Linda McHenry

Category: Tips & Advice

  • How Homeowners Insurance Works When You’re Working from Home

    How Homeowners Insurance Works When You’re Working from Home

    The homeowners policy was designed to insure personal risks, not business risks. For this reason, virtually all coverage for business property and liability is explicitly excluded in the homeowners policy.

    Very limited property coverage is included for business personal property. The limit usually ranges between $1,000 and $2,500 if the business property is at your house. The limit is much less for business property anywhere else–like in your car.

    Liability coverage for business activities is also severely limited. It only applies to incidents that occur on your property at home, and only for those that arise when:

    • Your house is rented–either occasionally as a residence or when a part of it is rented to 1 or 2 boarders. This does NOT include Airbnb rentals, or any series of rentals. Neither does it include renting your barn to a neighbor who does lawn mower repairs.
    • A portion of your house or other building is rented for use as a private garage, office, school, or studio. Think designating a room for use to give music or dance lessons, or as an office for a writer.
    • An insured who is under age 21 runs a self-employed part-time or occasional business that does not have any employees.

    What all this means is that if a person is working from home, any property used for business–regardless of whether it is owned by the individual or the individual’s employer–has very limited coverage. If the employer has insurance for property it owns, that property should be insured specifically on the employer’s policy with an indication it is located at the employee’s home. In some cases, the employer’s failure to cite the location of the property on its policy, especially if the property is valued at more than $5,000 or $10,000, might result in a lack of adequate coverage in the event of a loss.

    Potential problems relating to the lack of business liability coverage under the homeowners policy are more serious. In most cases, clients do not visit employees working from home. But if anyone visits your home for business and gets hurt, your unendorsed homeowners policy does not provide any liability coverage. Similarly, if a FedEx or USPS employee trips and falls while delivering business mail or packages, any claim for injuries would not be covered. Basically, coverage for ANY other type of liability (think cyber liability, products liability, etc.) is NOT covered, either.

    Endorsements are available to add limited business property and liability coverage to the homeowners policy but, in most cases, it’s probably not adequate. Some insurers also offer a home business endorsement that does include business, or commercial, coverage. That’s probably a better idea.

    Remember, even if you’re working from home and your employer does have coverage for property it owns, and its own liability, your employer gets the broadest coverage under that policy. If you’re covered under it, you can still be held personally liable for property damage and bodily injury resulting from business activities conducted at your home.

    Unless you buy and add business endorsements to your homeowners policy, you might find yourself uninsured in the event of a loss when you’re working from home.

    For more details, listen to this week’s podcast at Taking the Mystery out of Insurance.

  • Elder Abuse: Be Silent No More

    Elder Abuse: Be Silent No More

    I’ve conducted a lot of research into the topic of elder abuse. I’ve also developed and written some insurance continuing education courses on the subject as well, as it pertains to financial fraud.

    Here is another person’s take on senior financial exploitation, a despicable form of elder abuse. This account was written by Connie Johnson Hambley.

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/uncomfortable-complicity-silence-connie-johnson-hambley

  • Can You Walk a Mile in Another Person’s Shoes?

    Can You Walk a Mile in Another Person’s Shoes?

    Until four years ago, I never watched the news on a regular basis. I never felt the need to follow politics closely or share my political beliefs. My reasons are a story for another day.

    Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, maybe it’s because I’m growing older, or maybe it’s because of something buried deeply in my unconscious, but I’ve found myself fascinated by all the drama playing out on the world stage during the past four years.

    People are ridiculously simple and complex … all at at the same time. They’re transparent and deceitful, generous and greedy, considerate and selfish. They’re also damned scary.

    Normally, I’m more of a participant than an observer. But during the COVID-19 lockdown, I’ve had no choice but to limit my activities to watching and listening to other people rather than dancing around on my own. Here’s what I’ve come up with during the past three months:

    The world needs more compassion and empathy. For those of you without a dictionary:

    • Compassion is being concerned about how other people suffer and experience difficult times.
    • Empathy is being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes.

    I’ll use myself as an example because, like most people, I’m my favorite person and my thoughts and feelings focus primarily on myself. I am:

    • A woman
      • Short
      • The firstborn of 4 siblings
      • Brown-haired
      • A mother

    Because of inherent traits I have no control over, I do not know what it feels like to be male, 6’ 7” tall, an only child, blonde, or childless. I will never know what it feels like to have a penis instead of a vagina, be able to reach the boxes on the top shelf in the kitchen without a stool, have all my parents’ attention every day, be the butt of stupid blonde jokes, or to not be blessed with the joys and pains of childbirth.

    I will never know what these things feel like. I am not responsible for this deficiency in knowledge. It is a fact of nature. My traits are immutable. I have no control over them. However, I can be concerned for men and how they suffer. I can imagine what it must feel like to be a 6-foot-tall 13-year-old girl who towers over her classmates.

    You can draw up a similar list of things that describe you, traits and characteristics you were born with or experiences that can never be reversed.

    My list will be different from yours. But my list is no more or less important than yours is. My traits and feelings will be different from yours. And my traits and feelings are no more or less important than yours are, either. They’re just different.

    This world contains billions of people, each of whom is different from everyone else. Do those differences prevent us from sharing traits and feelings? No! Many other people in the world are also short women who are mothers, women who have younger siblings and have brown hair. Regardless of whether you or anyone else shares these traits with me, every single one of us has been the victim of prejudice, bias, scorn, and mistreatment.

    Nasty stuff happens. To everyone.

    I believe we need to focus on the similarities rather than the differences. And when we can’t focus on a difference–when it’s too large, too scary, or too nasty to be surmounted–we need to practice compassion and empathy.

    This doesn’t mean we have to accept certain behavior, or forgive it, or forego the pursuit of justice. It means we need to be concerned for other people. No, we don’t have to embrace them and take them into our homes. But it does mean we should listen to them and respect their basic, human rights.

    None of us wants to be controlled. Not by our government or other people. None of us should be controlled–by anyone.

    Living by rules society has agreed to adopt is not being controlled. Being forced to live by rules a small segment of society insists on adopting is being controlled.

    Why do some of us believe we have the right to control others, even when the majority of society does not agree with us? Because we don’t have compassion for others. We’re so focused on our own perspectives and pain we’re unable to step into the shoes of other people and imagine what it must be like to be them.

    I think it’s time for us to start imagining more.

  • 9 Steps to Achieving Success

    9 Steps to Achieving Success

    You can ask 10 different people what “success” is and you’ll get 10 different answers. However, most people agree about how you arrive at success, the destination, regardless of what your definition of the term is.

    In my 40+ years working in the insurance industry, I’ve made my share of mistakes and learned my share of lessons. I’ve been mentored by some wonderful people and watch a boatload of people succeed. I’ve seen people fail to achieve their desired outcomes, as well.

    Eleven years ago, I made a list of what I believed to be the required elements of success. That list included:

    • Attitude
    • Research
    • Resources
    • Essential knowledge, based on your goal(s)
    • Relationship
    • Organization
    • Time management
    • Money
    • Paying attention to other people

    Some people will tell you luck plays a role in success. And maybe they’re right. But I tend to believe my father’s take on that perspective:

    Why is it that successful people seem to have a lot of good luck? Successful people make their own luck by putting themselves in so many good situations good luck seems to follow them. Ergo: the harder you work, the luckier you are.

    Donald F. McHenry

    I believe a person’s mental attitude and relationships are the two most important elements of success. But I have an opinion about all 9 of those elements.

    The nature of your job, occupation, or profession doesn’t matter. Your tenure at what you do doesn’t matter either–whether you’re a newbie or an expert. What matters is that you can take these 9 components of success and apply them to your job, occupation, profession, or task and accomplish your goals.

    Launching a marketing campaign? They apply to you. Starting a new business. Ditto. The same holds true if you just want a fresh perspective on what you’ve known all along.

    I discuss these 9 elements of success in my book, Taking the Mystery out of Business. The book is available right now on Amazon in both eBook and paperback.

    What do YOU view as the fundamentals to success?

  • Spotlight on Matt Medeiros

    Spotlight on Matt Medeiros

    I interviewed Matt Medeiros recently for Episode 3 of my Podcast, Taking the Mystery out of Insurance. Matt specializes in content marketing, from blogging to podcasting, all the way up to email capture automation and social media. Essentially, Matt can do anything to help a business or professional build an effective brand.

    He’s a man of many talents, generous with his time, always willing to help others. I’ve known Matt for more than 20 years. In fact, I was his first business client–he built a computer for my first insurance agency when he was still in college!

    Slocum Studio is a business Matt established with his father and, through that business, Matt and his associates helped me design a couple of websites and create two logos. Currently, one of his ventures, SouthCoast.fm helps entrepreneurs in the South Coast of Massachusetts build their businesses. He also works for Pagely, which provides Managed WordPress Hosting.

    To learn more about Matt and what he does, or to reach out to him for help with your content marketing needs, visit him at CraftedbyMatt.com or on Twitter at @MattMedeiros. You can also listen to Matt’s interview on the podcast to pick up tips about what you DO want to do, and what you DON’T want to do, on your website and with social media.

    Later in the week, I’ll be publishing 2 short video excerpts of the podcast on my YouTube channel.