What You Need to Know Before You Rent Your Home

By Catherine Powell

Image courtesy picpedia

Whether it’s due to retirement, relocation or divorce, there comes a time in every homeowner’s life when they are forced to make one of the toughest decisions: sell or rent their home.  Depending on their situation, a move might be only temporary, a relocation could only be speculative, or a retirement could leave the homeowner with an option to rent that could return a tidy income if the house is paid off.  The question in all these cases comes down to what do I need to know before I rent my home? 

Home Fire Extinguisher Tips

By Catherine Powell

Image courtesy pxfuel

If you’re still looking for a last-minute Christmas gift, have you considered a home fire extinguisher.  Since home fires can be one of the most devastating and potentially deadly threats to your home and your family, if you don’t have a home extinguisher, there’s no time like the present.  While most homes have smoke detectors, far too few have fire extinguishers.  Those homes that do sometimes find that the extinguisher doesn’t work when they need it most.  To help make sure your family is safe and secure from fire, I thought my holiday present to you would be to take the time to cover everything you need to know about home fire extinguishers.

1.      One size fits all? – Hardly.  When it comes to fire extinguishers there are actually four classes that homeowners should know, each of which is capable of putting out a particular type of fire.

·         Class A is designed to extinguish burning wood, paper or cloth

·         Class B is used to fight flammable liquids and gas

·         Class C is for electrical fires

·         Class K is designed to fight cooking oil fires

Tis the Season to Protect Your Pets

By Catherine Powell

Image courtesy Pixabay

If you’re like me, you find it hard to get into the Christmas spirit when the neighbors decorate their palm trees with lights and tinsel.  But when you think about it, that’s undoubtedly what your pets feel like when you start decking the halls for the holidays.  Whether you realize it or not, when you  break out the Christmas lights, the ornaments,  and other holiday paraphernalia, your pets don’t know what to make of it.  Even worse is when they start treating the tree and all its trimmings like a tall green version of Disney World.  To keep you from having to add the veterinarian to your list this holiday, I’ve come up with a short list of what you need to do to keep your pets safe until the decorations are back in the attic.

Making a List and Checking It Twice - Why you should create a home inventory.

By Catherine Powell

Image courtesy Pixabay

Three of the crises that most homeowners dread most are fire, flood and storm.  That’s because these are the three quickest ways to lose all their possessions in one fell swoop.  Especially in hurricane-prone Florida, having a total loss isn’t that much of a stretch of the imagination.  Not by a long shot.  While you can have your home and your property insured for all of the above, the secret to getting your money’s worth in compensation is to be able to document the value of your possessions.  To do this right takes a bit of forethought and effort on a homeowner’s part, which many fail to do only to come to regret it later.

Snowbird Safety Tips

By Catherine Powell

Image courtesy flickr

Living in Florida means never knowing when guests are going to drop in.  Whether we’re talking about relatives or a long-lost college roommate, once the snow starts to fall up north, it’s guaranteed that guests will start lining up to pay a visit.  When house guests do arrive, they’ll invariably head for the water.  Whether that means a trip to the beach or the pool, one thing’s for certain; they’ll overdo it when it comes to fun in the sun.  They can also wind up in trouble in the surf.  To give all you Floridians the lowdown on snowbird safety, I decided to dedicate this week’s blog to the occasion.

The Ins and Outs of Prepaid Credit Cards

By Catherine Powell

Image courtesy flickr

If you’re like me, you have way too many friends, relatives and business associates to buy each and everyone of them a hand-picked Christmas present.  There just aren’t enough hours in the day, right?  That means you’re left with the unenviable choices of either buying the same gift for many of them or crossing some off your list.  Before you break out the red pencil, let me give you one other option that not only kills two birds with one stone, but allows everybody on you’re a-list to wind up with the gift they most want.  What I’m talking about are prepaid credit cards. 

The ABC's of Insurance Riders

By Catherine Powell

Image courtesy flickr

If you have an insurance policy, you probably have been exposed to what are termed “Riders”, although you may not know what they mean to you.  Also known as “Endorsements”, riders are add-ons to policies that affect the limitations of a policy.  Sometimes these are added as a benefit to a policy, while others are used to restrict how or where the coverage applies.  Either way, ignorance of riders is not bliss, as some policyholders have found to their chagrin when their claim was denied.  The way I tell customers to think about riders is to consider them like optional extras like leather bucket seats in a car.  While they may cost a little more to add, they make the ride much more comfortable for years to come.