood insurance, coverages, qualifications, important steps to take and some information not commonly known about making sure you have the right policy for your property. If you have questions about flood insurance in West Virginia and Kentucky, this is time well spent.

Claude Stapleton, Danny Crum and Michael Winter are your hosts for this week’s “Talking Insurance”.

Listen to Episode One:

Transcription

Let’s go. I’m officially recording us to start. Yeah, we’ll get started. Go ahead, Mike. We’ll start with you, Michael.

Michael winter. I’m the chief coffee maker at Bray and Oakley Insurance Agency.

That’s true and so on so many different levels.

Since he’s vice president, yeah. You’re also known as vice president,

Also known as vice president. Got it.  Danny, do you want to go?

Yeah, I’m Danny Crum. I’m the sales manager at Bray and Oakley Insurance when Michael’s not around to make coffee, I fill in for him.

That’s good. I’m Claude Singleton. I manage the Lexington office and the Richmond office in Kentucky.

Great. Well, I’m BG. And Mike is with us here. And of course, we’ll just be talking about insurance together. We’re just here to help facilitate the conversation with you guys. And I’m excited about learning more about insurance, both personally and for those who might be watching or listening on a podcast or watching on YouTube. So flood insurance is the topic today. So I guess we can start chatting about that. And it’s big on people’s minds and hearts right now in Kentucky. And so we can just start with the questions that people are asking: what are the main differences between NFIP and private flood insurance for folks who are interested in knowing more about it? Whoever wants to take that topic?

That’s a good question. That’s a question we get all the time. Private floods are becoming very popular. Used to be all you had was FEMA. It was you know, the NFIP is the National Flood Insurance Program, it accounts for the vast majority of policies written and it’s backed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which everyone knows is FEMA. And before, that’s pretty much what was offered to you. Now, some of these private companies are coming out with their own flood insurance, which is the private flood carriers, and it’s starting to take a storm, it’s new, but it’s catching hold. It’s almost like, you know, you can purchase insurance from State Farm or Erie Insurance or state auto, or whoever. And these private carriers are now offering flood insurance pretty good stuff.

So some of the differences. We started noticing. We were used to the NFIP program, we were very hesitant on looking at the private carrier flood program because there was some ambiguity with you know, what, how did they respond? You know, there was some language that lenders didn’t want to accept the private carriers, because there were a bunch of kinds of technical issues that weren’t getting worked out. And then and then they passed this Biggert-Waters Act which allowed banks to accept the private flood insurance carriers. A lot of the difference we noticed in it is that the building values private flood carriers can offer higher building limits. The NFIP program, it’s a set limit, they have $250,000 on the structure, and I think it’s limited to 100,000 contents. Yeah. NFIP has to be ensured in all states and all the communities that the Flood Insurance Program operates in so they have to be a little bit restrictive, the private flood carriers, they can pick and choose which areas they want to provide flood insurance to, so they can actually pick the good areas and offer better rates. And they can offer better rates, they can even offer additional coverage.

Yeah, the private flood is much more broad. And this all began and just to give a little history of flood insurance in 1968, FEMA, flood maps were created. And Congress actually passed the National Flood Insurance Act, which allows banks and things to require homeowners that were in flood zones to carry flood insurance. And so you’re seeing a lot of that, especially in rural areas like West Virginia and things, but the private flood is somewhat more broad than what FEMA offers. Like Michael was saying, typically you can get up to $500,000 in coverage compared to 250,000 sometimes higher. Loss of use is a big coverage that the private flood offers compared to FEMA which means just like if you lose your home to a house fire your insurance carrier will actually, usually provide you loss of use meaning they’re going to put you up in a place to live provide you some monies and things to do that will private flood carriers typically do to so. There’s a lot more broad per se than what the FEMA offered, that don’t mean it’s better. It’s just you know, sometimes it’s sometimes it isn’t. It just depends on the risk really I

I think something Michael said is important on the, on the private carrier flood insurance, if they feel they’ve got a niche, and they can take advantage of it, they do that. And in doing so they’re more competitive. And in general, the pricing is lower in general, again, because they don’t have to take everything. As Michael said, with the National Flood Insurance Program, they’re taking everything. So they’ve got to take a terrible amount of risk, and try to balance that out across the nation really, but the private carriers can choose. And then within areas actually pick out a street that’s in one area that gets an even better rate, it’s right next door to another street. But it’s because of the flow and the slightly greater altitude or whatever, it’s got that much less of a chance of getting flooded out. And so people on that street will enjoy better, right, and then their neighbor, just a street over even, it’s amazing how the private carriers can do a good job with that. And if you can qualify for the private carrier, I think you’re better off, probably the best thing would be, I can give you a commercial right here. Give us a call. And we will be glad to run a quote for it. There’s no obligation for that. But let us know what we got to do.

Yeah, that’s a good point. One of the big selling points with private flood, compared to FEMA, is what’s called flood elevation certificates. So if you’re being insured under FEMA, the National Flood, then if you’re in a certain flood zone, they’re requiring you to have what’s called an elevation certificate. And what that is, is a surveyor will actually come out and they’ll survey your home in relation to the floods, meaning they’ll measure the first floor of the home set for the home, what kind of foundation you have, and where are you where your home sits on the floodplain. Alright, so that can actually help you, it can act, sometimes it can hurt you, but within the private flood carriers, all you need is a determination. And that means and you can find that through most banks or online, they will give you usually a flood zone a b, c, d x, whatever. And if you’ve got that, they’ll provide you an accurate quote without having an elevation certificate. Again, an elevation certificate is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s good. It depends, especially in rural areas like ours. I had a client one time, here’s a little story that he had flood insurance. And it can get very expensive in rural areas, like I was saying, and he was paying a whole lot for it. Well, he called me about homeowner’s insurance. So I was out inspecting his home. And I noticed around the bottom of the house, there were some really nice facia blocks. Everything looks really pretty. The home was up in the air. And I said, “Keith, I was like, did you raise your home?”. And he said, “Yeah, we got flooded four years ago. And so I had someone come in and raise my home up.”. I mean, it was sitting, probably six feet up, one story home. And I said, “How’d that help with your flood insurance?”. He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Did you call your agent and tell them that you raised your home?” He’s like, “No, I didn’t think about it” I was like, well, there’s a good chance that now your flood, your home being raised up. You may not be in the flood zone, like you were in relation to the floodplain. He said I thought about it. So he and I got on the phone and we got a surveyor out there. And he was paying about $5,000 a year for flood insurance. It was crazy. Once they did the survey and I recorded his flood insurance, it went down to $1400. Well, I was Yeah, yeah, this is. So needless to say he was extremely happy. We were extremely happy. But that’s just part of what we do. You know, because we look at all of our risks that we ensure we go out with the home, we do the measurements, we get photos, and all that stuff. And we try to do a good job for our clients. And, you know, anytime you can help somebody, it’s always better for them. And as I’ll never lose this guy, he’ll always be with us. Absolutely. Absolutely.

So you will send somebody out from all of your locations to do that?

Yes, yes, we do. Not for flood insurance. We do inspect some flood risk, but any home that we insure within the agency, that is with a standard carrier, we put feet on the ground. We look at. We go out because, you know, I’ve talked to a young lady in Richmond today. And she’s young, she’s I think 29 years old. Masters in nursing, travel nurse, good job. And she’s purchasing close to half a million dollar home. And she had got some quotes in other areas. Right? And so I get to ask her all these questions and I was like, Sidney, I was like, you know, what’s your square foot? Well, you know, I don’t know and all this I said, Well, how many posts have you had? She said, Well, I’ve had five I said Is anybody came out and looked at it measure to ask you any square foot no, they just got on the internet and looked at home up and that is what they’re trying to beat quotes by. So, I get a little deeper into that and I’m like, so what are they coming back with for your coverage A which is replacement cost of the dwelling. It was almost half of what she’s purchasing the home for. That said, you realize what they’re what’s going on here? And she’s like, No, I was like, well, they’re trying to, they’re offering decent quotes, as far as premium goes, but you’re under insured. You’re not protecting your risk. And she’s like, well, what do you mean? Well, you know, your 300, you’re purchasing a home for four or $500,000. And they’re coming back with $250,000 coverage. And she’s, well, I didn’t realize that that’s what you know. And that’s why we do what we do. This happens all the time. It happens all the time. We go out, we measure houses, we take pictures, we know what we’re insuring, because you know, a home is the largest investment that most people make. Yeah, and and let me tell you something, I’ve been in the insurance business for 10 years, and I’ve had clients that have had total losses. It’s devastating. And you don’t realize what you lose until you go through something like that. It can absolutely affect our lives. So negatively, it just can just change everything. So you know, we take it personal, and to this day, knock on wood, everything that I’ve done, or I’ve had to claim, I have clients that call me crying, weeping. And you know, thank you, thank you for what you’ve done. You took care of us, you know, we had the worst day of your life, and now you’ve made it better. It’s not easy. It’s better. So here’s why we do it.

Yes, and to lose stuff is terrible. But financial backing is a great assistance. Because right now with the flooding in Eastern Kentucky, there’s just such a tragedy for sure. And hopefully, there will actually be some flood insurance that perhaps we can help them with in the future as they receive FEMA grants and things like that. And if they choose to go with us on the flood insurance, that hopefully for the future, they will be better off in the event of another bad circumstance, just a terrible, terrible tragedy.

And that’s one that is one good thing about FEMA that I’ll point out is under FEMA, they have to offer you insurance. So anyone can be insured no matter what it doesn’t matter what flood zone you’re in, where you’re at, if you’ve had been flooded before whatever. It’s offered to everyone, and I think, of course Eastern Kentucky. You know, we’ve gotten a lot of calls over the last week or two about flood insurance and a lot of people lost a lot of stuff and they will be able to purchase flood insurance. I mean, they’ve had a total loss, FEMA will insure them. So that’s one good thing about the FEMA and National Flood Program.

One of the main differences between the NFIP and the private flood insurance is that we’ve kind of hit around it, but we really didn’t even we don’t really mention it is what NFIP will offer, they don’t cancel you if you’ve had a flood. Now, they will offer you a renewal. It’s a guarantee it’s a very stable program. That’s what it was made for, it was for stability and assurance. I mean, we’re, you know, we’re, you know, these policies are backed by the good faith of the FEMA program. You know, you know, a lot of independent agents don’t worry when there’s a major flood that hits an area, you know, because what happens sometimes in the private carrier market is that, you know, you have an area that’s been prone to have some extra unusual amount of losses, carriers get nervous, and they pull out those areas and cancel. So, you know, sometimes when you call your independent agent, this is what you really need to do is when you speak to your independent agent, that’s what they can do. They can offer you several options, but they need to see, you know, how much risk tolerance you have, you know, I’m not mean I’m not questioning their carrier because there are billion dollar carriers and they can pay claims really well. But the NFIP program, which I like, I’ve known it to always pay the claims they do a pretty good job now. Now the private carrier market does offer some bells and whistles that are very attractive. But one thing you’re going to know is that the NFIP program will provide you with a renewal, you’re not gonna get canceled if you have, you know, a couple claims. It’s really good. And I think there’s some price stability as well, with that program that you might, which I’m not very familiar with the private private insurance market for flood, Danny is a little bit more familiar with it than I am. But one of the things is sometimes if you have people who have a low risk tolerance and they want stability and they feel comfortable with that. That’s one of the things that you can mention to them. But that’s what you get when you call an independent agent we’re here to evaluate your risk and how much you can tolerate and then you know, give you some options and even help you make the choice.

Yeah, I think the sweet spot for the private flood carriers I’ve done quite a bit of and lately I’ve really worked on educating myself on it and doing some quotes and things I think where they really shine is that mid level risk, if that makes sense. So you know, you got your worst flood zone, let’s call it flood flood zone Z, you got your best, we’ll call it A. So they really fall in between on that, you know, say j or k that the mid risk level, that’s where they’re really, really good at. I have run into cases where some banks will not accept private flood insurance. It’s, I haven’t really sat down and talked to them and asked them why. But I have run into and I’ve provided all the jackets, the policy jackets, and so forth, but for whatever reason, some of the larger banks tend not to accept it at least, you know, West Virginia can speak on behalf of Kentucky, but you don’t see anywhere near the flooding and stuff. Okay, Pikeville, Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky Yes, when you get around Lexington and Richmond, things like that. You don’t see it as much. But here in West Virginia, I’ve had some banks that would not accept private flood markets.

No, some of these larger banks are probably worried about being in compliance with the FDIC, they require banks to, you know, protect the collateral or depositors money and, and you know, there’s some ambiguity when it comes to some of these new private flood carrier markets. Like the private flood, the definition of flood has to be as broad as the NFIP program, and, and then they put in some reassurances, to help make some of these banks feel a little bit better. I think it was in 2000. I think the Biggert-Waters Act kind of tried to help clear some of this, clear some of this up but there’s still some banks probably a little bit apprehensive, but I can understand why.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. How do you determine what is a flood zone? And how often does that change? If a location floods for the first time? Does it get defined then as a flood zone? And if a place hasn’t flooded in 200 years or 100 years? Is it no longer defined as a flood zone? How does that get determined? Who does that?

That’s a good question. And not again, I think 1968 FEMA, that’s when they introduced flood maps and it all had to go in compliance with the National Flood Insurance Act and with the banking and things like that these flood maps do get reevaluated every so often. And it’s more along the lines of your right as voters in history involved in it. There are some proximity to waters, rivers, typically things like that play a big part of that. Over the 10 years I’ve been here I’ve seen the map. I think Michael may be able to answer this better. I think they changed once where they came in and actually redone all the mapping, sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t. But yeah, it’s just one of those things, and it doesn’t risk does matter where you’re located. Elevation of course, why do you have elevation certificates? So yeah, but I have also seen, you know, addresses that never flood have horrible, horrible flood zone ratings. And I don’t really have an answer for that.

Some of the rating, and some of the changes can be affected by local governments who have for example, Lexington, has got several teams that work on a waterflow here in here in the town and over over history, they’ve improved in some of the areas of towns that have flooded in the past are flooding less now because of management of that water. And they are allowed to petition for change in the rating for the particular neighborhoods that they’re talking about. And that can happen. And sometimes that goes back to where we have had to request elevation certificates for specific homes that we were aware of. In fact, I’ve got a client who actually was an engineer and he says, I’m worried that this street has been worked on and I’m going to order a fresh certificate and sure enough, it was an advantage for him. He was just a very good guy to work with on that because he was sharper than sharper than I am. Engineers, yeah.

I guess for the listeners and the viewers we want to make sure they don’t have a misconception that they don’t leave flood insurance if they don’t live by a body of water or by a river right I mean that’s that has nothing to do with it. And people should make sure that their home is properly protected and have someone evaluate where they are and in and make sure that they’re properly covered. And that’s where you guys come in. Right?

It’s a good question. And I’ve had clients call me who say there’s no way there is nowhere near any risk for flooding per se bodies of water that want flood insurance are interested in flood insurance to help them sleep better. And honestly, it’s usually very inexpensive for those clients. So yeah, look into it. It’s odd. You know, when you get into your risky flood zone, you get into some more premiums and stuff, but, you know, so flood insurance for two, 300-400 dollars a year to people that’s in very low risk areas. And you know, there’s a little stream maybe close to their home and there’s some, you know, there’s some things that can happen that could trigger a flood policy to kick in. And my church is one of those, you know, we’re not in the flood zone. But we wanted flood insurance and, you know, for different reasons or whatever, it helps us sleep better. We’ve got a lot, we’ve got a very nice building, it’s very old. It’s very well maintained and has a lot of money and for the price we decided to buy. And so yeah, if anyone’s interested in flood insurance, don’t think it’s because you’re not near a body of water, or you’re typically not in an area that floods badly. No, call us, call your agents, let us look at it. Typically, if you’re not one of those extreme floods, just very affordable.

Great. I was kind of shocked. So I’m from Clendenin. And I remember when…

You can’t get there from here can you?

It’s a distance. But I remember when the 2016 floods came through Clendenin I was actually really shocked by so many homes, my brother’s house only got just a few inches of water in it. You know, you think of flooding, you think of houses up to the rooftop, you know, underwater, but I think his house only got like three or four inches of water in it. But it was enough to ruin almost the majority of his main duct line, it was enough to ruin his main feed into his electrical panel. There were several systems throughout his house. And I mean, it was quickly like 10, 30, $40,000 worth of damage that was wrapped up, and to BG’s point a minute ago. I mean, it was an area that hadn’t flooded in 100 years or something. They had no no record of flooding, but it just took three or four inches of water to cause gosh, a ridiculous amount… a whole, you know, air conditioner switched out electrical system change out. So.

It’s astronomical. My parents We had a flood here in southern West Virginia in 2000… 2012 And my parents hadn’t been there and there hasn’t been a flood where they live in over 100 years. So when my dad retired they paid their home off, they had to have flood insurance because the longer they dropped their flood insurance came through and like you said, you know, they got 10-12 inches of water $62,000 Wow, that much damage.

There’s a problem with water that is similar to fire of all things. Let’s just say that in this scenario, no one is injured and there’s just a slight incursion of water it’s inside the house was not washing everything away the water causes a lot of damage as a fire would do. With a fire and smoke, you’re getting smoke all over the place. So you get poisons everywhere. With water, it promotes the growth of bacteria rapidly. And so if you don’t have an excellent drying out program, and also deep checks of water saturation, your walls can be hiding all sorts of mold build up and it’s going to be terrible. So it’s it does not take a great deal of water inside the home to be so devastating. And sorry to hear about your that was your brother was it Mike. Yeah, that’s that stuff that’s up. But that’s a tragedy. And then later it can be continued to cause breathing problems if it’s not been handled properly. And and that can be expensive. Yeah.

I always tell everyone water claims are the worst claims to have. In my experience, what I’ve had to watch customers deal with and they are the worst claims to ever deal with.

So people are concerned if they’re, if they’re clued in a little better now and they understand the need and the urgency of the matter. How do they get in touch with you guys for information on how to get evaluated? Has somebody come out to talk to them about flood insurance? What’s the best process?

Good question. You can always reach us on our website at www.brayandoakley.com we have social media pages across every platform. There, and each one of our locations, which is Pikeville, Kentucky; Richmond, Kentucky; Lexington, Kentucky; Weston, West Virginia; Logan, West Virginia; Chapmanville, West Virginia. Phone numbers are available on our website. You can call us again. We’ll come out and get very personal with it. So we’re probably gonna come out, look at your home and look at your risk. We’re going to advise you. Professionally, the way we think you’d be insured.