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Showing posts with label Home Inventory. Show all posts

An Occasional Hurricane Reminder

Northeastern Hurricanes On The Horizon: Saturday's New York Times had a story about hurricane preparedness that I want you to see. The paper reminds you that, while it has been a long time since the Northeastern US has suffered a significant hurricane, the potential exists during every hurricane season, and the time to prepare against loss is now. Home Inventory is, of course, a part of the solution.

A home inventory will help ensure that you have purchased enough insurance to replace your personal possessions. It can also speed the claims process and substantiate losses for income tax purposes. A detailed home inventory is also helpful should you need to apply for disaster aid.

You may live in a place that is safe from hurricane damage. (Tennessee remains unscathed! Tornadoes are another story.) However, regardless of where you live, your risk of loss exists. It may come through natural causes like tornado, hurricane, or lightning. It could come through man-made causes like electrical fires or theft. The fact is that you are at risk if you own personal property, and your insurance carrier has very long forms for you to complete when that time comes. Home inventory can give you back a year of your life, a year that you would otherwise spend haggling with your insurer.

A. J. Farley runs Farley Home Services, a home inventory service based in Middle Tennessee. Please visit EverySingleItem.com, the company website, for more details.

Bad Time To Sell, Great Time To Buy

Two articles relating to the glut of collectibles available these days fill our page today. Not to go all Economics 101 on you or anything, but you'll remember that gluts, of course, are bad news for sellers but good news for buyers. You've heard the old saying, "The rich get richer, the poor get poorer." Never more true than these days, particularly in the antiques and collectibles market. If you are an investor with cash to spend, there are plenty of bargains out there.

Miami Dealers Say It's A Buyer's Market: The Miami Herald is reporting that antiques dealers in and around that city have packed aisles and and are willing to negotiate.

Monica Fidel, a personal-property appraiser in Miami, says this market is suffering just as much as others in the economic downturn but with a few quirks. The market is flooded with items, Fidel says, so the supply is much greater than the demand. Consumers aren't buying antiques or collectibles unless they have plenty of money -- and they're looking for singular or high-end items.

This glut of antiques and collectibles is not limited to the South Florida area by any means.

Charlotte Area Appraisers Staying Busy: The Charlotte Observer says that personal property appraisers in that city have been besieged lately by clients who need to convert their treasures into quick cash.

An appraisal can cost $200 to $400, on average. That risk hasn't stopped the inquiries. Local personal property appraisers say business rose dramatically in the spring. They guess that's around the time people exhausted severance pay or savings accounts and began looking for more creative ways to pay the bills. Louise Phillips of Alexander Appraisal Service in China Grove said she's seen more people who want to sell, as well as forced sales through bankruptcies. People are looking to unload everything from china to furniture to rare plants from their gardens, she said.

Both articles make one point perfectly clear: If you do not have to sell an item right now, it is best to wait until at least a slight upturn in the economy. Otherwise, you simply will not get a fair market price for your item in this climate.

Collectors, remember you need to protect your collections in two ways you may not have done. First, you need an inventory of your household items, paying special attention to your collections. Second, you need a special, inexpensive insurance policy separate from your homeowners to protect your collection. I can help you with the first point, and your local insurance agent can take care of the second.

Farley Home Services stands ready to serve your home inventory needs. Please visit EverySingleItem.com for details.

Blogger Says You Need A Local Agent

Someone In Your World: Daren DiSantis of OfficialWire.com says that there are several advantages to having a local insurance agent, agreeing with me in the process.

Local insurance agents care more about you as a person than anyone else in the insurance business. I'm not saying that because I dislike claims adjusters (quite the contrary!) or any other nonsense like that. I am saying it because your local agent is the person you deal with for your insurance questions and needs. An agent will tell you if some course of action you want to take is the right way to go. An underwriter won't tell you that, a claims adjuster won't, and actuary won't. Agents advise; other insurance people react. That's a significant difference, and if you are buying insurance through an 800 number, you aren't talking to someone who thinks the way you do.

Farley Home Services strongly suggests that you have your own local insurance agent. In nearly every instance you can think of, a local agent is the best insurance professional for you to turn to. I can't emphasize this enough. Local agents will tell you that you need a home inventory too, by the way!

A. J. Farley owns Farley Home Services, your premier home inventory professionals. Please visit our web site at EverySingleItem.com, and thanks for your time today!

The Joys Of Videotape

Home Inventory Video Suggestions: Meha Ahmad writes for Insurance Agents.com, and a recent entry of hers suggested that all of us complete a home inventory video of our belongings. Most of the claims adjusters that I know would like to tell Meha that they don't really want to watch home videos and that you will have to do that for yourself, but that's a topic for another day. Obviously, I believe a video is a poor substitute for a detailed home inventory provided by a qualified home inventory professional such as Farley Home Services, but it's sure better than nothing, and it's in that spirit that I provide the above link. This topic is so important (and neglected!) that any discussion of it is worthwhile in my humble opinion.

Your home insurance claim process will run more smoothly if you get shots of every room, but more importantly, of every item in every room. Leave nothing undocumented. Open all the drawers, closets, storage units, cabinets. Slowly pan over every storage space so your insurance provider will have a better idea of what your home insurance claim includes.

Listen, I'm passionate about this topic since it's how I earn my living, but the fact remains that a home inventory report that you create could be the most important document that you will ever hold in your hands next to a marriage certificate, birth certificate, or a will. Home inventory turns the worst year of your life into no something manageable and bearable. It means the difference between surviving and thriving, and in complicated days like these isn't it nice to have a little piece of mind?

Family Time: We are enjoying a nice visit with my Mom this week. It's been a while since we have seen her, so this is a nice reunion don't you know.

A. J. Farley gets worked up about things behind his desk at Farley Home Services, your premier home inventory provider. Please visit EverySingleItem.com for details.

Coin Collecting Made (Relatively) Easy

Gold Coins In The News: The Chubb Collectors summer newsletter is out and has a very informative article on collecting bullion, generic, and rare gold coins that I thought you might find interesting. Chubb Collectors is a great free publication and I would suggest you subscribe if you haven't already done so. Here' an except from the linked piece:

Historically, when paper currencies are debased, investors and collectors often turn to precious metals as an alternative to traditional investments such as stocks and bonds. In recent months there has been strong demand for platinum, gold and silver coins and bars. Much of that demand has centered on U.S. and world gold coins. [emphasis added]

Remember coin collectors, you need a special insurance coverage for your collection, separate from your homeowners insurance, called personal articles coverage. Gold coins are particularly ill-served by your homeowners policy.

A Call For Home Inventory: Insurance guy Cliff Berman writes on Isnare.com that you need to complete a home inventory when purchasing your first home.

One of the first things you should do when you get ready to buy your first home is take a careful inventory of the contents of your house. It's important to let your homeowners insurance company know if you've got jewelry or paintings of value that are going to need to be covered. [emphasis added]

Thanks Cliff. I'll take all the help I can get!

That's all folks! I hope you're having a good week.

A. J. Farley manages Farley Home Services, a home inventory documentation service. Visit the company website at EverySingleItem.com.

Blogs, Blogs Everywhere!

Blogger Says You Need An Inventory: Mary E. Trimble says on her blog that "a home inventory can save you big money - and headaches - should tragedy strike." Here's more:

The aftermath of a disaster is confusing and frustrating enough without trying to recall the particulars of your possessions. For items destroyed in fire or flood, a household inventory will help you remember what you had. Insurance adjustments are expedited more efficiently when information can be gathered from current documentation.

I don't know much about Ms. Trimble, but I have to admit a certain fondness for her now!

Public Adjusters In The Blogosphere: A public adjuster is a claims adjuster working free-lance, not employed by an insurance carrier. Public adjusters help individuals in contentious insurance claim settlements, but usually at a hefty price (10-15% of the final settlement). The (poorly written) Tampa Bay Real Estate blog discusses how public adjusters can help.

Your insurance company sends out their personal insurance adjuster, that has one thing in mind, to close the claim as cheap as possible.

A word of caution. Public adjusters do not have the best reputation among those in the insurance industry, as you can imagine. Some public adjusters have a reputation for artificially inflating the size of claims, and insurers tend to lump all public adjusters into that category. Bringing a public adjuster into an insurance claim is sort of like demanding to speak to your lawyer in a TV cop show. "Why do you need a public adjuster, we're all friends here?"

We'll stop there for today. Thanks for tuning in!

Farley Home Services provides inventory documentation to homeowners, tenants, small business owners, and landlords. Please visit EverySingleItem.com to see how we can serve you.

State Farm Goes Down Swinging

State Farm Moves to Eliminate Florida Discounts: State Farm Florida, which will soon stop writing new homeowners insurance in the state, is now asking the legislature's permission to remove all the discounts that its remaining policyholders receive, giving those people what amounts to a significant rate increase. Clients receive discounts for such things as having your car and home insured by the same carrier, alarm systems, new plumbing and electrical wiring, hail resistant roofing, and the like. Those discounts, when taken in total, can reduce one's premium by roughly one third.

State Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, called the filing an "outrageous" way of "going around the law" to raise premiums without a formal rate increase. "The insurance companies always seem to find a way to help themselves and neglect the homeowner," he said. [emphasis added]

A Missed Opportunity: Bernard Madoff's personal property is being meticulously cataloged by federal marshals in preparation of a coming auction of his goods. I never thought to apply for the job. Arrgghh.

The forfeiture order signed by federal Judge Denny Chin gave the U.S. government complete control over the $7.5-million apartment and the $3.5-million house in Montauk. (A $10-million Palm Beach home was surrendered earlier this year). Chin ordered the properties and everything inside, including clothing, fixtures, artwork, linens and sheets, surrendered to help pay victims of the estimated $65-billion Ponzi scheme.

Ohio Bucks the Trend (pun intended): My last blog entry noted that insurance rate increases were on the way primarily for coastal states. The Ohio Department of Insurance is saying that 2008 saw significant increases for homeowners insurance premiums. (Ohio has no coastline unless you count Lake Erie.) No word yet from Ohio on future premium trends.

Despite the increases last year, [Ohio Insurance Institute spokesperson Mary] Bonelli said, Ohio auto and homeowners insurance rates are still among the lowest in the country -- and the reason is competition. "There are 266 homeowner writers in the state and 613 auto writers," she said. "That's the third-highest number in both areas." [emphasis added]

Summer Protection Tips From NAHIP: The National Association of Home Inventory Professionals has some travel tips to keep your home safe while you are gone this summer. Here's an excerpt:

Don't place any online or mail orders that could possibly be delivered while you are gone. Packages left outside for days are a strong indicator that nobody is home. Ensure that your lawn is cut. A lawn in need of mowing is an obvious sign that a homeowner may be away on vacation. Those who mow their own lawn should consider hiring a lawn service if away for an extended period of time.

That's about all for today. I don't want to talk about the Gold Cup final just yet. Thanks for reading!

A. J. Farley runs Farley Home Services, a home inventory service for folks like you. Please visit EverySingleItem.com for more details.

The Basics of Home Inventory

It's been a while since I have spent any time reviewing the basic justification for a home inventory, and I know that we have a lot of new readers that haven't heard an explanation of what I do or what the home inventory industry is all about.

Let me start off by saying that home inventory goes hand in glove with good homeowners insurance coverage. I'd go so far as to say that one is incomplete without the other. Most of us have mortgages and are required to carry "hazard" insurance (Hazard is the mortgage industry's term for homeowners policies, and can include homeowners, condo-unitowners, or rental dwelling coverage depending on the occupancy of the home), but no one requires you to have a home inventory. Until, that is, you have a claim.

Claims adjusters require the completion of personal property inventory forms in order to settle those types of claims. Even if you have suffered a total loss and everything is gone, you will more than likely have to start completing these forms and continue until you reach your coverage amount (usually 70% of your dwelling, but varies from one company to another). It takes weeks or months to remember everything that you own, especially if your pictures, videos, or other documentation is destroyed in the loss. Our memories just aren't that good.

Home inventory solves this problem. A home inventory is a detailed list of all the items you own, and usually includes photographs of each item. We like to call it your life-collection. You can complete a home inventory on your own, or you can have an inventory professional like Farley Home Services do this for you.

Every insurance carrier suggests that you complete a home inventory and update it regularly. (Here are links to Allstate, State Farm, Farmers, and Nationwide's discussions of this need.) Your insurance carrier wants you to have a detailed inventory so that they can fairly reimburse you for your loss. (Most of us are under-insured when it comes to personal property, by the way.) If you have no inventory, you have a lot of work to do, and you may lose a year of your life in the pursuit of your claim. Do you have that time to spend?

A. J. Farley runs Farley Home Services, a home inventory documentation service based in Murfreesboro, TN. Visit his company's site at EverySingleItem.com for more information.

Local Spin On Deaccessioning Debate

In a recent blog post I discussed the debate over whether museums and public galleries should be able to liqidate a portion of their holdings to help pay the bills in troubled times like these. This controversial practice, known as deaccessioning, allows museums to keep the bulk of their work together and exercise their own judgement. Critics claim that this is a violation of a public trust, and that it often directly conflicts with the wishes of the entity that donated the works in the first place (which is true). A local Nashville case illustrates the conflict.

Fisk University Battles O'Keefe Museum: This Nashville Tennesseean article describes a recent Tennessee Court of Appeals ruling which will, if it stands, allow Fisk University to sell a 50% share of its Alfred Steiglitz collection. Steiglitz was the husband of Georgia O'Keefe, and the collection includes primarily O'Keefe works. After Steiglitz's death, O'Keefe donated his collection of her works to Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, with the stipulation that the work be displayed as a complete set.

The financially troubled unversity is wishing to sell a share of the collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas. The university and the museum would then split the display time for the collection evenly. The O'Keefe Museum in New Mexico, as administrator of Mrs. O'Keefe's estate, claimed that the university's arrangement with Crystal Bridges violated the stipulation that Mrs. O'Keefe had placed upon the collection, and further claimed that the collection should returned to the estate rather than allowing Fisk to enter into these types of arrangements.

"[Public galleries] see these things as assets, and they sell them off to pay their gas bills, which is frustrating," said Stan Mabry, owner of Stanford Fine Art in Belle Meade [a Nashville suburb]. "Long term, they'll regret it. I wish there was a way to get the city, the state museum, collectors and others to pitch in and keep them in Nashville." [emphasis added]

As a Middle Tennesseean, I would love for this work to stay in Nashville permanently. It seems to me that the larger issue is the right of the public galleries to do with their collections what they see fit. I understand that donors give to public galleries and museums in order to keep works on display for the good of all, but if a museum can't keep its doors open due to poor cash flow, then all of its pieces leave the public view, obviously a far worse fate. Unfortunately, these decisions will be for the courts to take moving forward, and who knows how that might end up?

If you are a collector of fine art, you need an inventory of those works for your insurance carrier as well as a separate insurance policy. Keep this in mind as you build your collection.

Farley Home Services provide home inventory documentation for everyone regardless of your stance on deaccessioning. Please visit EverySingleItem.com for more information. Thanks for reading!

Vacation Homes, Under-Insurance, and Personal Accomplishments

Don't Forget The Lake House: Those of you who own vacation homes need to remember the contents you keep there when it comes to your home inventory protection. As a matter of fact, Matt MacMillan of the Hutchison (MN) Leader says you should keep a separate inventory for that residence. The article has some good insurance tips for owners of secondary residences.

If your secondary home or vacation home has a mortgage, your lender may require homeowners insurance just as it would for your primary residence. However, there may be additional stipulations in the policy because you only reside in the home for part of the year. Like with your primary homeowners insurance, it is important to review the policy for your secondary home every year and keep an up-to-date home inventory in case you would need to file a claim following a loss. [emphasis added]

Under-Insurance Conundrum: Karen Telleen-Lawton has an interesting article dealing with the problem of homeowners under-insurance. This is an issue across the country, but it is especially significant in places like California, Florida, and Texas. The bottom line is to have a solid insurance agent and to sit down with her regularly to review your insurance needs.

. . . despite being willing or obligated to buy insurance, homeowners don’t properly evaluate the risk, believing it can’t happen to them. So while they hedge their bets by buying insurance, they further hedge their hedge by willingly under-insuring.

On The Home-front: I scored an ugly goal, but a goal nonetheless, while playing soccer with the old guys last night. Let's just say it's been a while. I'm uncomfortable with all the David Beckham comparisons, but if the boot fits . . .

Farley Home Services is your premier home inventory professionals. Visit us on the web at EverySingleItem.com, and as always thanks for reading today!

The British Are Agreeing! The British Are Agreeing!

Support From Across The Pond: The Guardian newspaper has some tips for saving money on your insurance bills that extend to American audiences, and home inventory is a suggested method for determining your coverage need. Hear that steady drumbeat off in the distance? That's the third parties telling you that you need my service! Thump, thump, thump. Here's what the Guardian has to say about our favorite topic:

Don't go for policies that offer "unlimited" contents cover - unless you have lots of expensive items at home - as you will probably pay over the odds for your insurance. It is better to get the cover you need. "It's a good idea to make an inventory of all your belongings, then add a little extra for items you may have missed," says Scott Mowbray, of Virgin Money . [emphasis added]

Mississippi Recovering Slowly but Surely: The Mississippi Gulf Coast is getting back to its pre-Katrina form, but the process is a slow-go. So says the Cedar Rapids Gazette is this article, excerpted below. (You will recall that Cedar Rapids had significant flooding last year, so many Iowa residents are looking to Mississippi to get a feel for how their own recovery will proceed.)

Two huge issues in Mississippi’s recovery pace have been building standards and getting insurance for new buildings. Some insurance companies have left the state; others have raised rates. The number of homeowners getting insurance from the state’s Wind Pool, which covers people who can’t get other insurance, has nearly tripled. [emphasis added]

God bless you folks on the Gulf Coast. I trust that your long nightmare will one day come to an end.

A. J. Farley runs Farley Home Services, an inventory documentation service for homeowners, landlords, tenants, and small business owners, and churches. Please visit EverySingleItem.com for more information, and thanks for reading today!

It's A Buyer's Market For Collectibles

Care For Those Trees: The Toronto Globe and Mail says add tree care to your to-do list in order to prevent property damage and injuries. "Everyone who knows trees emphasizes the need for regular inspection and care. A tree may look as strong as the Rock of Gibraltar, but it may be suffering from disease or have been damaged and susceptible to disease. A rotted-out tree will be more vulnerable."

Treasure Reduction: The Worcester Telegram says that antique and collectible retailers are experiencing a boom in their business as the economy worsens and people are turning family heirlooms into cash to pay medical bills and the like.

The company pays cash for antiques, jewelry and other items of value people bring in from their attics and basements and — in these times — cherished possessions that they wouldn’t otherwise part with. “Our shows have been pretty popular since the economy has taken a downturn,” said Ms. Thompson. “Our business has doubled, partly because we pay in cash.”

There are some pretty tough stories in that article. It's worth a read if you have the time.

Count Your Blessings: You know someone else who needs to complete a personal property inventory (besides you)? Churches! So says ChurchSafety.com, a public relations and marketing site of Brotherhood Mutual insurance company. Church buildings are every bit as much at risk of damage from fire and theft as residential structures, perhaps even more so since the buildings are unoccupied for longer stretches of time.

Farley Home Services produces home inventory documentation for homeowners, landlords, tenants, small business owners and even churches! Please visit EverySingleItem.com for details. Thanks for reading today!

Art Theft Claims Still Unsettled

Stolen Nazi Art: Bloomberg .com updates progress (or lack thereof) being made toward settling stolen art claims from the Hitler era. The Nazis stole some 600,000 pieces of art. I had no idea the number was that high. It's been 70 years, let's get this done.

Poor Unloved Renters: David Pugh says renters need love. If not love, then at least insurance. Renters need home inventories too, by the way.

Insurance Agents Under Stress Too: Claims Journal says that "bad apple" insurance agents are tempted to protect their livelihoods through insurance fraud in tough economic times like these.

I want to take this time to emphasize how important it is to have a good working relationship with your insurance agent. This protects you in two ways: 1) Your agent has a vested interest in keeping you happy, and he will be more likely to go to bat for you in a claim situation if he is familiar with you and knows your character, and 2) You will be more likely to get of sense of how he does business the more often you meet with him. If you have some questions about his business practices, find someone else you can have confidence in. You need a trustworthy representative.

A. J. Farley owns Farley Home Services (EverySingleItem.com), an inventory service for all who own homes, small businesses, rental property, or who are tenants. Please visit our site. Thanks!

Hurricane News, Cute Puppies, and Madoff Update

The Northeast Needs To Get Prepared: The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) recently published guidelines for personal disaster preparedness. As you may know, the Atlantic Hurricane Season runs June 1st to November 30th, and residents of coastal states need to spend some time attending to these tasks in anticipation of storms that will threaten New England this season. Excerpt:

Make a record of your personal property. Keep an itemized list of your furniture, clothing and valuables to assist adjusters in case of a claim. Back it up with photographs or video.

I know I sound like a broken record regarding home inventory. Crack, pop, hiss. No apologies made.

The High Price of Dog Ownership Just Got Higher: I know, I know. Dogs are adorable and bring great joy to our lives. I know that the companionship they offer is without peer. I know that the world is a better place because of our domesticated dogs. Our dog Lucy is a lovable mutt and my family thinks the world of her.

I also know that dog ownership is expensive. Kennel bills, veterinary bills, dog food, chew toys; as if it wasn't enough already, now your insurance carrier may be charging you higher rates on your homeowners policy beacuse of your little adorable pooch. Fido may even one day be the cause of your insurance carrier cancelling your policy. WooHoo!

CBS Reports Feds Ask For 150 Years For Madoff: Federal prosecutors trying the case of disgraced financier Bernie Madoff, who masterminded one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history (I'm sure that some of you would say this distinction belongs to Social Security), have asked the judge to sentence him to 150 years, the maximum imprisonment available for his crimes. Madoff is 71.

Federal sentencing guidelines allow for the 150-year term, prosecutors said. Any lesser sentence, they added, should still be long enough to send a forceful message and "assure that Madoff will remain in prison for life."

While I understand the need for a strong message to be sent and that Madoff is clearly guilty of this massive fraud, I also understand that the money on those statements was always phantom money and that it's never coming back because it never existed in the first place, regardless of whether Madoff dies in jail or not. Madoff didn't steal billions of dollars. He repeatedly lied, and in so doing created billions of phantom dollars out of thin air. Certainly investors gave him lots of money that they have now lost, but the actual amount "invested" with Madoff is far smaller than the numbers reported in the press.

A. J. Farley runs Farley Home Services (EverySingleItem.com), your one stop shop for all your home inventory needs. Whether you own a home, a small business, or rental property, you need to document your belongings. We take care of tenants as well!

Home Inventory On TV!

It's On The Television, So It Has To Be True: Tallahassee's WCTV has a recent story about the start of hurricane season that includes, you guessed it, the need for you to complete a home inventory.

Keep Me In The Loop: I found an article from a paper called the (Suburban Chicago) Daily Herald that spurred my thinking about home improvements and insurance. In my experience, people have been sometimes reluctant to let their insurer know about home improvements, because they felt that the insurer was just wanted to raise their rates. Not true my friends! Your agent wants to make sure you are getting the best coverage for your money. You should never intenionally put yourself in a postition of being under-insured, and improving your home by X dollars without increasing your coverage at least a corresponding amount does just that and frankly isn't very smart. Look at this excerpt:

To illustrate, say you obtained $200,000 in coverage several years ago but the remodeling job you completed in '07 and the work that you're planning now would add another $75,000 to the cost of rebuilding the house if it was destroyed. The insurer would likely be obligated to pay a maximum of $200,000, less any deductible the policy includes: You would then have to pay the rest of the reconstruction costs from your own pocket.

Why would you do that? Call your agent, raise your policy amount, and quit your whining! (Of course I'm joking about the whining part.) The other place where people are most likely under-insured is personal property (contents) coverage. In order to know that you are adequately insured there, you need a home inventory, and we can help!

A. J. Farley runs Farley Home Services (www.EverySingleItem.com). Farley Home Services produces home inventory documentation for cheapskates and big-spenders alike. You can reach A. J. at information@farleyhomeservices.com. Thanks!

Change Is Good!

Isn't it nice when you see a friend continue to grow and develop? My mother-in-law is a classically trained musician, holding a Master's Degree in Piano Performance from Indiana University, a fine music school. She has a great love and appreciation for classical music, with a large collection of recorded music on display (and playing) in her home. She has played the piano (or keyboard) at our church for nearly forty years. As you can imagine, the music style in our church, like most churches these days, has changed a good bit over the last five years. The music team has included many of the newer praise and worship songs and incorporated new instruments and musicians as part of the team. Over the years, my mother-in-law has gone from being the church's only musician to one of a growing and diverse group. Many musicians in her situation would have grown tired of the changes and abandoned their post. But I'm grateful to say that "Nana" hasn't done so. It's encouraging to me to see her continuing to learn new song styles and new media. She's even on Facebook now!

Change is inevitable. We can embrace it or we can be left behind by it.

You'll be seeing some changes over the coming months to Farley Home Services products and services, as well as our online presence and this blog. I want to announce the first or these changes this morning.

The goal of a home inventory is to recover Every Single Item that you have lost. EverySingleItem.com is the web's new home for Farley Home Services. You will see some minor changes to our site when you visit now, but there will be some major renovations in time. (The Farley Home Services address will still get you there, but it will look slightly different when you arrive.) Eventually this blog will migrate over to that main site.

Coming later this fall . . . an online do-it-yourself option for home inventory brought to you exclusively by Farley Home Services. I'm very excited about this prospect. More about that as the roll-out date approaches.

These are busy days for us here. Good changes are coming!

Farley Home Services produces home inventory documentation for landlords, tenants, small business owners, and homeowners. Please visit EverySingleItem.com for more details.

Insurance Rate Hikes Likely Coming Your Way

Vicious Cycle: Saturday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that four of the top insurers in the state of Georgia have requested rate hikes for the coming year, affecting nearly 40% of the state's consumers. State Farm, First Liberty, Cotton States, and Nationwide have filed increases that fall between 5 and 11 percent, modest by insurance company standards but huge for the rest of the financial world. Rates are also on the rise in Illinois, Texas, and Florida among others.

Even with such increases, Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine said consumers are doing better than those in neighboring states, where he said premiums have been rising at double-digit rates. “We are by far the cheapest in the Southeast,” he said.

That makes you folks in Georgia feel A LOT better, doesn't it?

Allstate On The Mend: The Wall Street Journal says Allstate has learned some tough lessons over the past year and is ready to bounce back. When the WSJ has something good to say about a publicly traded insurance carrier, that generally means that the company's shareholders should be excited and the company's clients should be afraid. We'll see how this one turns out in the next year.

California Fire Season Starting Soon: Insurance and fire officials are warning California residents that it's that time of year again according to the Los Angeles Daily News.

[California Insurance Commissioner Steve] Poizner urged Californians to secure adequate fire insurance, record home inventory by film or video, have a preparation kit and draft a family action plan in the event of a fire. "Don't get burned twice: Update your assets with your insurance company," Poizner said.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Farley Home Services provides home inventory documentation. we serve small business owners as well! Please visit FarleyHomeServices.com for more details.

Insurers On The Move

Farm Bureau: According to Farm Bureau, this storm season promises to be one of the most active ones in the past ten years. We've already seen that here in Tennessee. The link says that as part of your storm preparedness you need a home inventory.

State Farm: Will resume writing homeowners insurance in Mississippi according to the Jackson Clarion Ledger. This is very good news for the consumers of Mississippi. I'll just be curious to see how many residents of the state will forgive State Farm and come back to them.

Short Post This Morning: My wife's family is having a reunion this weekend, so I'm going to play golf in a few hours with a bunch of her uncles and cousins. I married into a wonderful family! I play golf so infrequently these days, and I like to get my money's worth by taking a lot of swings along the way.

Farley Home Services Provides inventory documentation to frustrated golfers everywhere. Please visit FarleyHomeServices.com to see how you will benefit from the service we provide.

ROBERT ELVAUZ