Disaster Preparedness- Keep your property safe!

Name: Alta Vista Insurance Agency
Address: 2585 Pio Pico Dr Suite 100, Carlsbad, CA, 92008
Telephone: 888-724-2124

Posted on April 13, 2018January 12, 2021 by admin

Many people in America don’t consider the occurrence of a disasters happening in their life. Then, when disaster strikes, we are left flabbergasted by the damage done to our property. Here are three tips to help secure your property before disaster strikes:

1. Calculate the value of your belongings! Most people don’t think to add up the cost of all of their clothing and other minor things, but every little bit counts!

2. Note your electronics serial numbers! Televisions, gaming consoles and tablets, amoung other things, are a major target for burglaries today. One in every 36 homes in amaerica will be broken into this year. Record your electronics serial numbers. This way, if they are stolen, the police will be able to find your stolen property.

3. Secure your documents outside the home! Today, digital filing is the way many insurers prefer to store their documents. These files are just as vulnerable as any analog files kept in a home or office. In case of a natural disaster, secure your valuable documents on a flash drive or another storage device like a security deposit box.

4. Photograph all of your belongings! The truth is, we don’t know every little thing that is in our closet, and it is hard to always keep filing the price and brand of shirt or a new piece of jewelry.Along with filing your documents, keep a file on your flash drive and on your computer with pictures of the brand and price tag of each item. This will provide an accurate amount to keep on record in case of disaster.

Do You Hear What I Hear…. The FIRE ALARM!

Posted on April 13, 2018January 12, 2021 by admin

Christmas trees are one of the most iconic staples of the holiday season. As beautiful and festive as they are, they also bring a major safety hazard to your home; fires. To ensure your home stays safe this holiday season, here are some preventative steps to help keep your home safe this season.

1. Picking your tree.

Make sure your tree isn’t dried out!! When selecting your trees make sure the needles are green and not easy to remove when pulled. This will indicate your tree is well watered and not drying out. Also, before selecting your tree, bounce it on the ground. If an overabundance of needles fall to the ground, the tree is drying out, which could cause a fire if placed in your home.

2. Caring for your tree

Don’t leave your tree up for longer than two weeks. After being chopped down, the tree immediately starts to dry out. The longer you leave it up, the more risk there is for a fire to be started. NEVER place your tree near a fireplace, a heating vent, or another heating source. The heat caused by these sources could cause the tree to catch fire. Remember to keep your tree watered AT ALL TIMES!

3. Disposing of your tree

Never use your Christmas trees as firewood!! Pine trees burn like tinder, and ignite in a flash creating HUGE sparks. Just a few embers and a fire is started. Instead, take your tree to a recycling center or hauled away by a pick up service. 240 house fires are caused by Christmas trees each year. These fires could cause injuries and even death. It also causes an estimated $16.7 million in direct property damage. Make sure you have fire insurance and are taking all the necessary precautions to keep your home safe this holiday season.

What 4 Things are INCREASING your Homeowners Insurance?

Posted on April 13, 2018January 12, 2021 by admin

To ensure you keep your insurance costs down, and your home safe, here are four things you should stay away from:

Keep your house looking PRISTINE! Keeping up your maintenance will keep your homeowners insurance down! If your house isn’t maintenance, your insurance could increase rapidly or even be CANCELLED!
It’s all about location! Fires are a hazard especially in California. Your insurance rates could increase if you are too far away from a fire station or a fire hydrant. If you aren’t locate near one of those, make sure you are close to a reliable water source incase of an emergency.
It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. You may not know it, but SWIMMING POOLS and TRAMPOLINES increase your insurance rates! Over 90.000 hospital visits are reported annually because of trampolines. What most homeowners don’t realize is that a trampoline can cause serious spinal and brain damage. Swimming pools claim over 1000 lives a year! So, before you invest in these items, be sure to think twice!
A man’s best friend could easily turn in to mans biggest foe. Although soft and cuddly, not all dogs are good to own. Dogs such as Dobermans, Great Danes. German shepherds, Siberian huskies and other so called “dangerous and violent breeds” could make you insurance skyrocket. Be sure to buy a dog that is friendly to every part of the household!

California Home Insurance

Posted on April 12, 2018January 12, 2021 by admin

Alta Vista Insurance – Your source for California home insurance.

At Alta Vista Insurance, we believe you should be able to create a customized policy for home insurance. California home insurance is a specialty of our knowledgeable agents.

If you own your home, you may not be required to hold home insurance but if you have a mortgage, your lending institution will most likely require home insurance. California home insurance policies include many options, so Alta Vista Insurance is committed to easing the selection process for you.

A basic California home insurance policy will cover the following:

The structure of your home
Replacement costs
Personal possessions (up to a set limit)
Living expenses in case of a disaster
Liability

You can purchase supplemental homeowners insurance including:

Valuable Articles/Floater policies (i.e. Jewelry Insurance)
Flood policies
Earthquake policies
Umbrella policies (additional liability)
Animal Liability (liability issues due to household pets)

At Alta Vista Insurance, we understand that choosing the most suitable California home insurancecan be overwhelming. Don’t stress out -our friendly agents are always on call to advise you.

Give us a call with any questions you have regarding California home insurance.

What’s Under the Umbrella?

Posted on April 6, 2018January 12, 2021 by Seth Arruda

What’s Under the Umbrella? ☂

Of course, you don’t need to insure your umbrella.

But umbrella insurance will provide another protective layer over your personal assets. Not only that, it may even cover some things that car and homeowners insurance policies don’t protect you against. If you’ve got a lot to lose, this kind of coverage may be the most affordable way to protect yourself.

1. Extra Liability Insurance
  Liability limits on typical home and auto policies are fairly modest when compared to the value of new homes and cars. Clients can purchase umbrella insurance in increments for the right amount of extra protection at the right price.

1. Legal Defense
  You have a legal right to defend yourself against claims of injury or loss, but lawyers are expensive. Not only will umbrella insurance help you pay claims, it can help pay for legal defense.

Extra Coverage
Some umbrella insurance policies can get modified to cover more unusual risks that are not typically mentioned in an ordinary policy like personal injury or wrongful eviction.

What You Need to Know

When considering an umbrella, it’s important to understand how much coverage you currently have. In order to qualify for an umbrella policy, your auto insurance liability limits need to be a minimum of $250,000 per individual/$500,000 per occurrence. If you own or rent a property, your premises liability needs to be $500,000.

Investment properties, watercrafts, recreational vehicles and even a structure like a pool are all additional exposures If you have assets like these you should consider purchasing a personal liability umbrella.

Your house, retirement fund, and other assets could be vulnerable to a liability claim.

Get a Quote!

Vista California San Diego Auto Insurance

Posted on September 4, 2017January 12, 2021 by admin

Get the most out of your California auto insurance policy with Alta Vista Insurance.

State laws require all drivers to obtain automobile insurance before registering their vehicle. In California, auto insurance laws are no different. This makes auto insurance one of the most commonly sought lines of insurance.

At Alta Vista Insurance, we understand that you may not want to spend a great deal of time purchasing a California auto insurance policy. You can get the ball rolling quick and easy by filling out the free quote form on this page. You also have the option of speaking with one of our knowledgeable agents for a more personalized experience.

We offer the following California car insurance options:

Bodily Injury Liability – covers injuries to others caused by the policyholder while operating an automobile.
Medical or Personal Injury Protection – covers treatment of the driver and passengers of the policyholder’s car in the event of an accident.
Property Damage Liability – covers damages caused to someone else’s property by the policyholder while operating an automobile.
Collision – insures the policyholder from loss during a collision with another vehicle or object.
Comprehensive – protection for the policyholder’s car from damage and loss resulting from incidents other than collision.
Uninsured Motorist Coverage – covers medical treatment of the policyholder’s injuries in the event of a collision with an uninsured driver.

Other coverage can be added for specific vehicle needs like: antique automobiles, classic cars, high performance cars, and more.

Alta Vista Insurance wants to help you find a cost-effective, comprehensive California auto insurance policy. As an independent insurance broker, we can browse our list of insurance partners to determine a plan that best fits your lifestyle – this is a perk the chain insurance companies cannot offer you. When you work with Alta Vista Insurance, you are a click away from low cost California car insurance.

Call our office today to find out how you can save on your California auto insurance policy.

Personal Insurance Solutions

Posted on September 3, 2017January 12, 2021 by Seth Arruda

At this point of the process, we are ready to look at different insurance solutions that best meet your needs. Some insurance agents only work with one insurance company. They only have of one insurance product to offer you. The problem with that strategy is that if the only tool you have is a hammer, then all the problems you face look like nails.

Home

The cornerstone of home’s protection is a homeowners policy. Homeowners insurance policies typically cover fire. In California the standard homeowners insurance also covers wind and burst pipes. However, most homeowners insurance policies don’t offer protection for external flood, earthquake, landslide or water seepage. When insuring your property, it is very important to have a comprehensive needs based analysis conversation.

Auto

The typical car insurance policy covers your liability, which protects you from lawsuites. Personal injury insures you if someone else is injured by your vehicle. Property Damage protects other vehicles and others property if you cause damage with your vehicle. Comprehensive protects your vehicle from damage other than collision, for example theft and vandalism. Collision protects your auto if it is damaged in an accident.

Health

The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, has made a lot of changes to the health insurance landscape. Covered California is the new marketplace for people living in California, looking for coverage through Healthcare.gov. We are authorized certified insurance agents with Covered California. Whether you are looking for individual insurance, or you want to protect your entire family, we can craft a health insurance solution for todays environment that protects your household. For our clients over age 65 we also offer Medi-gap medicare supplement plans, and medicare advantage plans.

Life

Assessing the need for life insurance can be challenging. Do you need life insurance? Should you buy term or permanant insurance? Do you need to only have life insurance for a specific peroid of time, or do you have a need for life insurance for your entire life?

Carriers

We work with dozens of insurance companies because we are always looking for the best deal for you, our clients. We try to be more diverse in our product offering. By being independent, and not beholden to any one insurance company, we are able to make the best recommendation to you based on what best fits your needs, not the insurance company.

California Wildfires and Your Insurance Policy

Posted on May 19, 2014January 12, 2021 by Seth Arruda

California Wildfires and Your Insurance Policy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYt4MkBuOWo

Keith Brentlinger

Alta Vista Insurance Agency
1020 South Santa Fe Avenue
Vista, CA 92084

Toll Free: 1-888-724-2124

With the recent wildfires on North San Diego County, it is a great idea to educate yourself about your current insurance policies to make sure you are properly covered in the event of losing your assets. Any questions, please feel free to give us a call 888-724-2124.

If you need to report a claim, please visit our claims page for additional information https://altavistainsurance.com/claims/

Keith Brentlinger from Alta Vista Insurance wants all the victims of the San Diego Wild Fires to know that you are in our thoughts and prayers. If there is anything at all that we can do to help navigate your claim at this time, don’t hesitate to contact us at our office. 1-888-724-2124

During this time we have received several calls from our policy holders that they have been contacted directly by their insurance carriers to see if they were okay and if they needed to file a claim.

Our insureds were quite impressed, and so were we that our industry is taking proactive steps in this time of need to help our community.

During our conversations with some of our clients a common question is, “What would happen if my house were to burn to the ground, and every thing is gone? How is that claim going to be settled? What will the claims adjustor need?”

A claims adjustor will need an inventory and some sort of documentation of what you had. One of the easiest ways to have a document of what that includes is to have a video tape inventory of your home.

So when video tape inventorying your home, we suggest that you capture all of your posessions so that when you go through. For example, when you go through your kitchen open up all your cabnets so you can see all your pots and pans. When you’re in your bedroom, open up your dresser drawers. Video tape your closets. If you have a storage shed, or garage, don’t forget to video tape in there. Pretty much, your whole house needs to be recorded.

Another advantage of doing this is it is going to show the materials and finishes within your home. So it is going to verify if you had granite counter tops, the type of cabinetry you had, flooring, bathroom fixtures, etc. All that is very important.

So that leads to another thing, you want to be sure your policy has enough coverage to actually rebuild your home and replace your contents if it was a total loss. What happens sometimes is that people have done major renovations to their homes, or done room additions, and they haven’t let us know, or the insurance carrier, and there is a very good chance there wouldn’t be enough coverage.

We invite you to please contact our office. We’d be glad to review your current home owners insurance, renter’s policy, condominimum policy, mobile home policy, and make sure you have proper coverages.

Or if you don’t have any of those policies, we’d be glad to give you a free no obligation quote on that.

Something else to remember is there is no end to our fire season with the current drought, so what we recommend is that you do this now than trying to do this when you get an evacuation notice from the sherrif’s office or fire department. Because then it is going to be too late.

Again, our thoughts and prayers are with the families in this current situation. And if you need more information please visit our website: AltaVistaInsurance.com/claims

Thank you,
Keith Brentlinger