Mennonite Insurance

Our commitment is to provide you with competitively priced, superior insurance products with the highest quality service.

Jerry Linscheid

Does Your Current Insurance Cover Your Side Gig?

By Lorie Lewis Ham

Due to the pandemic, many people are out of work and getting creative about earning money. One popular choice is to become a driver for one of the food delivery businesses, like Doordash, Instacart, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. However, have you thought about what using your car for business might mean for your auto insurance?

Let’s say you are out delivering groceries for Instacart and you get into an accident. There is damage to your car and the person in the other car is hurt—will your insurance cover all of this? Would you be surprised if the delivery company denies any responsibility? 

Delivery Side Gig

“The contract you sign to become a driver for these companies says that you are an independent contractor and not their employee,” shares Jerry Linscheid, General Manager for Mennonite Aid Plan/Mennonite Insurance Services. (This may be changing in CA in the future) Because of that, no payroll taxes will be withheld, and there won’t be any worker’s compensation or liability (auto or general) insurance provided.

However, you may be thinking, I have insurance. Your car is insured and your homeowner or renters policy includes liability coverage. “Those policies are designed for personal use, not business exposure,” continues Jerry. “Many personal policies exclude coverage for business exposure. Using your car for Instacart deliveries is a business exposure. Don’t rely on personal insurance for business.”

Two people arriving at their AirBnB. Does Your Current Insurance Cover Your Side Gig

Or perhaps you have decided to become a part of the Airbnb craze. Let’s say you are renting out your home while you are gone on business trips, or “hosting” as they call it. You have a nice home with a great kitchen but the family staying there leaves the dinner they are cooking on your stove unattended and a fire starts. They catch it in time to avoid calling the fire department. But there is significant damage to the ceiling and walls in your kitchen. Will your homeowner’s policy cover that? 

According to Jerry, the guests caused the damage and should be responsible for the repairs. The contract with Airbnb says that Airbnb is not responsible for anything other than connecting the host and the guest and collecting money. There are, however, some insurance coverages available through Airbnb, both for damage to the host’s property and injury to guests.

AirBnB Side Gig

“Let’s say that for some reason, neither the guests nor Airbnb will pay for the repairs, and you have to file a claim on your homeowner policy,” states Jerry. “All homeowner policies cover loss due to fire. While the business use of your home might be a problem for liability coverage, it likely will not prevent coverage for the damage to your kitchen.”   

Yard Work Side Gig

What if your son decides to use your brand-new lawnmower to make some extra money during the summer? Your elderly neighbor hires him to mow his extremely neglected back yard, but because the grass is so tall. Your son accidentally runs over a spigot in the yard and it needs to be replaced. Will your insurance cover this? Will your neighbor’s insurance cover this? Or will your son have to pay for it out of his summer earnings? 

First off, Jerry asks, “On what planet is it okay to take your father’s brand-new lawnmower and mistreat it? Was the mower damaged?” Back to insurance. According to Jerry, the neighbor’s policy might cover the damage, subject to the deductible on his policy. $500-$1,000 is a normal deductible. But it seems unlikely that a broken pipe and spigot would cost close to that amount, including labor.

“Your homeowner liability coverage usually doesn’t have a deductible. There are often allowances for business activities that are occasional, typically performed by minors, or earn less than $2,000/ year. You should check your policy for what business activity is allowed.”

So how do you avoid all of these situations? The important thing is to find all of this out BEFORE you start working as a gig driver, Airbnb host, or let your child become a teenage entrepreneur. Contact Mennonite Insurance and they would be happy to help! 559-638-2327.

2021 Mennonite Insurance Scholarship Winner

Mennonite Insurance Services is excited to announce the recipient of the 2021 Scholarship.

Students must be members of an Anabaptist church, be at least a junior at a West Coast college or university, and have a GPA of 3.0 or better.

The scholarship recipient is Robert Ross from Madera Avenue Bible, Madera CA.  He attends Fresno Pacific University Biblical Seminary.  Ross states, “My eventual goal is to become an executive/lead pastor at some point of a church. This is something that God has been working on me for the past 10 years, ever since I fully committed my life to Him.”

“It’s great to be able to help our recipients reach their educational goals.  It’s very rewarding for us to have small role in their success,” said Claudia Fletes, scholarship administrator.

Each recipient receives a $1,000 scholarship.  Application forms and scholarship rules are available at mennoniteinsurance.com or on the Mennonite Insurance Facebook page.

Mennonite Insurance Services and its parent, Mennonite Aid Plan, provide property insurance to churches and their members on the West Coast.

What More Can We Do to Conserve Water

By Lorie Ham

According to a recent article on CNN’s website, more than 95 percent of the West is in some level of drought, with nearly two-thirds in extreme or exceptional drought — the two worst categories. As we find ourselves once again in a drought on much of the West Coast, what can we do to make a difference? Most towns have watering schedules, so sticking to those are a good first step, but what else can we do?

“One thing we have implemented is to use the washing machine water on our lawn,” shares Jerry Linscheid, Chief Executive Officer at Mennonite Aid Plan/Mennonite Insurance Services.

drought tolerant plants in a front garden

Mennonite Insurance board member Janine Bergdahl suggests that we don’t need to flush the toilet after each use. You can also put in low flow toilets that use less water.

Board member LeAnne Quenzer has a number of things that her family does to conserve water. “We put in all drought-tolerant plants with drip line only in our large front yard this year. Drip line circles the two trees in front also.” She also keeps a basin in the utility sink in their laundry room and the water from washing hands and rinsing items off is collected in the basin. They use that collected water, and water from leftover water cups, to water their plants.

Most of us are familiar with ideas like not running the water while you brush your teeth and taking shorter showers, but you can also place a bucket in the shower to catch excess water, and that too can be used to water plants. On Love Your Landscape.org, you can find more tips on conserving water in your yard and garden. Their tips include obvious things like eliminating leaks, along with things we may not have thought of like mowing high, which helps shade the soil and prevent excessive evaporation. An article from 2015 on the ABC News website provides some more creative tips like spray-painting your lawn.

A simple Google search will bring you even more interesting and unique ideas. At a time like this, we all need to do what we can. Do you have an interesting tip to share? If so, we would love it if you would share with us on our Facebook page.

Embarrassing Moments in Our New World

By Lorie Ham

Ever since the pandemic began, our world has constantly been changing. Over the past couple of months, things have been opening up again and it has been a big adjustment for most of us. After over a year of working from home and only visiting people via Zoom, we now find ourselves having to put on pants and shoes and make ourselves presentable again to actually leave our house. The pandemic has even changed how we date. The Washington Post recently published an article with tips on how to learn to date in person again.

As more of us try to go back to some of our previously normal activities, it can bring about some awkward situations, which can be frustrating, but sometimes it can also be funny, and we all could use a reason to smile right now.

disposable face mask hanging off of a car's rearview mirror

Even the simplest of things, like not bagging your own groceries, can feel odd now. Recently Reedley resident Kathy Smith was at the local grocery store and suddenly a worker was bagging her groceries—something that hadn’t been happening since the pandemic started. “It’s confusing…. I didn’t know how to stop myself from bagging them myself.”

Fresno musician Mallory Moad recently played her first show with her band since the shutdown and realized she had forgotten how to apply mascara. “It was a challenge. I felt like I was back in high school. I didn’t even attempt eyeliner. I knew from the get-go I’d need more practice.”

For Kathleen Costa, who lives in Stockton, things haven’t changed that much because she rarely went out even before the pandemic due to mobility issues, but for her husband even something as simple as getting the mail feels odd. “My husband feels a bit naked not wearing his mask walking over to our complex’s mailroom; he carries it always, and still is not able to remove it at the store.”

The couple also recently decided it was safe enough to get drive-thru from their favorite restaurant and found themselves stuck at the speaker for longer than normal because they couldn’t remember the numbers of their favorites anymore. “They were nice, though, and accommodating, and we relished in our tacos and enchiladas. We ended up ordering extra, in case (in case what, I don’t know) and had leftovers, too.”

For some, even meeting in person with fellow vaccinated friends or coworkers presents the problem of do we hug, do we still just bump elbows, or what? Jayce Ham recently met his new coworkers in person for the first time and faced that now challenging question that before would have been simple. “It was very awkward and we all had to laugh because we kept going back and forth between starting to hug someone and then hesitating and going for the elbow bump.”

Even now though, things are changing yet again. Some places are bringing back some of the restrictions, so it is important to stay up with the latest news so you know what you should or shouldn’t do.

Do you have any funny stories you would like to share about your attempts at going out into the world again? Please share them with us on our Facebook page, a little laughter will do us all some good.