Playing it Safe on your Backyard Playground

From propertycasulaty360.com

Backyard Dangers!

Do you have a backyard swing set or tree house? Consider increasing the liability coverage available to you by adding an Umbrella policy to your existing insurance policies.

66% of playground injuries happen at home, whether it happens in the child’s own backyard or at a friend’s house. Monkey bars are the leading cause of injury on playgrounds with swing sets close behind. Most people can think of at least one child during their elementary school days who broke their arm on the monkey bars. It’s no surprise that fractures are the number one diagnosed from playground accidents.

Lawsuit judgments can reach a couple million if a child–or anyone–becomes injured in your backyard. A standard homeowners policy has around $300k of liability coverage, any money after that is up to the policyholder.

Umbrella Policy

An Umbrella policy adds extra coverage to the liability coverage that your primary home policy provides. If your primary insurance policy liability limits are all used, an Umbrella policy will provide excess liability coverage up to the limit of insurance you choose. The liability coverage provided by the Umbrella policy covers your listed auto(s), home(s), boat(s), and other eligible exposures. Umbrella Insurance is usually quite inexpensive, particularly considering the amount of insurance they provide. When you package your Umbrella Insurance policy with your auto, home, boat, and other insurance policies there can be discounts applied to the policy.

Playground Safety Tips

• Always supervise children
• Make sure the playground equipment is age appropriate for them
• In the summer be careful about hot plastic and metal slides. If it feels hot on your hand, it’s too hot for a child.
• Every playground should have impact absorbing surfaces like sand, pea gravel, shredded rubber or synthetic turf; and should be at least a foot deep.
• Watch out for broken equipment.

If you want to speak to a friendly Hometown Independent Insurance Agent about umbrella coverage or have other questions about insurance, call 1-800-568- SAVE (7283) or email us at service@hometowninsurance.com.