Personal Insurance

Falco and Associates offers a full line of insurance for individuals and families. These products include:

Auto Insurance
Homeowners’ Insurance
Life Insurance
Health Insurance
Renters’ Insurance
Umbrella Coverage
Rental Property Insurance
Boat, Motorcycle, & RV Insurance

Auto Insurance

Four main types of auto insurance are available: liability, uninsured or underinsured motorist, collision and comprehensive and personal injury. Most states require drivers to carry certain types of insurance.

Liability

Liability insurance is usually considered a necessity, and many states have a minimum legal requirement for liability coverage. This type of insurance helps protect, up to the policy limits, against injury claims and property-damage suits brought by other drivers, pedestrians, or property owners if you are at fault in an accident. Your liability policy pays for injuries suffered by others and the costs of damage to other people’s property, as well as legal costs, if necessary, up to a dollar limit.

You can choose a policy with an overall limit for all liabilities, or you can select one with separate limits for (1) individuals injured in an accident, (2) all injuries in the same accident, and (3) property damage.

Uninsured or Underinsured Motorist Coverage

A policy with an uninsured motorist provision will pay damages if an uninsured motorist or a hit-and-run driver injures you and/or your passenger(s). You cannot buy more coverage against an uninsured driver than you carry yourself in liability. For example, if you carry $25,000 coverage per person and $50,000 per accident, you can buy only up to those amounts of coverage against an uninsured driver.

For a nominal additional amount, you can also carry protection against inadequate insurance coverage by another driver who injures you in an automobile accident. This provision means that your policy will pay for injuries that his or her policy does not.

Collision and Comprehensive Coverage

Collision insurance reimburses you for repair costs resulting from a collision that has been deemed to be your fault. Collision insurance is usually the most expensive part of your policy. Comprehensive coverage is for damage due to fire, storm, vandalism, or theft.

If a lender holds a lien on your car, the lender will probably require you to pay for both collision and comprehensive insurance. To lower the cost of this kind of insurance, you may choose a higher deductible, instead of the usual $500.00. Although this increases your out-of-pocket expenses in the event of an accident, it may cut the cost of your premiums substantially.

Personal Injury Protection

Personal injury insurance will pay your medical expenses in the event of an automobile accident, regardless of who was at fault.

Whether or not your state requires certain types of auto insurance, it may be a good idea to purchase multiple options to ensure that you are covered for many possible situations. In the event of a traffic collision, you don’t want to be left with bills that you cannot pay.

Homeowners Insurance

Homeowner’s insurance, also known as hazard insurance or home insurance, covers losses occurring to one's home, its contents, loss of its use (additional living expenses), or loss of other personal possessions of the homeowner, as well as liability insurance for accidents that may happen at the home or at the hands of the homeowner within the policy territory.

The cost of homeowner's insurance often depends on what it would cost to replace the house and which additional riders—additional items to be insured—are attached to the policy. Typically, claims due to floods or war (whose definition typically includes a nuclear explosion from any source), amongst other standard exclusions (like termites and mold), are excluded. Special insurance may be available for purchase for these possibilities.

Renter’s Insurance

Many individual who rent homes mistakenly believe that they are covered under their landlord’s insurance. However, the property owner’s insurance does not cover the personal possessions of a tenant or renter. Renter’s insurance covers personal property within a home or apartment against the same types of loss covered by homeowners insurance - fire, theft, vandalism, and water damage (but not flood damage and probably not earthquake damage either unless covered by additional insurance riders) as well as protecting your interests should someone have an accident within your dwelling unit for which you might be held liable.

Standard renter’s insurance policies typically do not cover expensive jewelry, coin or stamp collections, art, antiques, oriental rugs, or high end electronics. These items need to be covered with a “rider” that specifically covers such items.

Individuals who own condominiums and town houses, where the structure is covered under a group policy, also need their own insurance policy (tenant’s policy) to cover personal possessions and upgrades to the interior of the unit.

Umbrella Coverage

Umbrella insurance provides broad liability insurance beyond traditional home and auto policies, including liability claims from policies underneath it (thus the umbrella) such as auto or homeowners insurance. A $1,000,000 umbrella policy combined with auto insurance liability coverage of $500,000 would give the policy holder effective liability coverage of $1,500,000.

Rental Property Insurance

Homeowners’ insurance is designed for properties owned and occupied by the policy holder. If you own a property that is rented by others, you need to carry rental property insurance. While comparable to homeowners insurance in many ways, most rental property policies cover only the building.