Page 19 - BusinessWest September 30, 2024

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Ready for the Storm
Property Owners Should Take Steps to Protect Assets from Weather Events
BY JOSEPH BEDNAR
[email protected]
From water backups, ice dams, and snow runoffs in the basement to wind- storms, fires, and floods that can cause much more damage, Beth Pearson has seen it all.
“We have a tremendous amount of experience with these events and have helped educate clients on snow and water-related coverages,” said Pearson,
president of Pearson Wallace Insurance in Amherst and Pittsfield. “Then we get involved in the claim remediation and act as a liaison between the company, the car- rier, and the client, and make sure it’s an easy process to expedite the claims payouts.”
That process may be a more common one in the coming years, while premium costs creep ever-higher, due to a combination of climate change and more severe weather events, inflation impacting labor and supply costs in the construction world, and insurance carriers basing their rates on what they expect to happen next.
“No area of the U.S. is immune to the impacts of climate risk,” Mark Friedlander, director of Corporate Communications at the Insurance Information Institute, told Bankrate recently. “Whether it’s hurricanes, wildfires, severe convective storms, torna- does, floods, hailstorms, straight-line winds, or damage from heavy snow or ice accu- mulation, every county in every state is vulnerable to a multitude of risks.”
That said, the cost of prevention is much preferable to the cost of rebuilding, Fried- lander added. “It’s essential that policyholders own their risk. This means they need to assess the risks they face where they live and determine what insurance coverage is essential to be financially protected from losses.”
“The cost of a loss to a business or a home far outweigh the premium. So
it’s important to understand what the replacement cost
is. You might want
a more expensive premium, but one that will respond to what you need if there’s
a loss of business or personal assets.”
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