Very often we receive phone calls from people after they have started making changes to their property or after they have owned something new for a number of months.
For example: renovation project is well under way, purchase of a new yard tractor, addition of attached garage, built a storage building, purchase of a new laptop computer , call to buy insurance on their new home under construction after the walls are already up.
People do not call to add the new item right away for numerous reasons: nothing will happen, busy, wanted to wait until they are done making changes so they only have to call us once, wanted to wait in order to save money (never admitted to), no point in insuring until there is something of greater value to lose (“pain threshold” is different for each individual), their bank did not ask about it until now.
Examples of things going wrong: wind blows down the walls of the new building, computer stolen, new tractor catches fire, property stolen not yet installed.
Common questions at point of claim: Do I have a grace period to add this? Is it covered somehow? My previous tractor is covered on the policy, can this new one automatically be covered?
What can we learn from this? Make the phone call before the purchase or right at the point of change. We can discuss the options and once you have all the facts you can then make the best decision for your situation.
Be sure to seek advice and purchase insurance from those who understand your business!