Insurance Issues and Your Home Exchange

You will want to talk with the company that handles your home insurance to let them know about your future home exchange. My company didn't need to know anything about my exchanges. However, when my daughter and I had the wall oven disaster, as I outlined in http://atozofvacationhomeexchanges.blogspot.com/2011/01/disasters-natural-and-man-made.html, I did email my insurance company from France to explain what had happened. They were always totally supportive, even when my host sent me a bill for the new wall oven and cabinet, which, of course, they never paid.
By the way, I totally forgot to describe the wonderful story as to why Elisabeth wanted to swap with me. When I first contacted her, she told me she had had a pen pal long ago who lived in Townsend, MA, about an hour from me. They had lost touch, but I easily found Linda in Townsend through the White Pages, so I called her and told her that Elisabeth might be coming to Boston. Linda and Elisabeth had become pen pals (or "penwriters", as Elisabeth had called them), because Linda's French Canadian father was stationed in France during WWII. He met Elisabeth's father while he was there, and he was "adopted" by Elisabeth's grandmother, who invited him to dinner, did his laundry, and was so kind to him! After Linda's father returned home, he continued to correspond with Elisabeth's grandmother for years. Before I left for France, I had a party and invited some of my friends, as well as Linda, her husband, and her mother. Linda's mother had saved all of the letters, so she brought them and gave them to Elisabeth!

If you do decide you want to include cars in your swaps, your insurance company will tell you what they need. Mine asked me to send copies of the drivers' license for their record.

Next post I will talk about jewelry and valuables....