Month: November 2019

Tips for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday

Fast on the heels of Thanksgiving Thursday comes Frenetic Friday, better known as Black Friday – the busiest retail shopping day of the year. If throwing yourself into the fray is how you choose to work off your Thanksgiving calories, we have some tips to make the best of it (below), as well as a few shopping safety reminders. But if you’d rather pull out your fingernails one by one than brave the bargain-hunting hordes, you can choose to celebrate the day as Buy Nothing Day. Whether you choose to buy nothing out of conviction or laziness, it’s a good day to practice the fine art of relaxation with friends and family.

But Friday is just the start. What began as a single shopping day has spawned a series of themed days.

  • Saturday is the 10th annual Small Business Saturday – and we really like that idea. It’s less crowded and crazy and it focuses on small local businesses in your home community. Small businesses are the lifeblood and personality of every community so we encourage you to get out and support your neighbors. Find a Small Business near you.
  • Cyber Monday is a huge online shopping day. A little know alternate name for the day is Low Productivity Monday because employees everywhere are surreptitiously shopping for deals at their desks.
  • Our favorite day is Giving Tuesday, December 03, 2019, a global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world on December 3, 2019 and every day. It was created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good, and since its founding, it has raised more than $1 billion in online donations in the U.S. alone. If you’d like to give something back after all that shopping, search for an organization near you to help you find organizations, events, and ways to give back in your own community. The Better Business Bureau has some Giving Tuesday tips to ensure you don’t fall for fake charities:

If you plan to shop online or off over the holiday weekend, here are a few pointers for getting the most out of Black Friday and Cyber Monday

And a few tips to be safe and secure while shopping:

  • Keep packages out of site in your car. Lock them in your trunk and keep car doors locked
  • Be aware of your purse and wallet at all times – pickpockets love crowds. If you can, avoid a purse or wallet entirely and store phone, cash, credit cards and IDs in a secure inner pocket.
  • Carry only the money and credit cards you need. Don’t flash cash.
  • Be aware of your surroundings. Thieves and con-artists specialize in distraction techniques.
  • Don’t overload yourself with packages and impair your awareness, mobility or vision – take some to the car.
  • Remember where you parked your car. Have your keys ready and be alert for strangers when you approach it.
  • Shop with a friend or family member, particularly at night. There’s safety in numbers.

Here are a few safe online shopping tips:

  • Update your web security, anti-virus and malware detection programs snf be sure your firewall is on.
  • Be on alert for email phishing offers, the spoofed mails look authentic. Don’t click the link, type in the website.
  • Purchase only in a secure environment – check for “https” in the address in your web browser – the “s” stands for “secure” – never conduct a transaction without it.
  • Public Wi-Fi is not secure so avoid doing banking and transactions that would expose your credit cards, passwords, or personal info.
  • Update your passwords before shopping. Create unique passwords for each site.
  • If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Watch out for “free” gift offers and contests from unknown sites.
  • Don’t give away any personal information or credit card numbers to anyone you don’t know.

 

Reprinted from Renaissance Alliance – no usage without permission.

Turkey terror: When wildlife attacks

Here in New England, this is a season when drivers have to be on the alert for wildlife. October to November is peak season for deer-animal collisions. Your normal odds of a ruminant-related collision claim is about 1 in 169, but the likelihood rises in this season – particularly at dawn and dusk. The Insurance Information Institute offers good tips on avoiding a deer-car collision, and advises that you think about including Comprehensive Coverage on your auto policy if you don’t already have it.

But there’s no safety in being a pedestrian, either – wild turkeys band together to brazenly terrorize cities and towns. Right now there’s a huge flock of birds behaving badly and taking over a New Jersey town.

This is a good news bad news story. A few decades ago, the US wild turkey population was dangerously dwindling. The good news is, the wild turkeys are back. And the bad news is the wild turkeys are back. When they are in the wild, they are fearful of humans – but when they get used to us, watch out. They can be very aggressive and chase people down. They are a particular threat to kids and the elderly, but grown adults are intimidated by 25-30 lb. birds that run at 15-20 mph, fly in short spurts and sport sharp talons and beaks. The best advice we’ve heard is that if turkeys adopt your neighborhood, when taking walks, carry an umbrella which you can open and close to look bigger in a show of dominance they might understand.

For your seasonal amusement, we bring you some clips of turkey terror. But be warned, there may be a bit of cussing.

For some reason, they are particularly aggressive to mail carriers

Here’s an overly dramatic but amusing compilation…

Here’s a good example why you should NEVER feed turkeys.


For more turkeys, see our prior post Real Life Angry Birds.

And geese are no better ….

 

Reprinted from Renaissance Alliance – no usage without permission.

Thanksgiving on the road: best driving times & tips

Will your Thanksgiving festivities entail traveling 50 miles or more? If so, you’ll be joining 55 million other folks, according to AAA, who predicts this will be the second-highest Thanksgiving travel volume since they began tracking in 2000, trailing only the record set in 2005. That’s up by about a million over last year. Of those travelers, 49.3 will be motorists.

If you will be driving to your destination, try to get your car checked now. Be sure to check windshield wipers and fluid, tire pressure and oil and gas levels. AAA predicts they will respond to 368,000 calls for roadside assistance over the holiday, with the top three reasons being dead batteries, flat tires and lockouts. In addition to car maintenance, Gas Buddy will help you find the best gas prices wherever you are – and you can plan out expenses in advance using their Trip Cost Calculator. If you will be driving in states beyond your home state, brush up on traffic laws with the AAA Digest of Motorist Laws. This handy tool covers everything: headline use, distracted and impaired driving laws, accident reporting and more.

Best times for Thanksgiving road travel

If you’ll be on the road, AAA says that in the Boston metro area, avoid traveling between 4:30-6:30 PM. Google offers tools that might help you avoid the worst traffic times. Below, see the heaviest times mapped for major metro areas (click above link for larger). You can also use their calculator for avoiding traffic – enter the major metro departure city for various days to see predicted traffic patterns based on prior years.

chart illustrating worst traffic over Thanksgiving weekend
Here are some other safe Thanksgiving traveling tips:

 

Reprinted from Renaissance Alliance – no usage without permission.

What’s an insurance rider?

Every industry has its own business jargon and insurance is certainly no exception … in fact, we may have more than our fair share, and a lot of lingo can be quite confusing to the average person. One question that we get on the regular is “what’s an insurance rider?”

An “insurance rider” is more commonly known as an “endorsement,” a term which might also be confusing! The concept is actually pretty simple: an optional, written addendum to a basic insurance policy that modifies the terms of the insurance contract in some way.

Generally, an endorsement would be added to protect the insured by expanding or limiting the coverage in some defined manner. An endorsement or rider can occur at the start of a policy or can be added midterm. Depending on whether you are adding or limiting your coverage with the endorsement, it may have an impact on your premium

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is a great source of education on this and other insurance matters. See: What is an Insurance Endorsement or Rider? They offer this definition and explanation for how endorsements work:

An endorsement, also known as a rider, adds, deletes, excludes or changes insurance coverage. An endorsement/rider can also be used to increase standard limits of coverage and take precedent over the original agreement or policy.

An insurance endorsement/rider is an amendment to an existing insurance contract that changes the terms of the original policy. An endorsement/rider can be issued at the time of purchase, mid-term or at renewal time. Insurance premiums may be affected and adjusted as a result.

You can have an endorsement/rider on your homeowners and renters policy, life insurance and auto insurance policies. It can include adding or deleting people and locations to your current insurance policy. Endorsements/riders are important because they address issues or items not in the original contract or policy.

  • Additional Coverage – An endorsement that adds or includes coverage that would otherwise be excluded.

  • Exclusions – Some endorsements exclude coverage for certain types of claims.

  • Modification of Coverage – An endorsement can expand the scope of existing coverage.

Examples: for a standard homeowners policy, common endorsements might include coverage for a home business, coverage for damage incurred during natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods or windstorms, coverage for property’s replacement value rather than cash value or – as discussed in a prior post – an endorsement might expand coverage limits for valuables.

A specific endorsement may not be available from every insurer or in every state. A good insurance agent will likely inform you of any common policy options, but when discussing a specific type of insurance with your agent, ask if there are any options that would expand your coverage.

NAIC offers the reminder that because a rider/endorsement is part of the legal terms of your policy, be sure to keep a copy with the policy.

Reprinted from Renaissance Alliance – no usage without permission.