Between picking out tile and choosing paint colours, speaking with your home insurance broker doesn't usually come up when planning renovations to your home. Sure, you don't need to update your home insurance policy every time you change the hardware on your kitchen cabinets, but there are some projects where your broker is going to be your best friend.

Early this year Aviva Insurance announced an insurance first in Canada when they launched their Overland Water Coverage (Flood Insurance) for personal property insurance. There was some speculation about what this new endorsement protects Aviva customers from and whether or not it affects any existing coverages that Aviva clients had at the time of the announcement.

In anticipation of the June 1 launch, we attended an Aviva information session this week to answer some of these questions. Here is what you need to know about how this new endorsement affects current and future Aviva Insurance customers:

Intact Insurance reported today that they have recently been informed that some customers have been fraudulently contacted by someone identifying themselves as an Intact Insurance employee looking for credit card information. The caller goes on to indicate that the account is in arrears and in order to keep it current, payment is requested right away. The caller then tries to solicit personal payment information.

Congratulations to our two big winners over the past month!

Misty Eisner of Edmonton, Alberta won a $200 Best Buy gift card in the Armour 2015 St. Paddy's Day contest. Congrats Misty and thank-you to everyone who entered. We really enjoyed reading about everyone's Lucky Charms!

5 years ago Economical Insurance announced plans to pursue demutualization and with the federal government's release of new draft regulations last Saturday it looks like that journey may be coming close to an end.

The 2015 World Insurance Report was released last week and customers are looking for better service. In a survey of 15,500 insurance customers from across the globe it was announced that less than 30% of customers are happy with the customer experience. Not surprisingly, 50% of customers rate digital and social media as an important way to communicate with their insurance broker or agent.

In a press release yesterday (February 19, 2015) Aviva Canada has announced that they will be the first insurance company in Canada to offer Overland Water Protection for residential property owners and tenants across Alberta.

A man flying his DJI Phantom drone in the DC area this week has inadvertently crashed it on the White House lawn. This has spurred President Obama to call for stricter regulations on domestic UAV's. Obama has asked for regulations to be put in place to ensure that drones "aren't dangerous and that they're not violating people's privacy."

Aviva Insurance announced today that they will be teaming up with Canada Post to provide electronic document services to insurance customers in Alberta and across Canada. The Bulletin read "we’re excited to announce that your customers will soon have the option to receive their policy documents online through ePost, providing convenience, speed of delivery and security."