Insurance in New York is very important to protect your family. But more important than the financial reimbursement that NY insurance provides in the event of an accident is preventing that accident through risk management.
Risk Management is defined on Wikepedia as:
“the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability and/or impact of unfortunate events.”
People often think of risk management and NY insurance as corporate terminology (which is what all that non-sense you just read sounded like). Big businesses have entire risk management and insurance departments that spend all day coming up with ways to prevent bad things from happening. What is overlooked by many American families is Personal Risk Management.
What is Risk Management?
In layman’s terms risk management is putting you and/or your family in situations where bad things are the least likely to happen. You can’t, without a doubt prevent that “Worst Day” from happening, but you can do things to limit your exposure to tragedy.
When I talk to people about personal risk management 8 out of 10 responses are “Isn’t that what I buy NY insurance for?” NO! NY insurance is NOT risk management.
NY Insurance is “Oh No! What do I do now?”
Risk Management is “I’m really glad that never happened.”
Do you see the difference?
What Are 3 Ways to Protect Your Family?
- Purchase the safest car possible – Take the time to look over the Insurance Information Institute Auto Crash Test Results and find a car that is going to help protect your family if tragedy strikes. Don’t buy a car because you think it makes you look successful, buy a car so that your family survives a side impact collision.
- Make sure every set of stairs in your house has handrails – This may seem like a no-brainer, but I write a lot of homeowners insurance and take pictures of a lot houses and there are a lot of stairs out there with no handrails. If you don’t think this is a big deal check out this study done on Stair Safety. Absence of handrails account for the largest percentage of falls on stairs resulting in injury.
- Never let anyone borrow your car – I don’t care if it’s your best friend, your neighbor of 25 years, or the little old lady down the street, don’t let anyone borrow your car. You don’t know what their doing with it and you are 100 percent responsible for everything they do in it. This is especially true of the youth driver’s in your household. I’m not a parent so I don’t know how to do this but somehow put the Fear of God in them about letting people borrow their car.
These are just three of many, many personal risk management techniques you should be using. Despite having insurance to back you up, not having the bad thing happen in the first is much more desirable…
If you have questions about risk management please call us at (518) 456-6688 or click here to email us.
Image courtesy of Chanpipat / FreeDigitalPhotos.net