The Ohio Insurance Blog

Just a Little Backing Accident…

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Do you ever have those sleepless nights where you just can't seem to ease your thoughts?  You're thinking about everything that happened during your day and all that you need to do the following day.  Perhaps you're in the middle of a stressful life event or you're having trouble calming your fears?  Maybe you heard about a friend of a friend that had, what seemed like a minor accident, but actually caused bankruptcy and now you're wondering if it could happen to you.

Those of us here at Hill & Hamilton are no different... we have sleepless nights as well, often because we fear situations just like the one described in this article.

For years, we've been advising our clients on the importance of adequate insurance protection.  We routinely see new clients to our agency that were unaware just how much of their own personal wealth and accumulated assets were one "little backing accident" away from financial disaster.

Consider this real-life example where a driver reported backing a Ford Pickup into a fire hydrant in a typical commercial warehouse area with a large paved parking lot.  The resulting damages and expenses included:

• Fire hydrant replacement including cost of installation
• Damage to the parking lot caused by the sinkhole created by water escaping from the damaged fire hydrant (did you know a 6 inch water main connected to a fire hydrant flows 1,000 to 1,500 gallons of water per minute?)
• Bill for hundreds of thousands of gallons of water
• The large lake created in the parking lot required special handling and pumping because of the damage caused to the structures
• Cost of business interruption due to the lack of access to the parking lot until repairs were made
• Additional security was required to block off the area to prevent further accidents

This real-life example should cause all responsible consumers and business owners to ask this critically important question: "is my current insurance coverage adequate?"

Without adequate liability coverage, you could be putting your assets and future earnings at risk.

You might be asking... "what are my options to protect from this type of disaster?"

There are several solutions; two of the most common and cost-effective are:

1. Increasing your auto liability limits can be very inexpensive.  At a minimum, you should consider $100,000/$300,000 limits... $250,000/$500,000 might be more appropriate
2. Umbrella policies provide coverage in increments of $1,000,000 and often cost less than a movie rental or latte per week

Keep in mind, we're here to help.  If you feel that your protection might be inadequate, don't wait until it's too late... call us today and we'll guide you through your various options to improve your protection.