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O'Donnell Agency LLC

416 Centennial Ave
Cranford, NJ 07016

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Insurance Blog

What Home Insurance Can Offer New Jersey Homeowners

Owning a home in New Jersey is one of the greatest accomplishments you’ll achieve, so congratulations! The team at O’Donnell Agency LLC is excited to offer you a wide variety of coverage options for your home in New Jersey, and we know insurance shopping can be daunting and frustrating. We’re here to make the process easy for you so you can get back to enjoying your home and the fruits of your labor. 

There are so many reasons that home insurance is one of the best investments you can make in the largest asset you own. Buying a home is likely the biggest investment you’ve made so far in your life, and it should be treated as such.

The coverage options that home insurance can provide you with include the following:

  1. Liability protection – If someone is injured on your property, liability covers their medical expenses
  2. Structural protection – From natural disasters, theft, fire, and more 
  3. Personal belongings – Besides the structure itself, your personal belongings inside the home are protected

It may never be necessary, but in the event that you need your coverage, you will be so relieved you invested in a good plan. We can’t foresee what may happen, and we know that New Jersey weather can be unpredictable. Knowing that your home, your belongings, and your family are safe in many situations is reason enough to invest in a quality home insurance plan. 

As you navigate the waters of home insurance, know the team at O’Donnell Agency LLC is here for you. We serve the great state of New Jersey and we’d be happy to help find the policy that suits your lifestyle and eases your mind as a homeowner. Reach out to us today. 

Why should all businesses get a commercial insurance plan?

Businesses that are looking for a good place to operate should consider the state of New Jersey. This state offers a lot of opportunities for organizations in many industries. While you can have a lot of success here, there are risks to consider and try to protect against. One way this can be done is by getting insurance. There are various reasons why businesses should get this coverage. 

Comply with Agreements

A common reason that many businesses in this state will want to have a commercial insurance plan in place is so they can comply with any agreements that require coverage. Many businesses will engage in contracts with vendors, lessors, lenders, and investors. Due to the protections it provides, a lot of these contracts will require your organization to maintain proper insurance. With a commercial insurance plan, you will remain in good standing with these agreements.

Protect Business

Even if you are not obligated to carry a commercial insurance plan at all times, you may still want to have it to protect your business. Organizations today should always focus on mitigating risks. With the right insurance, you can offset the risk of liability as you will have insurance to cover costs if you are deemed liable for the losses of another party. This plan will also offer coverage to protect the core assets of your business. 

A business that operates in New Jersey would clearly benefit by having the right insurance in place. If you want to get a new insurance plan when in this area, you should call O’Donnell Agency LLC to discuss your needs. O’Donnell Agency LLC will give you customized advice based on the circumstances and requirements your business faces. This will give you comfort that you can remain in good standing and properly supported. 

Workers Compensation Myths Revealed

O’Donnell Agency LLC offers multiple types of coverage. For over 50 years, we have helped New Jersey residents find the coverage they need to navigate life’s risks. We are committed to helping our clients protect themselves, as well as their loved ones. We are confident that we can help alleviate some of your stress by giving you a safety net when an emergency arises.

Workers Compensation Myths Revealed

Many successful New Jersey businesses rely on their employees to provide excellent service. Sometimes issues may arise in the workplace that could put the entire business in jeopardy. Workers comp insurance protects employees while they are on the job. If you are injured on the job, workers comp covers your medical treatment and rehab. You are also covered in the event that you become disabled. Your employer is obligated to carry workers comp coverage. While researching the policy, pay attention to these common workers comp insurance myths.

I’m An Independent Contract So I’m Not Covered

This is incorrect. If you perform tasks for a business as an independent contractor, they are still obligated to cover you through a workers comp policy. If you are injured on the job, you can pursue legal action against the business if they don’t have the proper coverage.

I’m Not Covered Because I Was At Fault

Regardless of whether you accidentally hurt yourself or not, you are still covered through workers comp coverage. The only exception is if the incident occurred because you were drunk or had drugs in your system.

Workers Comp Insurance Isn’t Necessary For A Small Workforce

If you are a business owner with employees, you are required to carry worker’s comp insurance regardless of how many employees you have.

O’Donnell Agency LLC Will Help You Protect Your Assets

Visit our website to learn more information about workers comp insurance.  

Water Damage In Your Apartment? What You Need To Know About Filing A Renter’s Insurance Claim

If you’ve been the victim of water damage, it’s important that you work closely with your renter’s insurance company to get the money you need to replace your damaged belongings. Here, we’ll take a look at how to file a claim with your renter’s insurance company. 

Reach Out To Your Landlord

More often than not, your landlord won’t have any involvement in your renter’s insurance claim. You’ll want to talk with them, however, about the damage in your apartment to ensure that repairs are made promptly. Left untreated, water damage can result in mold growth and further damage to your belongings. 

Call Your Insurance Agent

Next, you’ll talk with your insurance agent about filing your water damage claim. They may ask for pictures of damaged items, and they’ll likely have questions about how the damage occurred. Your agent may ask that you add information to your claim online, or they may be able to work with you over the phone to complete your claim. Be sure to act promptly if your insurance agent asks you to submit additional information to complete your claim. In many scenarios, you’ll have a limited amount of time to complete your claim (usually two to three days). If you need more time to document your loss, discuss your options with your agent.

Need A Renter’s Insurance Policy? O’Donnell Agency LLC, Serving New Jersey Residents, Can Help

If you’re looking for the right renter’s insurance policy for your needs, O’Donnell Agency LLC, serving New Jersey residents, can help. Reach out today to talk with an agent about choosing a renter’s insurance policy that keeps you and your belongings protected.

What value comes with a New Jersey auto insurance plan?

If you live in the state of New Jersey, you will quickly find that there are a lot of great professional and recreational activities in the area. To ensure that you are able to enjoy them all, getting your own car is a good idea. Along with buying a car, you also need to choose a good insurance plan. There is a lot of value that comes with an auto insurance plan that makes it a good investment.

Protect Your Car

An important reason to get auto coverage for your vehicle is so you can protect your car. When you are going to buy a car, you will want to have access to it for a long time. If your car is stolen or in an accident, you may no longer be able to drive it until it is repaired or replaced. Your full insurance plan will give the support needed to ensure you are able to do this.

Liability Risk Mitigation

You also will enjoy an auto coverage plan to receive liability support. There is always a chance that you will cause an accident when driving. As you will need to cover damages, getting the right insurance for it is important. With auto coverage, you will get the liability support that you need to offset this concern and risk. 

Anyone that is in New Jersey and needs to get a car also needs to get an auto insurance plan. As you are assessing various options for coverage, speaking with O’Donnell Agency LLC can be helpful. There are many choices to make when it comes to this coverage and O’Donnell Agency LLC can help you build an ideal plan. This can help ensure you remain appropriately covered and protected moving forward. 

Commercial Insurance 101 for Small Businesses

Entrepreneurs help drive the economy in New Jersey, so we at O’Donnell Agency LLC are proud to offer you a quick primer on the benefits of commercial insurance for your new business.

What Does Commercial Insurance Do For You?

Your commercial or business insurance policy will be made up of a selection of coverage that goes beyond what a typical person needs for their personal property and dwelling policies. For just a small sample: Professional liability coverage handles damage caused by your business due to an error, workers’ compensation coverage helps cover issues like employee injuries on the job, and business income coverage provides relief during temporary shutdowns. The full list of options will vary between providers.

Working from Home Considerations

More jobs and businesses are moving to remote work for reasons like the reduction in transportation and office costs at no loss when you can just as easily make a call from New Jersey to New York from your living room. While running a business out of your home, commercial coverage related to your storefront could be covered by your homeowners’ insurance policy. Whether or not it will be covered depends on the type of business you’re running, since adding heavy equipment, changing the general use of your home, or other major alterations will factor into the risk assessment.

For a service that you operate over the phone or Internet without changing the use of your home, your homeowners’ or renters’ insurance policies should help with anything that’s a covered peril in the policy. What it might not cover are other potential risks of doing business. That’s where the versatility of insurance policy coverage becomes convenient, even if it makes the process more complicated. Since you’ll be purchasing less coverage, your insurance bill should see a decrease.

To find out the options available for your new small business, O’Donnell Agency LLC can tailor your answer for New Jersey residents.

Setting Up Your Home Insurance Before Buying a First Home

Buying your first home is going to be an exciting but challenging experience. For instance, you might not know when New Jersey law requires you to purchase insurance. At O’Donnell Agency LLC, we can help you understand these factors and make it easier to find the type of coverage you need.

Buying Your Policy 

When you’re buying a house, you need to buy your insurance before you close. Your lender and the seller will not let you close if you do not buy a policy. The different options available for you will vary based on your area and your needs. The insurance company understands this and tries to pre-approve an approach to speed it up. 

Once you get this pre-approval and Proof of Insurance from the provider, your home is almost yours. The insurance company will fax a record of your insurance to the seller and the lender, helping to set you up for closing. Once the deal is closed and money exchanged, the home insurance goes into effect. 

Policy Coverage to Consider 

When choosing coverage that meets your needs, it is essential to pay attention to various elements. Just a few things that you’ll need include:

  • Liability protection from different damage 
  • Natural disaster policies that make sense for your area 
  • High-quality coverage for fires and lightning 
  • Temporary living coverage options 

All of these policy elements help to make your insurance more in-depth and beneficial for your needs. Your agent will work with you to find the best balance between coverage and payments.

Take Control of Your Coverage 

If you’re buying a home and want the best coverage for your needs, please reach out to us at O’Donnell Agency LLC. We serve New Jersey and strive to help find the most appropriate options for your clients’ needs. Talk to us today to learn more about the policy types we provide.

What Does Workers Compensation Insurance Cover?

As a business owner in New Jersey, the moment you hire your first employee, you take on some form of risk as anything can happen to them while at work. That is why you need workers’ compensation insurance that protects you and your employees as well.  To understand more about this form of commercial insurance, O’Donnell Agency LLC explains what it covers.

Medical Expenses

Workers’ compensation insurance helps cover employees’ medical bills resulting from a work-related injury or illness. This can include a visit to the hospital, surgery, and prescribed drugs. For example, if your plumber falls and twists his ankle, workers’ compensation insurance will help pay for their visit to the emergency room.

Missed Wages

After a work-related injury or illness where your employee needs to take some time off to recover, workers’ compensation insurance can help replace that lost income. If one of your roofers slips and falls and cannot come to work for a week or two, this type of insurance will help cover those lost wages.

Ongoing Care

At times, a work-related injury or illness can be so severe that one of your workers will need ongoing care like physical therapy or follow-up treatment. Workers’ compensation can help cover the cost of continuing care.

Funeral Expenses

In extreme cases, an employee may lose their life due to a work-related accident. In such circumstances, workers’ compensation insurance helps cover the funeral costs as well as provide death benefits for the beneficiaries of the deceased.

Illnesses

There are working conditions that can expose some employees to dangerous chemicals that can cause an illness. If one of your employees gets sick and requires treatment and ongoing care, this form of commercial insurance helps cover those expenses.

It is essential that business owners in New Jersey find the right insurance company to work with. If you are shopping for commercial insurance, you can contact us at O’Donnell Agency LLC. Our agents are ready to help ensure that your business and your employees are covered if you are exposed to risks.

Renter’s Insurance: A Guide for College Apartment Renters

At O’Donnell Agency LLC, we help many New Jersey college students protect their belongings when they rent a home. However, many students may not even realize that this option is available for their needs. As a result, it is crucial to consider finding a renter’s insurance policy for your needs.

How Renter’s Insurance Helps 

When you’re renting a place during college, you may not realize that the homeowner’s insurance policy does NOT cover your belongings. That’s because it only covers the structure and any items that they own within the home. As a renter, you do not own the house – so your items are not protected. 

However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t get protection. Renter’s insurance is a simple type of policy that covers any items within a rental that the renter owns. You can find many types of policies that easily fit into a challenging budget and help keep most students safe. 

When living in a multiple-person home (such as if you live with your buddies), you should note that your policy will only cover YOUR belongings. So, you might want to talk to your roommates about what kind of rental policy will work the best for their needs. Doing so is a great way to help your friends.

Protect Your College Investments 

If you’re a college student renting an apartment or a home and you want to avoid severe complications with your financial needs, please don’t hesitate to contact us today at O’Donnell Agency LLC. We serve the New Jersey area and provide high-quality rental insurance that will easily fit into even the most demanding students’ needs. We’ll do what we can to make sure that you are delighted.

Umbrella Insurance Essentials

Many people in New Jersey are completely unfamiliar with Umbrella Insurance and what it is for. The professionals at O’Donnell Agency LLC are well versed in Umbrella Insurance and why it is important for New Jersey residents to carry this coverage.

Umbrella Insurance is also referred to as personal liability insurance. The most basic definition is that this is a type of personal liability insurance designed to cover claims that exceed what your regular insurance policies cover.  It serves as an additional layer of protection to protect your assets in the event of an incident or lawsuit. Umbrella insurance covers situations that don’t involve your property or your vehicle, which means it is incredibly useful for scenarios that are outside of normal insurance claims.

Umbrella insurance is not the same as excess liability coverage. It covers not only items that you are already insured for, but a wide range of contingencies that a typical insurance policy will not cover. Umbrella insurance covers you and your co-insured against items such as:

  • Lawsuits involving injury to others (such as your dog biting your neighbor)
  • Damage to other people’s property
  • Slander or defamation lawsuits
  • Landlord liability

It’s also important to note what Umbrella Insurance does not cover. Examples of non-covered instances are:

  • Damage to your personal property (this is what your homeowner’s insurance is for)
  • Damage that you or a member of your household caused maliciously or on purpose – for example, spray painting someone else’s home or car or tripping someone and causing them to fall and be injured
  • Liabilities occurring during the course of business or professional activities (those would fall under business insurance)

The team at O’Donnell Agency LLC wants to help make sure you are properly protected and are waiting to answer all of your questions about Umbrella Insurance!

Servicing States

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Why Work With Us?

  • Locally owned and operated
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  • Print out your auto ID cards from home, anytime!