Here are a few tips to help you protect your home while you're away. 

Step 1: Find Someone To Check In

The first and most important thing is to have someone you know and trust check your home regularly. Start looking for this person as soon as your travel is scheduled. This isn’t something to scramble for at the last minute.

Make sure the home is checked at least once every few days. If the person can stay in your house, even better!

Have your mail/newspapers collected (a neighbor can do this too if your check in person can’t make it every day)

Arrange checks for leaks or other maintenance issues.

Bring a gift for the caretaker! Checking in on a property is a lot of work; they will appreciate the thanks.

Step 2: Travel-Proof Your Home

Go down this list before you leave.

• Connect a few lights to a timer and set them to go on every day after dark. This will keep your house from being totally dark – a sure giveaway that no one is home.
• Don’t close all your blinds and shutters, unless this is something you normally do. 
• Don't post your out of town status on social media.
• As you’re walking out of the house, follow these steps to cover your last-minute safety needs.
• Don't turn the heat down below 55 degrees. Never turn the heat completely off during the winter; if the temperature drops, you risk frozen pipes.
• Lock the house. That includes pet doors, garage doors, and windows that might normally be left open.
• Throw away any perishables if you’re going to be gone more than 3 days or so. You don’t want to come home to a rotting mess in the fridge!

WHAT IS AN UMBRELLA POLICY?

Your home, auto, farm or business policies cover you for certain risks and specific limits. But sometimes you might need more coverage than these policies can provide. An Umbrella policy is designed to protect you against a catastrophic lawsuit or judgment. It provides an additional layer of coverage over and above the liability coverage found in your home, auto, farm, or business liability policies.

WHY DO I NEED AN UMBRELLA POLICY?

An Umbrella policy can help to protect you from a potential financial catastrophe. In today’s litigious society, it’s not uncommon to hear about very large jury awards. An Umbrella policy can help to protect the assets that you’ve worked hard for and accumulated over the years. Review the liability limits listed in your home, auto, farm, or business policies – if a large judgment was awarded against you, how would you pay it?

WHAT DOES AN UMBRELLA LIABILITY POLICY COVER?

An Umbrella liability policy covers you and your family or your business for most bodily injury, property damage and personal injury losses. Defense coverage is available for defending claims and suits if coverage applies. Defense costs are paid in addition to the policy limit. Limits of $1 million, or more, are available if you qualify. No matter where you travel, your Umbrella liability policy is with you. It covers you anywhere in the world. We offer Personal, Farm, and Commercial Umbrella Liability policies. Talk with your agent to learn more about Goodville Mutual’s Umbrella liability policy options. We developed these questions and answers to help you think about how an Umbrella policy might be valuable to you. We recommend that you seek professional advice from your attorney or accountant as it applies to your specific legal and financial needs.

Each year, construction related accidents in this country result in approximately 150,000 injuries and more than 1,000 deaths. If your employee has been injured in a work-related accident you may have many questions about how a Workers Compensation Claim is handled, how rates are determined, and how payments are calculated. If our agency has placed your Workers Compensation Coverage, we have WC Specialist to guide you through that process, but the best Workers Compensation Claims advice is prevention. The employer, employee, and insurance company are all in agreement that preventing the claim is in everyone's interest. 

We ask that you please review this resource to learn about common reasons injuries occur, construction site rules and regulations, suggested dress code and safety equipment, common areas/incidences of risk, and a safety checklist.

This year and every year, we wish you and your work family a safe, healthy, and prosperous year.

Each person has a unique reason for getting life insurance, but those reasons can be distilled into one: They love someone and want to make sure they are protected financially. Let us help you ensure that a promise made is a promise kept with life insurance.

Here's to appreciating all the little things we do and those everyday moments that shape our lives and give it meaning. In fact, our days are often filled with simple acts of love, one followed by another, that over time create a better future.

Getting life insurance is like that too. It's a simple act you can take today to ensure your loved ones are protected financially tomorrow. 

It's time to protect those everyday moments with life insurance.

Take a few moments now to see how we can help you protect those you love.

Day 1

Here are three tactics that can help with ice dams: 

• Blow in cold air. If the leak is clearly ice dam related, get into the attic and place a box fan under the leaking area. This can help cool the area down, re-freezing the water and stopping the leak.
• Use a roof rake (carefully!) A long handled roof rake, used from the ground while standing safely out of the way of any falling snow, can pull snow off the roof and remove the hazard.
• Targeted ice melting. Another option is to deliver a targeted dose of ice melt right at the location of the ice dam (and the leak). Fill a semi-porous material (pantyhose work nicely) with ice melt (not salt) and place it perpendicular to the ice dam, crossing over it and overhanging the gutter. This ice melt will eventually melt the ice, giving the trapped water a way to run off.

• Have mail/newspapers collected daily - have a person, neighbor, friend, or family member do this daily.
• Arrange daily checks for leaks or other maintenance issues. Spotting any issues early – and within a certain window of time from their start – will be a great help.
• Ensure that the check-ins are documented. The best way to do that is to use a cellphone camera to take photos or videos of the property. It’s important to document visits even if everything looks normal. If something breaks tomorrow, it can be vital to show it wasn’t broken today.

A week or so before leaving:

• Connect a few lights to a timer and set them to go on every day after dark. This will keep the property from being totally dark – a sure giveaway that no one is home.
• Don’t close blinds and shutters or install new perimeter lighting. Changes like these make it obvious that a property will soon be unattended, which can make it a target.

Right before leaving:

• Turn the heat down to no lower than 55 degrees. Don’t turn it completely off during the winter; as the temperature drops, the risk of frozen pipes goes up dramatically.
• Lock the house. That includes pet doors, garage doors, and windows that might normally be left open.
• Throw away any perishables if the trip is planned to last more than 3 days or so. It’s no fun to come back to a rotting mess in the fridge!

• When the storm arrives, stay put if possible. The best way to keep safe in a big snowstorm is to avoid exposure to the hazards entirely. Stay with supplies, sheltered inside a building, unless you find it absolutely necessary to go out.
• If planning to remove snow from the roof, be safe. Removing the weight of heavy snow from the roof can help prevent a possible roof collapse, but only if care is taken to remove that snow in a safe manner. Never step out onto a roof covered in snow; instead, use a snow removal roof rake.
• Heat the home safely. Read and understand all instructions for heaters and other sources of warmth. Make sure that no heat source is ever too close to anything flammable. Never leave a fireplace or other open flame burning unattended.

• Have the fireplace and chimney cleaned and inspected once a year. This step is important whether the fireplace sees regular use, or burns just once a year.
• Keep the area around the fireplace clean. This area needs to be free of debris, especially anything flammable. The walls and floors around the fireplace should made of (or covered with) a fire-resistant material like stone or metal.
• Keep the mesh screen closed at all times. The mesh screen helps keep embers from escaping the fireplace and causing a fire hazard. If a fireplace does not have a mesh screen, buy one and use it.

The holidays are about many different things, but for a lot of people, food is one key ingredient that makes the season special. But when it comes to cooking food - and especially some of the hearty dishes that we often see in winter - it's important to do so safely. In particular, it's key to know how to handle a grease fire if one should start.

Grease Fire Dos

• Put on oven mitts for hand protection.
• Eliminate the heat source by turning off the stove or grill.
• If possible, put out the fire with an extinguisher.
• If no extinguisher is available, cover the pan with a lid. If it’s a grill, shut the lid.
• As a last resort, cut off the fire’s oxygen supply by smothering it with baking soda or salt.

Grease Fire Don’ts

• NEVER throw water on a grease fire. It will actually splash and spread the flames, making a fire harder to control.

• NEVER use flour or sugar to smother a fire. Rather than helping put out the flames, these can actually cause a powder explosion and do even more damage

Today we're going to take a quick trip back to a topic we've already discussed: ice dams. Today we'll look at what can be done to prevent ice dams, rather than dealing with spotting and removing them after they've formed. The key to preventing them in the first place is to get temperatures even across the entire roof - rather than warmer inside and colder on the eaves. 

• Insulate the attic. Insulation keeps hot air from rising up and heating the roof.
• Ventilate appropriately. Make sure that ridge and soffit vents are placed appropriately, and make sure that baffles are installed at the eaves to keep the airflow path clear.
• Seal lights, hatches, and ductwork. All those little things in the attic give off heat! Make sure they’re appropriately weatherstripped, sealed, and insulated.