by Michael Kranzler
The holiday season is fast approaching, bringing tidings of joy. But are you prepared for the risks that the holidays bring to your insureds?
The U.S. Fire Administration reports that more than twice as many open-fire flames occur on Christmas Day than the average day, and almost twice as many on New Year’s Day as well.
Even worse, property loss during a holiday fire is 34% greater than in an average fire. Many of these fires are preventable. Here are some tips on how to minimize the fire risk in your home:
1. Keep an eye on the stove! With friends and family over for holiday dinners, distractions are at an all-time high during the holidays. Make sure you have someone monitoring the kitchen at all times to avoid your meal (and your home) going up in smoke.
2. Feed your smoke detectors! Even if the smoke detector isn’t beeping at you quite yet, the holidays are a great time to put in new batteries to ensure that they are operating properly before the celebrations begin. You don’t want to be going up on a step ladder after the egg nog starts flowing.
3. Keep your cool. The holidays bring with them cooler weather, causing many people to bring out the electronic heaters. But if these aren’t properly monitored, they can cause a fire, whether from overheating or proximity to something especially flammable.
4. Light up the house safely. As tempting as it can be to have the best-decorated house on the block, be careful not to overload the electrical outlets. A house fire may be brighter than your neighbor’s holiday display, but at what cost?
At the same time, however, an insurer must be mindful of some of the red flags as to possible fraudulent claims. With fire claims, keep an eye out for losses that are conspicuously missing any items of sentimental value, or other items that you would expect to find at the property. If an insured is claiming the loss of multiple items of valuable electronics in the living room but no family heirlooms or photographs, this is a red flag that could merit additional inspection. Additionally, if a commercial property suffers a loss outside of business hours, further investigation may be necessary to determine whether the cause of the loss makes sense or could have reasonably occurred on its own.
Keep an eye out for an absence of police reports in theft or vandalism claims, and seek out any neighborhood cameras that may provide support for the insured’s claims.
The holidays are a time for all of us to take stock in our lives, but it is not a time to let your vigilance lapse. May your insureds stay loss-free and may your holidays be happy, healthy, and free of questionable insurance claims!
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