Posted by Gabriella Hopkins | September 27, 2011

Weather insurance helps soothe sting of ruined weddings, holidays

Weather insurance helps soothe the sting of ruined weddings, holidays, concerts.

Weddings are a big enough gamble without worrying about hurricanes or tornadoes crashing the party.

For $500, you can get cancellation insurance worth up to $30,000 in losses, including photography, wedding attire, presents and even the honeymoon. Or pay $100 for $10,000 in losses.

The policy, called WeddingGuard, also pays out if someone in the immediate family dies or gets sick, or the venue burns down or goes bankrupt.

But the weather protection is the biggest selling point, said Amélie Bérubé-Chanda, manager and underwriter at the Simcoe, Ont., office that services Eastern Canada for Pal Insurance Brokers Ltd.

The company is one of the few specialty firms in Canada that provides cancellation insurance for a wide range of outdoor events, from rock concerts to trade shows to festivals.

“There are so many summer events in Canada that are outside and they’d have to shut down and lose a lot of money if the conditions are extreme enough to cancel,” Bérubé-Chanda said.

This type of insurance is one of several new kinds of protection individuals and companies are buying as the weather becomes more volatile and the cost of protecting themselves declines.

Whether it’s Niagara grape growers, travel suppliers, or major league sports teams, more businesses are looking for ways to hedge their exposure to the elements, according to Don Cyr, an associate professor of finance with Brock University in St. Catharines.

Read more…

Tags:
Helps Soothe, Holidays, Insurance Helps Soothe, Ruined Weddings
No Comments »
Posted by Victoria Milson | September 26, 2011

Behind the Scenes With Lamar Odom

On most days, I’m a mild-mannered life insurance marketer, toiling away on my laptop computer in the quiet confines of my New Jersey home office. No hustle and bustle. No glamor. No bright lights.

But one day each year, all of that changes. Suddenly I find myself surrounded by bright lights and, occasionally, swooning fans. I’m in the presence of celebrity. Yes, it’s my annual pilgrimage to Hollywood for a video shoot with the new spokesperson for Life Insurance Awareness Month.

The setting for this year’s shoot was a high school gymnasium in the San Fernando Valley, a fitting place considering that our newest spokesperson is two-time NBA champion Lamar Odom. We didn’t publicize the fact that we’d be doing the shoot that day, but school officials knew and the students were abuzz in anticipation of the arrival of one of their hometown heroes. Some waited for close to two hours to catch a glimpse of Lamar. Finally, a sleek white Mercedes pulls up with darkly tinted windows. It’s parked, but no one emerges for a while. Lamar is finishing up a call. Then out he comes, wearing the coolest sweatsuit I’ve ever seen. The kids are giddy with excitement. Lamar signs some autographs and poses for a few pictures, but then it’s time to get to work.

We head off to a conference room to talk about the plan for the afternoon. Lamar couldn’t be any nicer. He’s sitting in a d

Read more…


No Comments »
Posted by Victoria Milson | September 25, 2011

How Much Homeowners Insurance Do You Need?

Talk over these factors with your agent to be sure your policy suits your needs.

If you think buying homeowners insurance is a one-time deal, you may want to give that a second thought. You’ll likely take a close look at your homeowners coverage when you buy a new house. Remodeling or a room full of new furniture are also good reasons to revisit your policy. Think about extra coverage to protect those great investments, too.

Whether you’re buying a new home or reassessing where you are now, making sure you have adequate coverage is key. Here are some things to think about—and, even more important, to talk over with your agent.

According to the Insurance Information Institute, there are four key things you need enough insurance to cover.

1. The physical structure of your home. Your insurance should cover the cost of rebuilding your home at current construction costs. This is not the same as the purchase price of your home. Ask your insurance or real estate agent to help you calculate the cost for replacement based on square footage. Also consider the cost of replacing anything you’ve added, such as a custom kitchen, new windows and other improvements.

2. Your personal possessions. To know whether you have enough coverage for your possessions, conduct a home inventory. List and document everything you own and what it would cost to replace it. If you

Read more…

Tags:
Homeowners Insurance, Need
No Comments »
Posted by Mikayla Stevenson | September 23, 2011

Test-Driving Chipotle’s New ShopHouse Eatery

“Toasted rice, crispy garlic, or crushed peanuts?”

I was at the sixth and final stage of my bowl-building process at ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen, a new eatery that had opened just six days earlier in Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle.

New restaurants aren’t particularly newsworthy, but this is the first concept that Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) has introduced outside of its burrito-rolling stronghold. Everyone’s watching ShopHouse the way a high school phenom athlete is being scouted. In a few years, both of them could be superstars.

For now, ShopHouse is still rough around the edges. The reviews have been mixed. Foodies who know the cuisine intimately argue that it isn’t authentic enough. Chipotle fans who expect a Tex-Mex approach to Asian cuisine are baffled by the strange flavors tickling their taste buds.

There are fans, though. I arrive at 11:50 a.m. Wednesday to a nearly empty restaurant (click that link to watch me order lunch for me and my colleagues). By the time I bow out roughly 20 minutes later, the queue stretches all the way to the front door.

Read more…

Tags:
Eatery, Shophouse Eatery
No Comments »
Posted by Admin | September 14, 2011

What exactly is public liability insurance?

Public liability insurance, available from Endsleigh.co.uk, is a type of insurance policy that covers businesses in the event of any claims due to injury or damages. These kind of claims could be filed by customers or any members of the public who come onto the premises of your business and who could suffer any injury or damages.

Business premises can be one single place, where the public and/or customers come to do business with you, or if you’re self-employed this also means your place of business – your home. You won’t be covered by normal home insurance, so you need to ensure you have public liability insurance taken out on top of this. Also, if you have to travel to customers’ sites or homes, or work on site with your customers, this type of policy can cover you in the event you cause any injury to their staff or customers, or cause any damage to their property.

Who needs public liability insurance?

Different businesses have different needs, so whether or not you need public liability insurance depends on your circumstances and also the type of business you have. Those who are self-employed, providing a service or certain products to the public, or other types of businesses are not legally required to take out public liability insurance, although it can be a good idea. Read more…

Tags:
Liability Insurance
1 Comment »
Posted by Admin | September 10, 2011

Do you really need a home business liability insurance

The home business liability insurance is generally not the first point at the list of a novice who starts a new business. With so many other worries about office rent, new equipment, advertising – liability insurance can sometimes be forgotten. But just this type of insurance can mean life and death of a home business if an accident happens. Home business insurance is one of the most dynamic sectors of the commercial insurance market.

Home insurance corporate responsibility is not obligatory as other types of insurance. Some small business owners may decide that it’s not worth the additional expense. Anyway, home liability insurance company is one of the most effective variants of protection that can be bought for a home business. This type of policy protects the personal assets and business assets in a case of lawsuit caused due to an error committed during a home business.

Home business liability insurance can help you in different situations. For example an independent contractor design a database access program for a client. The software they have done eliminates any database client. The former client decides to sue for not only the cost of replacing the database, but also for the business he lost as well. Read more…

Tags:
home liability insurance
No Comments »
Posted by Victoria Milson | August 27, 2011

Life insurance for Generation Y

You’re young, hip and plugged in—and you’ve probably given little thought to life insurance. Like many of your generation, you are probably waiting for certain life events to occur before investigating the ins and outs of such financial products. But life insurance covers expenses that could end up burdening your family like funeral costs and other debts (e.g. vehicle, student loans, credit). You live in an age when information is at your finger tips, so shouldn’t you take a moment to learn a bit more about something so important?

Learn more online

A 2010 survey released by Prudential revealed that the average Gen Y’er has developed a number of misconceptions about life insurance. For example, many Generation Y members believe life insurance is only a necessity for people who have high-risk occupations or are ill or elderly. Others surveyed believe life insurance to be a luxury product reserved for the well-off.

When it comes to shopping, Generation Y members turn to the internet for research, review and purchasing of many items that interest them. Learning more about financial services should be no exception. The internet is a boundless resource for you to better understand the complexities of financial products and planning.

Figuring out what products and services fit your needs is always the first step to purchasing life insurance. To help y Read more…

Tags:
Generation, Life Insurance
No Comments »
Posted by Gabriella Hopkins | August 27, 2011

Top 10 Vehicles Thieves Love to Steal

Earlier, we looked at the cars crooks avoid in our top 10 list of the automobiles that are least likely to be stolen . For the owners of those vehicles and their car insurance companies, we call that a big plus to ownership and coverage. Alas, with each positive side, there is always a negative one that lurks below the surface.

Youve probably already figured out that were referring to the cars that thieves love to target. And there is no automobile currently more attractive to the criminal element of society than the Cadillac Escalade, which makes its fourth straight appearance at the top of the Highway Loss Data Institute annual list of cars most likely to be stolen.

Whats the Highway Loss Data Institute?

First, we should cover who the HLDI are and why their numbers differ so much from other lists of these kinds.  HLDI is part of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety , an organization we hope youre all familiar with. IIHS spends most of its time conducting safety crash testing and rating vehicles on their relative levels of protection from injuries to occupants when a car is involved in a crash. The HLDI looks at the other side of things the actual financial insurance losses paid out from claims, including theft.

HLDI collects its data from the insurance companies that also provide funding to support its operations.

Read more…

Tags:
Top 10, Vehicles
No Comments »
Page 7 of 50« First...«56789»102030...Last »