With this recent downfall of snow, it helped me see some of the potential hazards that arise around my home due to the snow fall.  I urge you to take an assessment of the hazards that may occurr around you home and be proactive in eliminating them.

There was so much snow on my roof that it drifts over the edges of the roof and creates an avalanche below.  Luckily I haven’t been standing underneath my eaves as the snow comes crashing down, but it is fun to watch from the inside of the house.  It can be so loud that it will sometimes wake me in the middle of the night and I’m a sound sleeper.  I realize that when I leave my front door, I need to look up before proceeding, so I don’t get clobbered, but what about my unsuspecting guests or mail person who aren’t aware of the dangers around my house.  There is a potential hazard of snow and ice dropping from 20 feet above, which could injure someone pretty good.  If you see these drifts on your roof be proactive and get a snow rake from your local hardware store that will allow you to remove some of the snow from your roof.  I do not recommend getting on the roof with a shovel, with the ice and snow build-up you are only asking for a fall and even with all of the white fluffy snow below a fall off the roof will hurt. 

I also recommend checking around the outside of your house for spots where ice forms that could be potential slip hazards for you and your guests.  Remove all of the snow and ice from these areas like steps, walkways and driveways and if necessary use some salt or snow melt to remove any of the remaining ice.  I have a couple of steps on the side of my house that buildup ice and I’m always try to remove it because even though we don’t use the steps at all in the winter, I know that the RG&E meter reader and any other utility company employees will use those steps to get to the back of my house and I want to make sure that anyone that accesses my property is safe. 

Now if you have icicles that build up around your house, you most likely have a heat loss problem.  I would recommend speaking with a qualified contractor to resolve the problem.  Not only are you wasting money on expensive heating bills, but icicles have the potential danger of falling onto someone and injuring them or causing damage to your house like tearing the gutters off or leaking back into the house as the ice damns up and can get under your roof shingles. 

When there is so much snow you run out of places to put it.  I find it tough to see out of the end of my driveway because the snow banks are so high.  I get a double whammy with the street plow and the sidewalk plow.  I make sure that I go slow out of my driveway to make sure that there isn’t any traffic coming that I wasn’t able to see behind my banks and when I have time I try to get out there and knock down my banks, so I can see better. 

Be sure to take an assessment of your house to see where your potential hazards are for you and your guests and do your best to eliminate them. 

According to the National Burea of Labor Statistics, 3 out of 10 homeowners operate a business out of the home.  More than 66% of the estimated 20.7 million people who work at home are self-employed and run a home based business.  It’s estimated that more than half of the homebased businesses are underinsured.  40% of those survey by the Independent Insurance Agents of America say they were uninsured because they believed that their homeowners insurance covered the business.

When you started your business out of your home, getting insurance to protect you probably wasn’t at the top of your to do list or you were one of the 40% above and thought that your homeowners insurance would cover you.  It is important to get insurance coverage for your home based business to protect you when the unexpected happens and it will!  Your homeowners policy specifically excludes any claims resulting from business pursuits and provides a minimal amount of coverage for any business property (usually less than $2,000). 

The least costly way to cover your business is to add an endorsement to extend your personal liability coverage on your homeowners policy to cover your business pursuits.  This is extremely important coverage to have, especially if you are going to have client meetings at your home, customers coming to you home to drop-off or pick-up merchandise, or have any other members of the public enter your home.  The liability coverage will protect you in case anyone is injured while they are on your property.  You can usually add business liability coverage to you homeowners insurance policy for less than $100/year.  If you wanted to get a separate business liability policy the premium would start at $300-$500/year.

Now most homeowners policies will limit the amount of coverage that they will provide for property related to the business, so you will have to purchase extra coverage to cover your business property.  So be sure to ask what the business property limits are to make sure that you are adequately covered.  You don’t want to find out at the time of a fire that your $10,000 of inventory that was destroyed was only insured for $2,000.  Now some insurance companies will automatically increase the amount of coverage for your business property when you extend your liability coverage.  The company will allow you to allocate up to 10% of the insurance that you carry on your personal belongings to cover your business property. 

Other types of insurance that a home based business might want to take into considerations are: workers compensation (if you have employees), product liabililiy (if you make a product and it doesn’t work correctly or causes injury to someone), errors and ommission (if you provide a service like accounting, insurance or attorney), malpractice (for doctors that have offices out of their home)