Spring cleaning in Astoria, OR is a task that not many people ever look forward to, but every spring it’s time to get rid of the dust and dirt that has built up over the winter. Cleaning is never fun, but with a few good cleaning tips the job will be quicker and easier.

Make a schedule
Making a schedule is one of the most important things you can do when faced with a large task, such as spring cleaning. A schedule will allow you to know exactly what needs to be done and when you will do it.

Involve the Entire Family
Ask everyone in the household to help. This can be a perfect opportunity for the family to spend time together. Assign each person a specific room or task and allow them to make any decisions involving tossing out items or rearranging furniture.

Clear the Clutter
Now is the perfect time to get rid of the clutter. In each room, put a box for donations and a box for trash. Start in the closets and drawers first to get rid of clothes that are no longer worn, damaged or outgrown.

Once your spring cleaning is done, keep the house clean by creating a weekly cleaning chart and assigning chores to all family members. Make it a priority to deep clean one room each week. For example, instead of only surfacing cleaning the kitchen, spend a few extra hours doing tasks that are often put off, such as cleaning out the cupboards. Doing a few extra "deep cleans" throughout the year will lessen the work for your spring cleaning.

One of the most important things you can do while spring cleaning is to make sure your home insurance policy is up to date. Contact Linda Dugan Insurance to get a home insurance policy or to review your current one.

 

There’s no doubt that you would do anything to protect your family. But have you taken the necessary precautions to ensure you are prepared for a disaster situation? Here are a few questions to ask yourself to help determine whether or not your Astoria home is ready for a catastrophe.

Have You Talked to Your Family About an Emergency Response Plan?

One of the easiest ways to ensure you are prepared for a disaster is by creating an emergency response plan with your family. Understand the best ways to get out of the house in a fire, plus talk about what to do once you are safe. Have an agreement to meet in a safe place in case you are separated during a disaster, too.

Do You Have Working Emergency Lights in Every Room?

Having a flashlight on hand is okay in minor situations. But in a major catastrophe, you will want to have a lighting tool at your disposal without having to dig through a closet or drawer. Make sure you have some sort of working emergency light in every room. Excellent options include battery-operated flashlights (and fresh batteries), matches, candles, etc.

Does Your Home Having Working Smoke Detectors and a Fire Extinguisher?

Working smoke detectors and a fire extinguisher are more than just a good idea—they could save your life during a serious incident. Regularly check detector batteries to make sure they are in working order and keep the fire extinguisher in an easily accessible spot.

Do You Have Adequate Homeowner’s Insurance Coverage?

While having proper homeowner’s insurance coverage won’t help during an incident, it can definitely make a difference when everything is said and done. At Linda Dugan Insurance, we work closely with our customers to ensure they have the right policy to suit their needs. Please contact us today for further details.

 

When Americans move from warmer, more southern locations to colder, more northern locations, they experience new stuff that happens because of the cold. Sometimes cars do not start – If the car battery is too cold, it does not even make enough of an electrical charge to create a spark in the spark plugs that is necessary to fire up the engine.

Water pipes burst – Water expands when cooled down to the temperature that forms ice. This is surprising for those that move from Florida to Oregon. When the water in the house pipes freezes, it sometimes breaks the pipes in the walls. The water stops flowing, at first, and then when the temperature warms up a bit, the house is flooded from water escaping from broken pipes in the walls.

In heavy winter snowstorm, there may be such strong snowfall that blocks the exit so it is not even possible to leave the house. Then what do you do?

A superb insurance agent like Linda Dugan Insurance helps new arrivals to Oregon, with great advice on how to deal with the colder temperatures. Home insurance is available to protect from unexpected damage, but with a little common sense advice that comes from Linda, new residents to Oregon can find ways to lessen any damage from the colder temperatures that they may not be used to experiencing.

Extra Protection is Necessary in Oregon

Please consult with Linda for insurance for RVs, snowmobiles, boats, golf carts, and any of your other insurance needs for home, life, healthcare, or property protection.

She is an expert in living a happy lifestyle in Oregon. She provides the protection her clients need, especially if they are not familiar with the specific problems that come from the cold weather and the major disasters that may come from pipes breaking.

Linda is an Independent Insurance Agent that is highly trusted for her expertise and confident in helping families avoid serious financial calamities.

Deciding on home liability coverage in Washington can be difficult. You want to make sure that you have sufficient coverage so that you don’t spend a fortune of your own money in the event someone gets injured on your property. You are the homeowner and therefore you are often held liable if someone slips and falls, burns themselves, or potentially even dies.

There is a significant amount of expenses that can be incurred. These include:

• Legal costs
• Medical bills
• Pain and suffering
• Death benefits
• Lost wages

You don’t want to be responsible for all of these expenses on your own. It is easier to have them encompassed within home liability coverage, which is part of your homeowner’s insurance policy. When you purchase your homeowner’s policy, you can determine what level of coverage you have in place for home liability. This is going to involve working with an independent insurance agent who can guide you through all of the options.

You can choose to add various scenarios where home liability coverage will take care of the incident. This can include basic negligence as well as if someone were to leave your property inebriated and get into an accident.

As the homeowner, you can be held responsible for all sorts of incidents and the financial repercussions can be astounding. You can increase the limits as high as you want to minimize the chance of having to pay out-of-pocket. You can also choose to add a personal umbrella policy as optional coverage, providing additional liability protection.

At Linda Dugan Insurance, we’re here to work with you on homeowner’s insurance in Longview. Let us get quotes and answer questions you may have about home liability coverage. We can help you to find an affordable policy.

 

If you’re looking to make some extra cash, having a garage sale is an excellent idea. You don’t want to lose all the money you make from a garage sale in a liability lawsuit, though. If you’re thinking about holding a sale in Astoria, OR, let us at Linda Dugan Insurance help you check your liability coverage before the weekend of your sale.

Maximize Your Earnings

One of the main reasons to have a garage sell is to sell things — and get money. There is an art to successfully selling items at a garage sale, though. To maximize your earnings, you can:

• clean items before placing them out for sale
• price items reasonably at ¼ to ⅓ of their original price
• combine your sale with neighbors’ sales to attract more people
• let people know you’re willing to negotiate on the last day of the sale

In general, success at a garage sale doesn’t come from selling a few items at prices that are just slightly lower than their initial values. Instead, it comes from presenting items well, attracting people and pricing items low so that they sell.

Check Your Liability Coverage

Accidents at garage sales are rare, but they happen occasionally. If someone is hurt at your garage sale, you might be held financially responsible.

Liability coverage, which is included in most homeowners insurance policies, provides homeowners with protection against covered incidents. If you have adequate liability coverage, and the accident is covered by its terms and conditions, your homeowners insurance policy might protect you from any lawsuits filed over the accident. This is the best way to protect yourself and your garage sale earnings from such a risk.

For help checking your liability coverage, contact us through our website. Even if you didn’t purchase your policy through us, our agents would be happy to review your coverage with you.

 

You likely want to do all that you can to protect your home in Oregon. As the fall months approach, there is a lot that you can be doing to ensure your home is in good condition. The fall leads to the winter and what you do in the fall as a way of protecting your home even further, especially against any snow and ice that may fall in the coming months.

Gutters – Gutters need to be maintained, just like everything else in your home. They may fill with leaves and various other items. Have a company come out and clean them – or clean them on your own. This can also minimize the chances for an ice dam during the winter.

Roof – Have your roof inspected annually, and do so in the fall. This will ensure that you don’t have any loose shingles or any that are missing – which could wreak havoc when snow and rain begin to fall.

Chimney – Your chimney should also be cleaned annually, especially because you don’t want a fire taking place just because you weren’t able to get it clean enough. Hiring a chimney sweeper can go a long way for peace of mind.

Inside Your Home – There are quite a few things that you can do inside your home for general maintenance as well.

When you want to cut down on your electric bill, reverse your fans so that the warm air is being distributed better.

Go through and replace batteries in all your smoke detectors so that you can be confident they are going to work when needed.

At Linda Dugan Insurance our agents look forward to helping you with your home in Astoria. Call today and learn about the many ways that we can assist with finding you an affordable homeowner’s insurance policy.

 

 

Oregon forest and wildfires are a part of life in our state. Some of our most beautiful areas are at greatest risk from these disasters. But you don’t have to live in a forested area to have a home that is at risk of a fire. Fires can result from grease on a stove in the kitchen, from a propane grill, or lightning. They can result from a space heater, an unattended candle, or an electrical short. When a fire occurs in a home, the damage is not limited to items lost in the flames. Soot and smoke damage can be just as, if not more, devastating.

Smoke can quickly travel through your entire home, even if a fire is contained to one room. This smoke can travel through open doorways and vents getting into your carpeting, curtains, bedding and furniture. It can get on your clothing, and onto your walls and ceilings. The cost of eliminating smoke damage can be every bit as expensive as repairing damage from the fire itself.

Are you confident your homeowners insurance will cover the full cost of fire and smoke damage in your Oregon home? If there is any doubt, contact Linda Dugan Insurance. We are an independent insurance agency that can review the policies of any company. If your coverage turns out to be inadequate, we can search multiple companies seeking the appropriate coverage at the best possible price. We believe that homeowners insurance ought to be affordable without sacrificing coverage.

Try us online. Visit our website and request an online comparative quote for your homeowners and auto insurance. By answering a few simple questions, you can be on your way to better coverage at a price you can afford.

Contact Linda Dugan Insurance today. We can help bring you peace of mind when it comes to your homeowners insurance coverage.

Those of us who live in Oregon don’t tend to give our roofs much thought. As long as they keep us dry in the rains and protected from the other elements, they are doing their job. Your roof is easy to take for granted. But when you consider their size and the expense of replacing one, you begin to realize how important homeowners insurance is in making sure you keep a roof over your head.

The question is, how well covered is your roof? Is it covered for storm damage? Would your insurance fully cover the total cost of today’s materials and labor in case it would need to be entirely replaced? Does your homeowners policy cover your roof should your neighbor’s tree fall on it? What if it is damaged by ice, or fails under the weight of snow? These are questions to have answers to before a problem occurs.

At Linda Dugan Insurance, we can help you discover these answers no matter where you bought your homeowners policy. You see, we are an independent agency that has access to multiple companies. We are qualified to review homeowners insurance policies from any issuing company. In addition, we may be able to find even more encompassing coverage at a better price. Now that’s worth checking into.

The best part is you can easily see for yourself right online. Visit our website and enter the appropriate information. You will soon get a comparative quote on your homeowners insurance. We think you’ll be pleased with the results. We can also compare auto insurance rates online.

If you would like a review of your homeowners insurance policy, contact Linda Dugan Insurance. Your roof covers you and your family every day. Let’s make sure you have it covered.

Astoria, Oregon is located right on the Pacific coast, offering a wide range of things to do. You are only about an hour away from Portland and many people make the commute for work. Income levels are a little lower here than in comparison to the rest of the state, though home values are able equal.

A personal injury claim is something that can be made on your homeowner’s insurance. This is when someone has been injured on your property and they are taking action against you. The action could be to recoup hospital bills or general pain and suffering.

When you have homeowners insurance in the 97103 ZIP code, you may not have to be held financially responsible for someone’s injury. While it is your property, it’s one of the reasons why you have insurance. Don’t assume it’s just for fire and theft. You may be surprised by what your policy covers.

You will be able to file a personal injury claim in Astoria, Oregon at any time. It could be if a contractor falls, a friend trips, or someone else is injured on your property. Not all situations are going to be covered and this is why it’s important to know what is actually covered.

One of our agents can walk you through some of the options for your home in 97103. We can talk to you about add-on coverage for just about everything – even coverage in the event someone injures themselves after becoming intoxicated at a party you hosted.

We have agents who take the time to answer your questions in Astoria, Oregon and ensure you have the ability to make a personal injury claim. Call us today to find out how we can assist you on your policy in the 97103 area.

Oregon is a beautiful state in the Pacific Southwest. There are homes along the ocean, the mountains, and throughout the vineyards, as well as in major cities such as Portland and Astoria. Whatever it is that you wish to do, you will find it in the state – and it has become a popular destination in recent years.

When you purchase homeowners insurance, it’s important to look at what you are and are not protected against.

A sinking foundation can be one of the worst things. Shifts in the land can cause your foundation to sink – and when this happens, it can crack and lead to various problems within your home. Even your porch can be affected.

Your foundation may be covered within your homeowner’s insurance policy, but it’s not a given. Your policy may already cover against:

– Fire

– Flood

– Theft

However, if you want it to cover a sinking porch or foundation problems, you have to read the fine print. One of our insurance agents in Oregon can walk you through the process of looking at coverage and determine if you have the necessary coverage within your policy – and add the option if you don’t.

By having the needed coverage, you can enjoy peace of mind knowing that your home is always protected. This way, if you experience an issue with your home in Oregon, you simply have to place a call to the homeowner’s insurance company and file a claim. They can then authorize an inspection and help you to make the repairs – without asking for more than a deductible from you.

Contact us today and begin working with an agent. We can obtain multiple quotes for you and ensure you are protected against all that could go wrong to your home.