What You Can Do
There are steps you can take to help reduce the chance of your property being damaged by water.

You can:
• keep floor drains clear of obstruction;
• arrange to have someone check your property if you are going to be away from home for more than three days;
• ensure that there is proper grading around your home;
• install a sump pump;
• install backflow valves or plugs for drains, toilets and other sewer connections to prevent water from entering the home;
• store important documents and irreplaceable personal objects (such as photographs) where they will not get damaged;
• if you will be away from home during the winter for more than 3 days, drain the plumbing or arrange to have someone come in daily and check your home to ensure that your heat is still on.
• elevate furnaces, hot water heaters and electrical panels in the basement on masonry or relocate these objects; and
• avoid finishing areas like basements that may be prone to flooding.


After you find water…

Take steps immediately to protect your property from further damage. Board up holes or shut off water supplies to ensure your belongings are not damaged more than they have been. Move items out of wet basements and away from flooded parts of your home. Save receipts for materials you use. Your insurance company will cover any reasonable costs associated with protecting your property if the loss is covered by the policy.

Call us!
Let a Cooke Insurance Broker know what has happened as soon as possible. Your broker will begin to work with you to ensure the damage is assessed, your insurance company is notified and you are compensated as quickly as possible if the loss is covered by the policy.

The weather and snow events during the winter of 2011, has resulted in a heavy accumulation of snow and Ice around and on our home.  These conditions along with the approaching milder temperatures are cause for concern with water claims. These conditions can lead to Ice Damming as well as basement flooding. In an effort to avoid property loss we want to provide the following tips to limit or avoid loss.

Ice Damming is created when ice builds up on the eaves trough of the home blocking the normal flow of water off the roof  from melting snow and ice. Excess snow and Ice should be removed from the roof. For tips on how to remove snow and ice click here.

The accumulation of snow on the roof and around the foundation also poses a risk of basement flooding when milder temperatures arrive. The following are tips to limit or avoid such loss.

>Remove excess snow and ice from the roof.

>Remove snow accumulation from around the foundation by a least 6 feet ensuring water runs way from the foundation.

>Ensure all eaves troughs and down spouts are clear of any obstructions (ie: ice and debris).

> Ensure down spouts are extended at least 10 feet from the base of home.

> Ensure all sump pumps are properly installed and tested

Hurricane season is upon us and we can expect some effects as they come up the coast. Should any come our way it is important that you be prepared. The National Hurricane Centre provides the most up-to-date information about hurricanes as well as information on what you should do to prepare. We have claims specialists on call to assist you with any emergency claims, please call us at 1-800-566-5666 if you have a claims emergency. We hope you stay safe and dry!

On a sloped roof, your goal is to make drainage paths through the ice on the lower edge of the roof. That’s where most ice dam and water back-up problems occur. Always shovel off loose snow to expose the ice.

If you have power and electric heating cables, making drainage paths is fairly easy. Attach loops of electrical roof de-icing cables to one or more long boards. With ropes tied to the board and thrown over the roof, pull the board up beyond the ice dam, letting the electrical loops hang slightly off the edge of the roof 

If you want drainage paths higher on the roof, use bundled loops of electrical de-icing cables. They can be drawn high on the roof. Make sure that they hang off the edge of the roof so you get complete water drainage

Lemur Vehicle Monitors, a Newfoundland-based engineering firm, has launched a tool that helps parents to monitor erratic and dangerous driving by their teens.
Lemur Vehicle Monitors launched ˜SafeDriver", a device that records the top speed, distance travelled and the number of hard brakes per trip.
A recent Aviva Canada study found that new/young drivers have a 41% higher claims frequency than experienced drivers, and a 44% higher claim severity than experienced drivers.
The device comes in two pieces, a sensor and a key fob. The sensor, essentially a little black box, plugs into a vehicle's diagnostic port - this is usually found underneath the steering wheel and is the same port a mechanic uses to read a ˜check engine light." So the sensor talks to the vehicle's computer to get the information it needs and wirelessly transmits the data to the key fob," said Greg Browne, a product development engineer at Lemur Vehicle Monitors.
The fob is PIN-protected to discourage tampering. Should the young driver try to unsuccessfully crack the PIN, remove the battery or unplug the sensor, the fob display will read ˜Tamper,' Browne explains.
The device costs $69.95 and can be purchased from http://www.lemurmonitors.com/.

A smoke detector is important to warn you that there is a fire. You should have a smoke detector on every level of your home. Test your detectors every month and change the battery twice a year. To test your detector, there is a small test button on the detector that is usually coloured. Push the button and hold for several seconds until you hear the alarm sound. If after 15-20 second there is no sound, change the battery and repeat.

According to recent polling, only 45% of New Brunwickers know that auto insurance can pay more than $2,500 for a minor injury.

Contrary to misconceptions, New Brunswickers continue to enjoy generous auto accident benefits (up to $50,000 in medical and rehabilitation payments), and they retain the right to sue at-fault drivers for (uncapped) pain and suffering damages for permanent or long-term injuries.

The minor injury cap applies only to one part of the court awards and only when injuries are minor.  In other words, the cap applies only when an individual, suffering minor injuries, sues the at fault driver for pain and suffering damages.

The cap in no way represents the sum total that injured victims suffering minor injuries receive to heal from their injuries.

To be clear, the cap DOES NOT apply to:

• the compensation victims receive from their own insurer (regardless of who caused the collision) to heal from their injuries, including lost wages.
• court awards for medical and/or other economic losses that victims may recover in court when suing an at-fault driver - even if the injury is classified as minor.
• the pain and suffering awards victims with permanent or long-term injuries may recover from the at-fault driver.

You may start to hear some rumblings of your credit score affecting your Property Insurance premiums. It is new to us too and we know our clients will have many questions. We want to take this opportunity to advise you the best that we can and if we can not answer your questions, we hope to be able to point you in the right direction.

What are we talking about?

Many of you may not be aware that Credit Scoring is increasingly being used as one of the factors in determining the premiums for property policies, more specifically homeowner’s policies. Property claims have risen significantly over the past few years with many companies paying out more in claims than they collect in premiums. When this happens we start to see rising premiums and actions taken by Insurance Companies to improve the frequency and severity of claims. One of the strategies is using your Credit score as one of many factors in determining your premiums.  This has proven to be a very effective in determining the probability of claims within a larger Group. It is found, on the whole, those with better credit scores tend to have less claims then those groups with less favourable credit scores; however the reasons for this are not clear.

The term Credit scoring maybe unfamiliar to you as it was to many of us. We want to share with you a couple of informative websites on what Credit Scoring is and factors that influence it. There are two Reporting Agencies operating in Atlantic Canada, they are as below:

  -  Equifax Canada www.equifax.ca
  -  TransUnion Canada www.transunion.ca