Abacus Storage Insurance
What is Storage Insurance
If something is worth storing, it is worth insuring!
Every day risks are everywhere, and even seem to be increasing, and there is ample evidence in our daily news. Increased climate risks include disastrous and excessive rainfall, wild fires, invasive species, etc. Other kinds of risk include property crimes of all kinds. This apparent elevation in risk makes it wise to insure your home and its contents, or your car, or your business. Similarly, it is prudent to insure the contents of your self storage unit. And there is no excuse for not doing so – low cost insurance is available at Abacus. Finally, and as is typical in the self storage industry, customer unit content losses are not covered by Abacus or its insurers.
Of course, and in response to the increased risks that are apparent today, Abacus has and continues to make major expenditures to mitigate and reduce risk as much as possible. Examples of improvements in this respect include:
- A new steel roof with an expected life of 40 years plus over a large part of its building area (with a new roof to be installed over its remaining building area in the near future);
- Installation of an extensive closed circuit camera system on the exterior and interior parts of its property, along with very extensive surveillance capability from the office;
- General maintenance and upgrading of its emergency electrical power generator to insure that it continues to protect against general hydro failures in Richmond Hill.
As in the past, these new additions are part of Abacus’ continuing concern with having a high degree of safety and security on its property. Of equal importance are diligent on site personnel who take care to notice what is happening on the property.
However, and despite best efforts, it is impossible to remove all of the risks that we all face. Climate change is happening; thieves will always be with us and they will always look for a way.
Perhaps the best examples are high priced automobiles. There are all kinds of sophisticated car alarm and theft prevention systems, yet cars are stolen with ease and regularity. State of the art security systems are available and used for residences, yet losses are common. As a result, readily available insurance is used to cover possible losses related to cars, homes, businesses, and of course, self storage.
So it is at Abacus –specialized low cost insurance is readily available for the contents of a self storage unit. (There may be homeowner policies that cover the contents of a self storage unit, but this is not common.) Self storage unit contents coverage is available up to $25,000 per unit (deductible is $500), and the cost is not excessive – just a few dollars per month and depending on the size of your unit. (It is highly desirable to have an up to date list of everything in the storage unit, and the more detailed the better. It is also desirable to have documentation available supporting the value of items in the storage unit, as it is of assistance in supporting proof of loss, if and when a claim is made.)
Why Abacus Storage Insurance?
In summary, and despite precautions, losses can occur at any time from a wide variety of causes. For this reason, it is highly advisable for self storage unit holders to arrange insurance for their unit contents at the time of occupancy of the unit.
What are the benefits Abacus Storage Insurance?
The benefit of self storage insurance is that it covers more than just the risk of theft. Coverage is available for fire, water damage from burst pipes, etc. Some of these events can be catastrophic (typical policies usually have exclusions so it is important to review the policy at the time of purchase).
For instance, a damage incident at Abacus once occurred when someone moving into a unit accidentally hit a sprinkler head and caused it to release a great deal of water before the leak was stopped. Serious damage occurred to the building and to the contents of about 25 units.
Totally unrelated to Abacus, a fire broke out in a self storage property a number of years ago in Toronto and the building and all of the contents of all of the units were totally destroyed.
If there is a power failure in mid winter and heat is unavailable for hours or even days (as has indeed occurred a few times in the last few years), fire prevention sprinkler systems could freeze, and losses could be catastrophic. (The risk of freeze up is minimized at Abacus, as Abacus has an emergency electrical generator powered by natural gas. This generator has kept the lights and heat on at Abacus during major a major ice storm, and prevented catastrophic losses.)
