Who Can be on Your Health Insurance Plan?

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Health insurance is something that everyone needs but that many people have a hard time determining who can and cannot be on your policy. For the most part, insurance policies clearly outline who can be insured on the policy but in some cases, further clarification is needed. For those in the Chester, NJ area the agents with The Insurance Outfit can help you learn just who can be covered on your policy.

First and foremost, those that are dependent on you like children, dependent adults that you have guardianship of, and your spouse can all be on your policy. This means that your family is going to be able to be protected by your policy. Children can stay on their parent’s policy until they are 26 years old, even if they are not living in the home.

The number and type of person that can be on your policy is dependent mainly on what type of policy you have. You can have an individual policy that covers only the main policy holder and you can have family policies that cover your family members. Dependent on what type of policy you have and who the policy is through, there is no real limit on the number of people that can be on the policy but rather the type of individual that can be on the policy.

Knowing who can be on your policy is the best way to ensure that your family does not go without health insurance. For those that live in the Chester, NJ area, the agents with The Insurance Outfit can let you know exactly who can and cannot be on your policy. That depends on what type of policy you have and who you want to insure.  

How to Determine How Much Life Insurance You Need

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Life insurance is something that differs from policy to policy and from policy holder as well. You may need significantly less coverage than someone else and knowing how to determine how much coverage you need is a great start. For those that live in or around the Chester, NJ area, the agents with The Insurance Outfit can help you set your policy needs.

The best place to start is to consider who is going to be cashing out the policy when you pass. This is going to give you a good idea of how much you want to take out. You also need to remember that the more coverage, the higher the monthly premium. After you consider your beneficiary you also need to think about what the policy is going to pay.

If you want a policy that is going to cover the costs of raising your children to adulthood you are going to need significantly more than you would if you were only worrying about paying for burial expenses. Similarly, if you have a large amount of debt that your family is going to be responsible for when you pass you want to make sure the policy covers it.

The biggest issue that you want to keep in mind is what is going to be done with the policy when you pass. Most people tend to take out policies that are around $10,000 to $25,000 as these cover comfortably the final expenses of one person. If you do have children or dependent family that you are thinking about, you may want a larger policy to help take care of them.

If you have questions and you live in the Chester, NJ area, the agents with The Insurance Outfit can answer all your questions.  

Does Commercial Insurance Cover Weather-Related Damage

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At the Insurance Outfit, we see many of our Chester, NJ clients suffering from serious weather-related damage. Covering this type of damage requires an insurance policy that takes into account this type of damage. It also requires understanding what problems will be covered by your insurance.

Ways Weather Can Impact Your Business

There are many different ways a business can be impacted by weather conditions. For example, electrical storms and snow could knock out power and make it impossible to operate your business. However, it could also damage your buildings and make it necessary to shut down. In this way, you could lose business capabilities for an extended period. Thankfully, insurance will cover many of these problems to minimize your losses.

Business Disruption Insurance Is Crucial

General commercial insurance may not cover these problems if you don’t include business disruption coverage. This type of insurance coverage is designed to help cover losses when weather or damages impact the operation of your business. It will help get your business back in working shape and minimize personal and businesses losses in an effective manner. As weather-related damage is considered an act of God, specific coverage like this is needed for your business.

Important Considerations

When purchasing this type of insurance, it is important to choose a type that covers all possible damage. For example, it should cover emergency repairs to your building, equipment breakdown, food spoilage, loss of power, tree damage, loss of water, wind damage, snow damage, and winter storm damage. These types of weather damage are hard to predict and must be covered as much as possible.

So if you are a Chester, NJ business owner who needs this type of coverage, please don’t hesitate to contact us at the Insurance Outfit. We can help you sort through the confusion of commercial insurance and protect your business from damage.

3 Reasons to Renovate Your Older Home

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If you love your older home but want to improve its looks and function, renovating offers a practical means of making the changes you desire. Through home renovations, you can improve your home’s function and style without compromising its charm. Renovating an older house serves many purposes. Here are just a few.

Enhance Safety

Home improvements such as upgrading windows and exterior doors, mounting deadlocks and installing a security system will make your Chester, NJ home a safer place to live. Repairing or replacing an old roof will ensure you and your property are well protected when adverse weather comes. If your older home has plumbing or electrical issues, upgrading these systems can reduce the risk of flooding or fire.

Making your home a safer environment could also help lower your home insurance costs. By talking to an agent from The Insurance Outfit, you can get a better idea of what improvements qualify you for discounted insurance prices.

Improve Function

Home renovations such as remodeling your kitchen or bathroom or adding a bedroom or home office help to improve your home’s function. A new bedroom, home office or patio adds more living space to your property for greater comfort and enjoyment. Investing in new appliances when remodeling your kitchen saves you time, money and effort in preparing meals and maintaining a hygienic kitchen environment.   

Add to Property Value

Major home renovations can add value to your older home, making it more appealing to buyers if you plan to sell in the future. If you choose to stay, remodeling allows you to create the kind of environment you love most.   

When remodeling your home, consider how renovations will affect your insurance coverage. For greater insight on insurance options and costs for your older home, contact The Insurance Outfit in Chester, NJ.  

Why Does Your Zip Code Affect Your Car Insurance Rates?

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When you are pricing out new insurance policies, you are asked what zip code the car is housed or garaged in. If you play around, you may find that the prices you are quoted change based on the zip code you put in. This may leave you wondering why the zip code has such a major effect on your auto insurance price. Here is some information you should know.

Auto insurance providers obtain a lot of information about your risk levels and then use that information to provide you with a car insurance quote. If you live in a zip code where a number of car accidents happen, your car insurance will be higher than someone who houses their car in a zip code with fewer car accidents. This is because statistically speaking, you are less likely to be involved in an accident in this zip code. Likewise, an insurance company takes into account the number of car thefts in a particular zip code, and what type of car is most commonly stolen. If you have a car that is typically stolen in a certain zip code, your insurance will be higher because there is more risk your car will be stolen and your auto insurance company will have to pay out on your auto insurance policy. As such, the zip code where your car is housed is extremely important in determining what your auto insurance rates will be.

If you are looking to obtain a new auto insurance policy or to compare prices for policies in the greater Chester, NJ area, let The Insurance Outfit help. We offer fair pricing, regardless of what zip code you live in. Give us a call today to get your auto insurance quote.

Buying Auto Insurance that is Best for NJ Drivers

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Driving in New Jersey is definitely not like hitting the open roads of Montana. For that reason, New Jersey drivers have unique needs for automobile insurance that takes into account the high traffic and population density of the area, while providing adequate protection for your investment in your vehicle.

New Jersey’s mandatory vehicle insurance requires all registered vehicles to have three different types of insurance:

  • Liability insurance to pay for damages if you are responsible due to an accident. (This does not include medical expense coverage.)
  • Personal injury protection (PIP) covers medical expenses for your injuries in an accident. This is sometimes called No Fault coverage because it pays you regardless of who caused the crash.
  • Uninsured motorist insurance covers you if you have an accident with someone who does not follow the law, and doesn’t have the insurance coverage mandated.

While New Jersey does require these liability insurance coverage limits, we feel that the mandatory limits are extremely low for today’s reality. The state requires coverage only in the amount of 15/30/5, which is one of the lowest of all the states in U.S. When you get into an accident in Chester, NJ is not the time you want to realize that you don’t have enough coverage to fix your car or pay your medical bills. With liability limits of only $15,000, it could leave you a large bill over and above what your insurance company will pay if you total someone’s brand new Mustang.

For these reasons, we suggest that you call The Insurance Outfit and discuss your vehicle, your driving habits, and your insurance needs. They’ll be glad to consult with you and offer their suggestions for coverage. Reach them today at 908-955-7561.

Why You Need To Explore Coverage Options On Your Home

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It’s important to explore coverage options on your home in Chester NJ. This way, you know you have a better home insurance policy in place. Anything can happen, and you want to be prepared for it all.

What are You Covered Against?

Snow, rain, fire and more can happen when you live in Chester, NJ. While you hope nothing would ever actually take place, you just never know. If you take the time to explore your coverage options on insurance with the help of The Insurance Outfit, you can be sure you have the necessary coverage.

Fire, theft, and storms are covered. However, floods and hurricanes are not often included. This is when you need to look for the “added” coverage options that you have to cover at an additional cost. It’s often worth it to add these so you have the coverage for the “what if” scenarios.

Will a Claim Take Care of Everything?

You also need to look to see if a claim would take care of everything based on what you own and what your home has. Your policy might not have anything above and beyond standard valued items. If you have expensive artwork, collectibles, or anything else inside, be sure that you have the increased coverage on your policy. Otherwise, a claim might only pay for a fraction of what was damaged.

Claims don’t always take care of everything. If you have a pool, a shed, a detached garage, or any other pieces of property that are damaged, they need to be part of your policy. Otherwise, the insurance company won’t include them within the claim.

Contact one of our agents at The Insurance Outfit today to begin exploring coverage options. We will work to make sure your policy is inclusive of everything you need.

 

Do you need a car in Chester NJ?

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If you live in NYC, chances are you don’t own a car. The same goes in some other cities, like San Francisco and the more urban, densely-populated parts of New Jersey. So what about Chester, NJ? Chester is a little more out of the way and a bit spread-out. Not totally rural, but hardly as dense as the heart of Brooklyn. So is it a driver’s town, or can you get by without a set of wheels of your own?

Here are two basic facts to consider:

  • Chester, NJ does have a transit system, but…
  • Chester isn’t the most walkable town

This means that it’s easy to take a bus for longer trips across town, but the walk once you get there might not always be easy. If your bus stop is a mile or farther away from your home, then you’re going to wind up spending a lot of time on foot.

If you do settle on buying a car of your own, The Insurance Outfit can help you to get a great deal on your coverage based on the simple fact that Chester is a relatively safe town for drivers. When an area is a little more rural, accidents are less likely to happen, so insurance costs are a little lower. That will be reflected when you shop for insurance through The Insurance Outfit.

Choosing whether or not to buy a car in Chester depends on your needs. If you work from home and only go grocery shopping once a week, maybe you can get by on the bus. Otherwise, having a car can be tremendously helpful.

What Kind of Home Insurance Can You Get?

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Just like auto insurance, there are tons of different types of home insurance that you can purchase to protect your home. The agents with The Insurance Outfit in the Chester, NJ area can help you find the policy that is going to work best for you and your home.

There are of course basic policies that cover things like storm damage, theft and break in, and fire and these are going to be the best policies to start with. This type of policy is going to be the policy that every homeowner has before they start to add supplemental policies to cover other eventualities.

There are also specialty policies that can help protect against things like hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and more. These specialty policies are not included in basic insurance policies for one reason, they are not something that everyone has to worry about. Someone that does not live near water is likely not going to have to deal with flood, someone that does not live in an area near the coast is not going to have to worry about hurricanes, and so on.

You can add specialty policies to any basic policy for an added amount of money and your agent can help you determine what policies you need. You can also add more or less coverage dependent on how much the contents of your home are worth. If you have something like a very valuable collection of jewelry or guns you might want to take out a separate policy to cover them. These are all things that you should speak with your agent about when you start to take out your home policy.

In the Chester, NJ area, the agents with The Insurance Outfit can help you find the policy that is going to work for you every single time.

How to Use Auto Insurance to Your Advantage

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Auto insurance isn’t like buying a new pair of shoes or spending the night in a luxury hotel room. People get excited about parting with their money for these reasons, while auto insurance may just seem like a nuisance. But if you look at the situation in the right light, you can see just as much of an advantage to having the right policy as you do when you find the perfect dress. The Insurance Outfit can help you fill in the gaps.

Adding Value to Your Life 

Like it or not, accidents happen in Chester, NJ no matter how careful you are. Auto insurance has nothing to do with how responsible you are as a driver. It’s about ensuring you’re not going to be buried under bills for the rest of your life just because you sneezed at an intersection and had your eyes closed for a split second. No one is immune to having something like this happen to them, so you need to think what it means that insurance is there for you when bad luck strikes.

 More Safeguards, Fewer Problems 

There is a temptation there for everyone who buys auto insurance to buy the absolute cheapest plan available. After all, who doesn’t want a low monthly payment so they can do what they like with the extra cash? The problem with this is that you may end up kicking yourself later on if you’re effected by an event that isn’t covered under your policy. The Insurance Outfit serves Chester, NJ, and we make it easy for you to see where the holes are in your coverage, so you can start closing the gaps and feeling much more confident on the road. Call for more information on what we can do for you.