Frequently Asked Questions

We offer a range of life insurance options including term life, whole life, and universal life insurance.

The amount of life insurance you need will depend on factors such as your income, debts, and family's financial needs. Our agents can help you determine the appropriate amount of coverage.

Term life insurance provides coverage for a specified term, while whole life insurance provides coverage for your entire life and includes a savings component.

If your business has employees then you are exposed for a loss related to employee practices. This isn’t just sexual harassment, it also includes unfair hiring or firing practices and unsafe work environment as well as discrimination.

But what is really scary to me is a loss from a 3rd Party that enters your business and may have nothing to do with it like the mail delivery person. You can be sued for the things that this person does to your employees and there is no coverage for that under your general liability insurance.

Just because the name General Liability sounds all-inclusive you must understand that it is NOT!

There are many exclusions on a General Liability policy just on the standard forms and then each individual insurance carrier can apply additional exclusions as they see fit.

Hired and non-owned auto liability insurance is a coverage found most often on business auto policy or the business owners policies (BOP).

The coverage provides protection for the business in the event an employee gets into an at-fault auto accident while driving their own personal vehicle or any other vehicle not owned or a rented vehicle during the course of their work duty.

Example: You send John Smith from accounting for envelops at the stationary store and he blows through a red light and causes bodily injury. If the business is sued hired and non-owned auto insurance responds.

At a 10,000 foot view general liability is slips, trips and falls meaning bodily injury and/or property damage to a 3rd party.

A woman walks into your store and slips on a puddle, breaks her hip and sues your business for the medical damage. That’s General Liability.

A business owners policy is a package of coverages designed to address the needs of a specific class of business in an easy to purchase format.

When you think of business insurance, what is the first coverage that comes to mind?

It’s most likely commercial general liability insurance. General liability insurance provides legal defense and insurance protection against things like slips, trips and falls as well as 3rd party property damage.

General liability is a very important coverage to your business, but it is only one of the many coverages that you need to properly protect your business.

Business Owner's Policy

A business owners policy, or BOP, is a package of coverages, including general liability, that have been grouped together to provide, at minimum, coverage for the basic common losses faced by a business.

Not every business has access to a business owners policy because of the unique exposures that business might have. It’s important talk to a independent insurance agent about whether or not a business owners policy is a good fit for your business.

Commercial general liability insurance is one of the most common insurance coverages purchased by businesses. Most people think that commercial general liability insurance only provides coverage for slips, trips and falls, or 3rd party property damage.

There is obviously a lot more to general liability coverage than just slips, trips and falls. An easier way of trying to understand the types of claims scenarios that would be covered is to understand what is NOT covered.

What Commercial General Liability Insurance Is NOT

General liability insurance is Not a catch all coverage. There are many liability related accident and incidents that can happen in your business that are not covered by commercial general liability insurance.

General liability insurance will Not protect against things you do on purpose.

General liability insurance does Not cover your building or property.

As an employer you have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interest of your employees as it pertains to their pensions, retirement accounts, health and benefits, etc.

If you misappropriate funds, embezzle funds, let a policy cancel or don’t make employees aware of a policy cancel, if you change benefits and don’t notify employees or any number of other acts that effect the benefits you have fiduciary responsibility over, you and/or your business can be held liable.

The reason that it takes longer to get a Business Insurance quote than an Auto Insurance quote is something as a Business Owner you should be thankful for…

…and that is with Business Insurance (in most cases) there is an actual human being reviewing your application. This can work in your favor pricing wise because a human can make pricing determinations based on your business’s specific risks and not the risks of similar businesses.

Comp (a.k.a Comprehensive or Other Than Collision) and Collision are physical damage insurance coverages on a personal or business auto insurance policy.

Collision coverage provides reimbursement for damage to your vehicle after you’ve been in a car accident in which there is no fault or you are at-fault. Comp provides reimbursement for a set of named perils that include, fire, hit an animal, falling object, car gets struck by lightning and more.

Full glass coverage is an additional physical damage coverage which can be purchased on a personal or business auto insurance policy.

However, full glass coverage often needs to be purchased in conjunction with comp coverage. Full glass coverage adds glass breakage as an additional named peril to the auto insurance policy. This means you have coverage in the event that a rock gets kicked up off the road it breaks your windshield and in most cases there is NO deductible paid by you.

Full glass coverage does not coverage mirrors on most policies.

Medical payments or med pay coverage on the auto insurance policy is a regardless of fault coverage that pays for medical or funeral expense after a car accident. 

Comprehensive physical damage coverage (also known as “comp coverage” or “other than collision coverage”) is an added coverage to your auto insurance policy that covers damage to your vehicle.

Comprehensive physical damage coverage covers a loss from risks other than a collision including but not limited to hitting a deer, fall objects, water damage, fire, lightning, wind, vandalism and can also include glass coverage.

Remember that you must add comprehensive physical damage coverage to your auto insurance policy because it is not part of a basic insurance policy.

The quick and easy answer to this is yes. You should have more insurance coverage than the state mandated minimum auto coverages.

But it all depends on your interpretation of what insurance is for. If you believe that insurance is in place to protect you for your “Worst Day” than the state minimum auto coverage is never going to protect you against that “Worst Day.”

I can’t tell you what level of insurance coverage you should have but I can tell you that the state minimum insurance coverage will not properly protect you in the event something horrible happens.

If your car is parked in your garage and there is a fire that causes damage to the car your homeowners insurance policy with NOT cover the loss to your car.

In order for your car to be covered you must carry comprehensive physical damage coverage on your auto insurance policy.

The most important thing to remember about filing an auto insurance claim is to make sure you call EMS or 911 first.

That may sound crazy but making sure a situation is safe and the proper authorities have been notified is important.

The insurance company is going to want to see a police report especially if there was another vehicle or someone else’s property involved in the accident.

As far as when you should file. Calling the next day is fine but the sooner the better. Remember you can always call your independent insurance agent (The Murray Group) to make sure the claims process is handled properly.

Bodily Injury liability insurance is coverage against You being at-fault in an auto accident in which there is bodily injury to a 3rd Party most often in another car.

Medical payments is a coverage designed to cover the medical expense of individuals within your car. Another interesting fact about medical payments… If you are under the influence of drug or alcohol your No-Fault coverage does not respond.

So the only coverage you will get to cover your own medical expense will be Medical Payments.

Physical Damage coverage on your auto insurance policy is coverage for damage done to your car.

Now if someone else is at-fault then their auto insurance will most likely pay for the damage. But when that is not the case then damage to your auto is covered under physical damage coverage.

Water back up and sump pump failure coverage is an endorsement to the homeowner insurance policy that provides coverage to property damaged by water that backs up into the home through pipes, drains, sewer, water-service, sump pump and any other type of fluid transfer system from the house.

Water backup is very common in areas where the public water systems are old such as the Albany, Schenectady, Troy Metro areas.

It is important to understand the water back up and sump pump failure coverage is an endorsement to the homeowners insurance policy.  This coverage Does Not come standard.  You have to add the coverage and in most cases pay an additional premium otherwise you do not have coverage for this type of loss.

Renter insurance is an insurance policy built to suit the needs of individuals and families who do not own the property they live in.

In many ways a renter insurance policy is similar to a homeowner insurance policy except the building coverage has been removed. However, there is still coverage for personal property and personal liability among other important coverages.

For the amount of insurance contained within a renter insurance policy the cost is very minimal not to mention with most insurance carriers you get the same multi-policy discount on your auto insurance as you do with a homeowner insurance policy.

Personal property insurance coverage is most often listed on the homeowners insurance policy as “Coverage C”. Personal property coverage is a separate limit of insurance from the building coverage on the home itself.

Personal property includes all your “stuff” including tables, chairs, clothes, dishes, electronics, jewelry, art work, etc. However, it is important to understand that certain types of personal property like electronics, jewelry, and art work have special sub-limits that limit coverage.

It is important to be aware of these sub-limits and make sure that each meets your unique need.

At the 10,000 foot view, the major difference between a landlord policy and a homeowner policy is that a landlord policy does not contain personal property coverage, (coverage for your stuff), on the standard policy. 

When you sign an application with a new homeowners insurance carrier the insurance carrier has 60 days to inspect the house and determine if they would like to continue on the policy. If you have filled out the homeowners insurance application properly this is rarely a problem.

However, within that 60 a homeowners insurance carrier can cancel your coverage if they like.

After the first 60 days they cannot cancel your policy until renewal no matter how many claims you have. But if you do have multiple claims the insurance company can cancel your coverage at renewal.