Alberta has seen its fair share of water this summer and home insurance claims are on the rise due to unfortunate water damage. Water has now surpassed fire as the number one cause of home insurance claims and 40% of all personal property insurance claims are as a result of water damage. Homeowners are getting waterlogged, so to speak.

Summer is a time for vacations, sun and fun; it's also a very popular time to go house hunting. Whether you're a first time home buyer or not, you need to factor your monthly home insurance fees into your budget. But how can you possibly predict what those fees will be?

As a small business owner you have insurance on property and business assets, but often business owners may neglect to purchase one of the most important types of insurance. Life insurance can mean the difference between bankruptcy and survival when a business owner or key person dies. Proceeds from an insurance policy can be used to train a successor for a deceased key person or to purchase a business owner’s shares in the event of his or her death. There are two important products for you as a small business owner to consider Buy-Sell Protection and Key Person Life Insurance.

BUY-SELL PROTECTION
The death of a business partner (shareholder) may result in your company being sold in order to compensate the family of the deceased partner (shareholder). The remaining partners/shareholders may not be able to fund a buy-out of the deceased’s share of the business, which may result in an unwanted outside interest gaining control of part of your  company.

A recent study indicated Commercial 

Insurance pricing in the United States increased by an average of 5% in 2012 Q1 over the same period last year, noted Tower Watson consulting.

This represented the fifth consecutive quarter that prices rose for all standard commercial lines, according to the professional services company’s Commercial Lines Insurance Pricing Survey (CLIPS).

As many South-Edmonton residents can attest to, hail can do some damage to your backyard gardens. Unfortunately Armour's Crop Insurance doesn't cover your home garden from hail damage, but we can offer some tips collected from avid gardeners across North America. So the next time the hail hits, your plants will be covered!

If you own a home, mortgage insurance is a given. (We hope!) But what kind of company have you trusted your policy with? People often choose the bank for mortgage insurance because they think it's easier and less time consuming; when in fact, it could be a costly mistake for everyone in your household. Let's take a look:

Unlike automobile Insurance you are not required to have building insurance if you own the building free and clear. By not buying insurance you are 'self-insuring' your building and and liability losses that may be associated with it.

When liquor is served organizations may be responsible for those served. Liquor liability includes serving people past the point of intoxication. Any organization, company, or individual with possession of or responsible for a premises are responsible for protecting persons on their premises from harm. Employers have a liability exposure where employees consume alcohol at functions like staff parties. Liabiity exposures also exist if security are used to monitor patrons if excessive force is used to manage intoxicated patrons.

Alberta and Agriculture are terms that are strongly linked. With crops valued at $3.7 billion and livestock at $3.5 billion and an overall $7.7 billion industry the economic importance is clear. With a growing worldwide population, an increasing demand for meat from developing countries will create a demand for Alberta agriculture products like never before. This is why it's so important to have comprehensive Farm Insurance and crop insurance. Failure to be covered properly could result in catastrophic financial and physical losses.

In recent weeks we have seen the start of the thunderstorms and hail across Alberta. Once your crop is up we all turn a wary eye to oncoming storms. Are we going to get hail, what effect could this storm have upon my crop yield.