by Downey Insurance Group | Jun 21, 2012 | Blog
For most people, buying a farm is a big deal. Unless you are one of the lucky folks with substantial resources to cover disasters, you are likely to need
farm insurance. Buying a farm is normally a large investment and you want to protect it from losses or the cost of catastrophic events. Imagine trying to recover your home, personal possessions, livestock, crops, and outbuildings after a major event.
Using the right type of equipment and tools for the job at hand helps to prevent accidents. However, farms have visitors, ranch hands, neighbors, and all types of weather. You may take
safety precautions with equipment, but you cannot control all risks associated with running a farm.
Appropriate insurance can help to protect you financially when a ranch hand suffers an injury while driving a tractor or your neighbor slips on the front porch. Could you recover financially if a piece of farm equipment crashed into your neighbor’s house or injured a visitor?
Farmers frequently make extra money by selling the fruits of their labor. Selling homemade jams, pies, fresh fruits, and vegetables helps to support the farm. However, something could go wrong and people could become ill because of eating your farm products. You can also seek insurance to protect you financially in these types of situations. Running a farm entails many risks. Consider a meeting with your insurance agent to discuss
farm insurance to cover your risks.
by Downey Insurance Group | Jun 14, 2012 | Blog
There are numerous factors that make for a successful business. However, every New Hampshire business – no matter how successful – carries a number of risks and should have adequate insurance coverage from a New Hampshire insurance company, for some financial protection of business assets.
When it comes to business success – do you remember those times when you have been provided with excellent and attentive customer service? This is exactly the kind of service your business needs to provide to increase profits. Offer a quality product, great customer service, reasonable prices, and hopefully profits will follow.
• Talk to and share information with other small business owners. Talking to other business owners could give you new ideas and teach you what to avoid. Highly profitable businesses also had to learn the ropes, but their experience and business tips could help to pave the way for your success.
• Change or improve your products, techniques, or services. Make a list of your most profitable business decisions or products, and list what needs changing or improving. Work on the areas or products that need improvement a step at a time until you are successful.
• Set new goals. To increase profits by making more sales or gaining additional customers, it is important you have new goals and continued growth. There is always room for improvement, new methods of advertising, and better services.
• Whether your services or sales provide profits, your customers are the key to higher profits. Treat customers respectfully and listen to their needs. Sincerity, honesty and respect go a long way with customers and help encourage repeat business.
Make sure you re-examine your insurance coverage needs after experiencing business growth. Take the time to contact your agent for help with all your New Hampshire insurance company coverage requirements, to help ensure your insurance is up-to-date at all times.
by Downey Insurance Group | Jun 6, 2012 | Blog
Whether you have cattle, alpacas, chickens, sheep, or goats, you may be able to purchase livestock insurance for them. Your farm may start out small with just a few cows, chickens, and pigs, but eventually, it may grow substantially – which means you could end up with a lot of money invested in your stock. Natural disasters, fires, and
farm accidents are unforeseeable, but happen nonetheless. Buying
farm insurance may help to lessen the financial losses if livestock are injured or killed.
Each farmer must determine the best methods of insuring his or her stock or farm. Options for insurance may include a blanket policy, herd coverage, insurance for individual animals, and/or insurance for farm equipment and crops.
For smaller sized farms, blanket coverage may be an ideal solution. Blanket coverage may cover your livestock, farm products, and farming equipment. It is important with this coverage to make sure you have adequate limits for complete coverage.
Some farmers may prefer herd coverage. This type of livestock insurance applies to an entire herd of a particular group of animals, such as a herd of goats for example. Insuring individual animals may be particularly important for farmers who have prized breeding stock or perhaps an exceptionally valuable horse. In this case, farmers might want to consider separate coverage for those specific animals. Accidental shooting, illness and disease, fire/lighting, flood, and theft are just a few of the possible types of coverage available for livestock.
Make plans to contact a local agent to discuss your
farm insurance options. A local agent may be able to offer helpful insurance recommendations for your particular requirements. For details, contact our office.
by Downey Insurance Group | Jun 1, 2012 | Blog
Do you own a cleaning business? Cleaning business employees and owners could be vulnerable to a number of hazards on every job day-to-day. Cleaners frequently work in various places with a variety of hazards, such as in buildings that contain hazardous materials. Any one of the various work situations could lead to injured employees or clients or to property damage. That is why it is so important to get the right coverage for your cleaning business from a New Hampshire insurance company.
Many cleaning jobs involve driving from one customer location to another. You or your workers might be hauling vacuum cleaners, floor cleaners, and a variety of miscellaneous equipment wherever you go. For this reason, your business might require commercial auto insurance. In addition, property insurance coverage for equipment and other business items is important.
What happens if an employee polishing the floor accidentally hits your customer with a floor cleaner and an injury and medical costs result? Getting general liability insurance for your cleaning company could help you to deal with property-related lawsuits and bodily injury cases.
New Hampshire requires employers to carry workers compensation insurance. Workers may suffer repetitive motion injuries and muscle strain while working on the job. Consider asking a local agent about policies from a New Hampshire insurance company to provide the best coverage for your cleaning business. Call us – we can provide more information if required.
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by Downey Insurance Group | May 31, 2012 | Blog
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Will you be graduating soon or have you recently graduated? If so, your insurance needs may be changing. Insurance can sometimes be intimidating with too many options or not enough. Choosing the right insurance coverage can be confusing and tricky. How do you know which coverages are important and which coverages are not?
Let us make selecting the right insurance coverage really easy for you. Most of the online insurance retailers do not give you adequate guidance in tailoring an insurance program to suit your unique and changing needs. Not everyone fits into a cookie cutter option that the on-line retailers try to place you into. At Downey Insurance Group we take the time to customize the right products for you, and we are an expert at providing Insurance for Graduates.
Sometimes a real person helping you through these important choices and changes can make all the difference. We offer this service to you FREE. That’s right folks, our independent insurance agents (agents that can have contracts with multiple companies) get paid commission by the insurance companies they represent, not by the policy holder so we can often offer you a better product for less money.
Another great FREE service that we offer as an independent insurance office is the dreaded claims filing process. We act as the middle man between you and the insurance company in the event of claim. With Downey Insurance you can be assured that you have an Agent that you can trust, one who can help guide you through the claims process with your best interest in mind.
If you are graduating from high school, or from college, securing the right coverage for yourself is very important. Purchasing your first insurance policy is one of the first major decisions that you make, and we have all of the products that any graduate would need.
We offer all kinds of Insurance including: Auto Insurance, Motorcycle Insurance, Renters Insurance, Homeowners Insurance, Wedding Insurance, Life Insurance, and Business Insurance.
We have 3 convenient locations in Keene, NH, Brattleboro, VT and Marlborough, MA to service all of your insurance needs now and for life. For more information on the products and services we offer please visit our website www.downeyinsurance.com or call 888-875-7539.
by Downey Insurance Group | May 30, 2012 | Blog
Did you know that this week May 27th – June 2nd is Hurricane preparedness week? At Downey Insurance we think it is right on time because June 1st is the start of this year’s hurricane season that runs thought the summer and fall ends November 30th 2012. After weathering Tropical Storm Irene in VT and the flood that ensued (read our flood story here) we are doing our best to prepare for unexpected. For us that means making sure everyone has access to the right coverage for their needs including Flood Insurance.
Your Vermont Homeowners Insurance or Commercial Building Insurance will cover Hurricane related wind, hail, and rain damage (water or ice damage from the sky down) but, it will most likely exclude Flood damage (water damage caused by rising water from the ground up.) We can offer you a Flood Insurance Policy that will fill this gap in coverage and prevent a devastating loss to your home or business.
The Hartford has put together a very comprehensive Hurricane Preparedness Overview that includes a section on Emergency Preparedness Plan and Business Continuity Management. We recommend every business take the time and consideration to prepare for such an emergency. It helped us tremendously during our own disaster management crisis in 2011.
As a reminder, below is summary of the four storm conditions reported by the National Weather Service.
Hurricane Watch – Issued when a threat of hurricane conditions (tropical cyclone of winds of 74 mph or higher) is expected within 24 to 36 hours.
Hurricane Warning – Issued when hurricane conditions are expected for specific coastal area in 24 hours or less with expected landfall to cause threat to life and property.
Tropical Storm Watch – Issued when tropical storm conditions, include winds from 39 to 73 mph, pose a threat to specific coastal areas within 36 hours.
Tropical Storm Warning – Issued when tropical storm conditions, including winds from 39 to 73 mph, are expected in a specified coastal area within 24 hours or less.
