IBC posts

When you're talking about life and health insurance, the question of whether or not people have sufficient coverage is fairly regular and recurring. Recently, I've come to wonder if the same questions are or should be as prevalent when talking about homeowner's insurance as well.

I suspect most people do have enough house insurance, but there are also a few things that have occurred which make me wonder: A neighbour's house burned down recently, taking the contents and her entire sewing business with it; the news here is always full of cottage-related accident stories which make me wonder about liability; a friend showed me an amazing ring she received as a gift (I strongly urged her to get a separate rider to cover it) and I was talking to another friend about the collectibles and equipment he keeps in his basement.

Does any of this sound familiar or similar to your own situation?

If you live and drive a car in Ontario, you've no doubt noticed your insurance premiums on the rise year after year. If you live in Toronto in particular, you've probably heard about or experienced that phenomenon in an almost accelerated way. (Our premiums dropped by more than half when we moved out of the city.)

You might assume that population density, the sheer number of cars on the road, is the main reason your premiums are higher. This is true, in part, but the big reason Torontonians pay more? They live in the staged collision capital of Canada.

The high and increasing number of staged collisions taking place in the city not only increases risk for people on the road there, but the fraud cost is passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums, to some degree, whether you live in the city or not.