Giving small local authorities a chance to access the Green Deal Home Improvment Fund

Lets look out for each other - Road Safety Week

From the child walking to school, to the commuter cycling or driving to work, the motorcyclist, and the lorry driver delivering goods to our stores, we are all rely on roads to get from A to B. Roads must be safe for all of us.

But although the UK has some of the safest roads in the world, five people still lose their lives from collisions every day. Not only is each of these a personal tragedy

Come & join the debate on ‘Grassroots football: a matter of life & death'

Accrington Stanley BB5 5BX 7pm-9pm

Details https://www.parliamentweek.org/event/grassroots-football-a-matter-of-life-and-death/

Grassroots Football: a matter of life and death?

GRASSROOTS FOOTBALL: A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH?
Fresh from yet another underwhelming performance of the English national team at a World Cup Finals (as the other home nations struggle to qualify for any sort of

Tackling the scandal of cold homes

I am incredibly proud that Labour has pledged to end the scandal of cold homes – an issue which I have campaigned on consistently since being elected. The pledge to make at least five million homes more energy efficiency, follows our commitment to freeze energy prices up to 2017 while reforming the energy market.   Energy bills have increased by a staggering £300 in the past four years.

Insurance Things to Consider on Rental Properties

Over the last few years many homeowners have turned into landlords.  With the real estate market drop, those that decided to purchase a new house also decided to not sell their prior home for fear of a financial loss on the property.  Instead, they have turned their prior house into a rental.  The trend still continues today even after the real estate market has rebounded some because landlords are seeing great cash flows from renting.  

Here at Fey Insurance Services we insure a number of these properties and on occasion we are asked by clients if we have any insurance tips in renting a property.  When asked we always mention these five things:

1.  Temperature Requirement in the Lease:  It is a good idea to include a clause in your lease that requires the tenant to keep the heat no colder than 59 degrees.  This is important because around the Holidays many tenants will travel and if they want to try and save a buck they may turn off the heat.  Pipes do not enjoy this especially with a polar vortex threatening again this year.  This way, if they do turn the heat off and pipes break you can pass that damage on to the tenant.

2.  Renters Insurance for Tenants:  Since you may have passed on the risk of pipe freezing damage to your tenant you then want to make sure they have insurance in place to pay for such damages.  Requiring tenants to have renters insurance is a good idea.  Not only does it protect their contents (which is excluded under your policy), it protects your property if they are negligent in causing damage to your property.  I would recommend they have liability limits at least the value of your property.

3.  Dogs:  Know your states laws on dog attacks.  For example, in Kentucky there was a law recently passed that could drag landlords into dog attack claims.  This may make it difficult to get insurance for a property that has a dog.  If you are going to allow dogs to live on your premises it is best to limit which kinds as some insurance policies exclude coverage for "vicious dogs".

4.  Loss of Rents Coverage.  Make sure your rental property insurance policy includes coverage for loss of rents.  If you sign a year's lease with someone and then have a fire a month later, you are going to be out 11 months of rent or at least however many months it takes to rebuild the house.  You can recoup this loss with loss of rent coverage.  Also, make sure that you have enough loss of rent coverage.  Many polices give  you 10% of your dwelling limit or give you a flat $25,000.  Add up your annual rents and make sure you have enough coverage.

5.  Certificates of Insurance from Contractors:  Unless you yourself are handy, you may be employing contractors to do fixes around your rental property.  We strongly recommend you ask these contractors for proof that they have insurance.  If they were ever to cause damage to your tenants contents or to your tenants person, you would want to make sure they have insurance to cover such things.

LET’S BUILD A NEW BRITAIN THAT WORKS FOR EVERYDAY WORKING PEOPLE

We’ve had almost five years of the Tories’ so-called economic plan, and it’s failed working people with a recovery that just works for a privileged few. There are thousands of people in Haslingden and Hyndburn who are struggling to stay afloat and who feel the economic recovery has passed them by. They simply can’t afford another five years of Tory failure.

That’s why we in Labour have set out

LABOUR WILL HELP BRITIAN’S LOWEST PAID BY RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE

The introduction of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) in 1999 was a great achievement of the last Labour Government.

This policy ended the exploitation of millions of Britain’s workers and increased productivity without job losses. But the challenge we faced 15 years ago is different to the one we face today and the one we will face in the coming years.

That’s why Ed Miliband has today announced

Supporting the British Hearth Foundations Nation of Lifesavers 'Call Push Rescue' training event

Supporting the ‘Nation of Lifesavers’ campaign to save 5,000 lives

 

~ Calls for secondary schools to register for free innovative CPR training kit ~


Last week I met Susannah Kerr and her team from the British Heart Foundation. The BHF are urging people to join the campaign to dramatically increase the number of people trained in life-saving CPR and help create a Nation of Lifesavers.

Time to end the “game of chance” bus service for blind people

Getting off at the right bus stop is like "playing a game of chance", says guide dog owner Linda, about her experiences navigating the bus network without sight.


I got a chance to experience for myself why people with sight loss need audio-visual announcements (AV) on buses, through playing a memory game, at the Labour Party conference this week.


AV is essential for people with sight loss