March Meeting in Person
The Board of Directors is excited to welcome Oregon Insurance Commissioner, Charles Wente, who will be speaking at our first in-person meeting of the year on March 27th at the Hilton Garden Inn in Springfield. With skyrocketing rates (mine went up 20% year over year), rampant non-renewal of policies, and the soaring cost of claims related to natural and
unnatural disasters, this is a topic we all care about.

When I was recently making changes to some of my insurance policies, I was made aware that some of the decision making regarding non-renewals is being influenced by surveillance photos where agents can check out the condition of your roof and note dangerous build-up of vegetation around the home, these factors and others including your width of driveway access, proximity to the urban-wildland interface and distance to the nearest fire station, combine to influence the decisions to possibly discontinue your coverage.

When I was speaking to one agent, I complained that I didn’t like having to pay every six months instead of once a year, I was told that is so they can decline to renew your policies in a shorter time frame if you have a claim or pose an unreasonable risk to their business model. Best clean your roofs regularly, remove vegetation from around the home, remove or limb-up trees near the home, and make sure there is clear access for fire personnel to reach your home or you could be cancelled. There is a lot more you can do to make your properties fire resistant (look for fire prevention tips in future Bulletins). Also, Oregon State University has a map that allows you to see the level of fire risk for your property.
Check out their website at: https://hazardmap.forestry.oregonstate.edu/explore-map.

Tip for Eugene rental owners from campus manager Michelle Williams of the Campus Lofts:
Here is an easy way to take and distribute photos to your tenants upon move-in/out - the instructions are for an iPhone:

1. Download the Google Photos app - you will need to sign up with a Gmail email (if you don’t have a Gmail account, just sign up for one)
2. Take your 350 move-in or move-out photos on your phone
3. In the Google photos app - go to SHARING and then CREATE SHARED ALBUM
4. Add title to your album - e.g., “1895 Flower Street Move out photos”
5. Click on Select photos and this brings up your camera roll from your phone
6. Click on all the thumbnails of the photos you want to put in the shared folder
7. Next Hit SHARE button -there are several options here as to HOW you want to share the folder
8. Text: you can hit MESSAGES and it will create a text message with a link to the folder of photos.
9. Email: I choose to email them, so I hit the email button, and it creates an email with the link to the folder in the body of the message - you just need to add in their email address(es) and hit send!
10. Then on my check in/out form (which I do in person when they take possession) - I have a spot where they initial that they RECEIVED the move in photos.

I really dug my heals in about having to share all the photos - it was just a time issue, so I thought - but this takes just a couple minutes to do!

Great tip from a great manager! Feel free to share your tips for inclusion in our newsletter – we all have something to contribute.