Get smart. “First of all, use the door locks that you already have,” advises Sgt. Dan Ryan, of the Palo Alto, Calif., Police Department. People in friendly communities that are generally safe may think they don’t need to lock their doors. That’s a big mistake, Ryan says. Here are more strategies:

• Make it a nightly routine to check the locks. Involve children, too, says Chris McGoey, a security expert and consultant.

• Don’t open the door — and don’t let kids open the door — to uninvited strangers.

• Use your automatic garage opener to close the garage door when you get home before exiting your car.

• Stick around when people are working in your home. Notice what they’re doing. Check after they’ve left to ensure that nothing’s missing and that no one has left a window or door unlocked as a way to break in later.

• Door mats, flowerpots and fake rocks are the first places burglars look for your spare key. Instead, give it to a trusted neighbor. Train children (especially teens) to keep key locations, alarm codes and other family security information private from their friends.

• Have a family discussion to plan what you’ll do in case of a break-in or home invasion. Whoever can escape should, McGoey says. Although the first instinct of many men may be to stay and defend their family, it’s better to get reinforcements than to get hurt.

Call the police. Many departments have a home-security inspection program. A designated officer walks through your home looking for weaknesses and advises you on alarm systems, locks and lighting within a modest budget.

Get a dog (or pretend to). A dog won’t make your home impregnable, but it can make it look less approachable. You don’t want a pooch? That’s OK. Post a “beware of dog” sign anyway. McGoey, who doesn’t have a dog, has a sign and makes a point of asking service people to wait before entering his property so he can “put the dog in the house.” “The sign is cheap,” he says. “It makes people think twice.”

Cultivate the lived-in look. When you’re gone, don’t let stuff like newspapers, real-estate cards and pizza fliers accumulate in front of your door. “Make it look lived-in, even if you’re just gone for the weekend,” McGoey says. Before you leave, consider how your home will appear on the outside and avoid these classic mistakes that are like waving a red flag to invite burglars:

• Leaving the porch light on 24 hours a day.

• Leaving the trash out on Friday for pickup on Monday.

Other ways to fake it while you’re gone:

• Hold the mail delivery. Do this by visiting the post office to fill out a form or visiting their website.

• Set a few lights and appliances to switch on and off. Digital timers (around $9 to $15) let you set a schedule. You plug the timer into a wall receptacle and plug the radio, TV or lamp into the timer.

• Leave a vehicle in your carport or in front of the house if possible. Ask a neighbor or friend to help you out by parking there.

• Get friends to pick up newspapers, cut the grass, water plants, feed pets and open and close curtains, varying their routine to add a note of unpredictability if possible.

Doors: Thieves prefer the easy route, which is usually a door. Creeping out a window is hard, and it’s far more difficult when carting out a load of loot. Thieves typically test a house by first ringing the bell to ensure no one’s home, then trying the door handle and perhaps putting a shoulder to the door to see how solid and how firmly attached it is. To enter, the usual tool is a pry bar or a strong kick of the boot. Sadly, many doors fly open easily.

• Upgrade the lock. For $25 to $150, you can buy a good Grade 1 (commercial grade) or Grade 2 deadbolt. No need for a locksmith; you can install it yourself;

• Reinforce the strike plate. The strike plate is the metal plate in the door jamb into which the bolt slides. Strike plates, typically held in place by two half-inch wood screws, pull easily from the jamb, especially in older homes. Replace yours with a heavy-duty brass strike plate ($3 and up) that accepts up to six screws. Use 3-inch screws that screw into the door frame. “Now you can kick on the door and your foot will fall off before it gives in,” McGoey says. Reinforce all doors leading outside, including the door between the garage and house.

Windows: Keep your windows from opening more than 6 inches. Install replacement windows that include this as a built-in feature or cut a wooden dowel 6 inches shorter than the height of each window and drop the dowel into the metal gutter of each window frame so the window can’t be opened fully.

• Burglars know that older sliding windows can be lifted right out of their frames. If yours is the type that pops out, install sheet-metal screws into the upper window track, screwing them in only halfway. The protruding screw fills the gap between window and frame, keeping the window in place.

• Window and glass laminate films (prices available through dealers) can toughen glass, making it more difficult to break. One advantage is that the product slows down intruders and forces them to create a racket trying to smash the glass.

Secure the perimeter:

• Outdoor lights. Replacing porch lights and other outdoor lights with motion-sensor lights is cheap ($50 and up) and easy. “They don’t know for sure if you’re home or (if it’s) a sensor light,” McGoey says. “Burglars are all about taking the easiest path of resistance,” so most will flee. Program it to turn off in 30 seconds. Put sensor-triggered lights all around the perimeter of your home.

• Erect a fence. Even a 3-foot fence helps create a psychological boundary that helps in deterring intruders, McGoey says. “It says, ‘This is my house, my property.’ People are going to be reluctant to step over that fence.”

• Alarms. If you have a security system, don’t put one of those “Protected by ADT” stickers on your door. Knowing which brand of security system can provide enough info on how to disable it. Get a generic sticker.

Eliminate hiding spots: Trim the trees and shrubs. A pruned and maintained landscape robs intruders of hiding places. It also signals to outsiders that your home is cared for and probably more secure. Consider planting thorny or prickly shrubbery near windows.

Upgrade your house number. You want your home’s street number easily seen in the dark from across the street so police and firefighters can find you pronto in an emergency. Many fire departments or city or county governments sell inexpensive (around $5) reflective street numbers. Whatever type you use, place it where it can be easily seen. Keep plants around the number well-trimmed.

Keep valuables outside the bedroom: A burglar on the hunt for valuables in a home will make the master bedroom his first stop, because that’s where the cash and jewelry are most commonly stored. So if you do keep such valuables on your property, find another room to store them in. Consider putting your valuable jewelry in an old shoe box and keep it in a guest bedroom or child’s room closet.

• Avoid having stuff in plain sight that says “We have lots of $$$.” If you have an expensive car, keep it in a garage. If you have nice stuff in your house, keep your blinds closed. If you just bought a flatscreen, trash and conceal the box.

Radio running: Noise helps prevent burglaries as well. Houseworth leaves his radio on all day so that would-be burglars think that someone is at home. “Your home is more likely to be burglarized during the day because they think that nobody is home,” he says.

Be a neighbor: Neighbors can play a key role in preventing home thefts. Homeowners on friendly terms with their neighbors are less likely to be victimized by other members of their community. At the same time, closely knit neighbors are more likely to call the police if they see someone suspicious poking around your property. “If they like you and they care about you and they are concerned about their community, then if they see something unusual going on, then they will check it out or call the police,” Houseworth says. So don’t be a hermit: Get out and interact with your neighbors.

• Burglars case a neighborhood before they rob it. They know when you leave for work. They know when your neighbors leave for work. If you have neighbors that are home during the day, it will make your house a riskier break-in.

Remember, the goal isn’t to make your house completely break-in proof. It is simply to make your house a less attractive target than the other houses in your neighborhood. Look at the surrounding houses and adjust accordingly. Don’t be the lowest-hanging fruit!

Sources:

http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=23325335

http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=16011410

http://lifehacker.com/5887264/how-to-cleverly-secure-your-home-against-intruders

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/confessions-burglar-19106837

It is projected almost 1.8 million students will graduate from college in 2013. With graduation season upon us, I thought it might be useful to dedicate this week’s blog to those eager graduating students ready to start life in the “real world”.

If you Google, “best advice for college graduates” you will get thousands of Top 10 lists from a range of sources. It seems everyone from Careerbuilder.com to Wall Street Journal has tips for succeeding and achieving life post college. The advice ranges from financial advice to job searching tips, but I thought I would share with you a piece written 16 years ago in the Chicago Tribune that still rings true today. It is a piece on tips for life from Mary Schmich, Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young.

Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who’d rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there’s no reason we can’t entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.

I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt.Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97:

Wear sunscreen. 

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

 Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you. 

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own. 

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-sunscreen-column,0,5909206,full.column

It’s not just for big companies. Cyber insurance can make the difference between staying in business or shutting your doors after an attack.

Imagine for a moment that your company has come under attack by a skilled hacker. The hacker has accessed your customers’ names and contact information–and worse–your employees’ social security numbers. On top of that, your website is disabled so that you can’t take orders or collect the payments you need to stay in business.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have cyber liability insurance right about now?

Insurance that protects you in case of a cyber attack may seem like something only large corporations would ever need, or could ever afford. But believe it or not, cyber liability insurance makes lots of sense for small companies as well. Here’s why:

1. It’s more affordable than you think.

“I’ve seen policies with premiums as low as $2,000 a year, though it can go up from there,” says Ethan Miller, partner at the San Francisco law firm Hogan Lovells. You can get coverage as high as $30 million and deductibles as low as $10,000, depending on your needs and what you’re willing to pay. Cyber liability insurance is still a fairly new concept, so there’s a lot of variation among policies, and a lot of room for negotiation.

2. It can cover more than you think.

Many policies offer “first party” coverage–that is, they will pay you for things like business interruption, the cost of notifying customers of a breach, and even the expense of hiring a public relations firm to repair any damage done to your image as a result of a cyber attack. Having this cash available in the event of a crippling hack can keep the lights on till you’re able to resume your normal cash flow. A good policy can even cover any regulatory fines or penalties you might incur because of a data breach.

Business interruption coverage can be especially important for a small business, Miller says, which may not be as diversified as a larger one, or have the same financial resources. “If a larger company has one line of business shut down by a data breach, it may be able to depend on its other lines for revenue. A smaller company may only have one line of business.”

3. You probably don’t have a risk management team.

Big corporations have entire departments devoted to analyzing the risks the company could face and helping set policies and procedures to protect against them. You don’t–but a good insurance carrier can perform a similar function.

“There are a couple of ways insurance can bridge that gap,” Miller says. “An insurer might work with a small company to make sure a firewall is in place to protect your network, and make sure you have social media policies that reduce risk.” Your insurer may well be willing to help with these areas because the better protected you are, the less likely you are to have a breach that could result in a claim.

4. Even if you don’t host your data yourself, you’re still responsible.

Is your website and any of your data hosted or stored in the cloud? Take a good look at your contracts: You’re still legally responsible. “There’s a significant risk,” says Karen L. Stevenson, senior counsel at Buchalter Nemer, a law firm with offices in California and Arizona. You can’t fully control how a cloud provider handles your data but an insurance policy can protect you if your cloud provider screws up.

5. Your general policy won’t cover you.

Typically, a general liability policy specifically excludes losses incurred because of the Internet, Miller says. So a good cyber liability policy can pick up where your general policy leaves off.

Make sure your cyber policy covers laptops and mobile devices as well, to give yourself coverage in as many situations as you can. “Work with your broker to integrate cyber liability with your general policy and employment liability policy,” Miller advises. “You want to give yourself the most seamless coverage possible.”

Source: www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/6-reasons-you-should-have-cyber-liability-insurance.html

 To learn more about protecting your company from cyberattacks and to see if a cyber liability policy makes sense for your company please contact NCW Insurance, 806-376-6301.

A health savings account can be a powerful financial tool to cover medical expenses and save for the future.

As employers search for ways to lower their health care costs, they’re encouraging employees to sign up for a high-deductible health insurance policy paired with a health savings account. An HSA gives you a triple tax break: Your contributions are sheltered from income taxes, the money grows tax-deferred, and the funds can be withdrawn tax-free for medical expenses. It’s like a supercharged flexible spending account that never expires, and it can even serve as an extra retirement-savings fund. Most employers also add a few hundred dollars to the accounts each year as a bonus. Below we answer your questions about how HSAs work and how to make the most of them.

How do I qualify for an HSA? You need a high-deductible health insurance policy, whether it’s through an employer or on your own. In 2013, your deductible must be at least $1,250 for individual coverage or $2,500 for family coverage.

How much can I contribute? You can make pretax contributions (or tax-deductible contributions, if you’re on your own) in 2013 of up to $3,250 a year if you have individual coverage, or up to $6,450 if you have family coverage. People age 55 and older can save an extra $1,000 per year. You can add money to the account until the tax-filing deadline—April 15, 2013, for 2012 contributions.

How can I use the money? You may spend the HSA money tax-free on out-of-pocket medical expenses, such as your deductible, co-payments for medical care and prescription drugs, or bills not covered by insurance, such as vision and dental care. Most plans provide a debit card and an online bill-payment option.

Unlike with a flexible spending account, you don’t have to use the money by the end of the year—it can grow tax-deferred in your account for later use. There’s no deadline for making a withdrawal: You can re­imburse yourself in future years for medical costs you incur now, as long as you have records of past bills. You can even use tax-free HSA money to reimburse yourself for the money that Social Security withholds from your benefits to pay for Medicare Part B. You can also use HSA funds to pay Part D or Medicare Advantage (but not medi­gap) premiums, or for a portion of your long-term-care insurance premiums. If you use HSA money for nonmedical expenses, you’ll have to pay taxes on it (plus a 20% penalty before age 65).

How do I invest the HSA money? HSA administrators typically offer savings accounts that are easy to access for medical expenses. But many also let you shift money into mutual funds and other investments after your account balance reaches a certain level.

Cigna, for example, offers HSAs through JPMorgan Chase and automatically invests the money in a savings account. But if your balance is higher than $2,000, you can shift the extra money into your choice of 36 mutual funds (you’ll have to pay a $2.50 monthly fee for the investments if your account value is less than $15,000).

Keep money you’re using for medical expenses throughout the year in the savings account, so you don’t have to sell investments at a loss to pay the bills.

Can I keep contributing to the account after age 65? You can keep your HSA at any age, but you can no longer make new contributions to the account after you have signed up for Medicare Part A or Medicare Part B. Some people over age 65 who are still working put off signing up for Medicare if their employer offers a high-deductible health insurance policy with an HSA — especially if their employer contributes to the account. But if you work for an employer with fewer than 20 employees, or if you have already signed up for Social Security benefits, then you may be required to sign up for Medicare Part A and forgo making HSA contributions.

Is the Affordable Care Act changing HSAs? The health-care law boosts the penalty for nonmedical HSA withdrawals from 10% to 20% and prohibits tax-free withdrawals for nonprescription drugs (except insulin).

But the health-care law includes a related change that makes HSAs more attractive: It lowers the annual contribution limit for flexible-spending accounts (FSAs) to $2,500. So if you have a choice between an HSA and an FSA during open enrollment, you may want to switch to the HSA. Even though you may need to boost your deductible for the HSA, you’ll be able to set aside more pretax money and won’t have to drain the account by year-end.

Is preventive care covered by a high-deductible health insurance policy? Yes, and that’s another change caused by the health-care law. Even though your health insurance policy has a high deductible, most plans must cover certain preventive care without a deductible or co-payments. Services covered include well-baby visits and routine vaccinations for children; screenings for high blood pressure and high cholesterol; mammograms for women over 40 every one or two years, depending on their risk factors; and colorectal cancer screening for adults over age 50. For details, see the preventive services page at www.healthcare.gov.

For more answers to your HSA questions please contact the Benefits Team at NCW Insurance 806-376-6301.

Source: Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, April 2013, by Kimberly Lankford, http://www.kiplinger.com/article/insurance/T027-C000-S002-health-savings-accounts.html

NCW Insurance will be hosting the first of their biannual, OSHA Safety Course March 7th and 8th. This 10 hour course is geared towards anyone in the construction industry and will include a review of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and several of their regulations pertaining to construction. Some of these regulations will include, fall protection, electrical safety, scaffolding, excavation, hand tools and health hazards.

Jim Parker, Loss Control Services Director with K&S Group will be presenting. He has been certified to teach OSHA Construction Safety as well as First Aid/CPR. In addition, he currently sits on the AGC safety committees for both the Texas State chapter as well as the local Dallas/Ft. Worth chapter.

OSHA requires this 10 hour course be taken over a two day period with regular breaks. The event is schedule to run from 1 pm-6:30 pm on Thursday March 7th and 8 am-1:30 pm on Friday March 8th. Attendance at both sessions is necessary for certification of this course. For additional details or to reserve your spot RSVP to Whitney Pepper, NCW Insurance Stewardship Manager 806-376-6301 x222 or wpepper@neely.com.

LinkedIn released a survey last year revealing that our professional to-do lists are in dire need of a makeover. Turns out, we’re not so good at “doing” the things we tell ourselves we need to do. In fact, almost 90% of professionals admitted they’re unable to accomplish all the tasks on their to-do list by the end of an average workday.

So if you’re sick of tackling the same stale to-dos every day, it’s time to change that. Here are five tricks to increase your productivity and help yourself actually make it through your list.

1. Keep a Single To-Do List For Work

Let’s be honest: If you wanted to get a complete view of everything you had to do for work right now, chances are you can’t find it all on a single list. Instead, you have a few post-its here, a saved draft in your email there, stickies or text files on your computer, and maybe an app or two on your phone.

And while it’s generally good practice to separate work and play, having a single place for your work-related tasks is a must. So pick your method of choice, and start consolidating. It can be anywhere: a handwritten list inside your trusty planner, a document you keep on your desktop or an app on your phone.

Make sure, however, that you can add to your list from anywhere—which means that if you use a desktop app, you’ll want to set up a system to capture to-dos incurred away from your computer, such as assignments you get while in a meeting. I personally like to write these down on sticky notes, and then delete or toss them once I’ve transferred them to the master list.

2. Follow the 1-3-5 Rule

Now that you have a comprehensive list of everything you have to do for work ever, you should define a daily to-do list. On any given day, assume that you can only accomplish one big thing, three medium things, and five small things. (Note: if you spend much of your day in meetings, you might need to revise this down a bit.) Before leaving work, take a few minutes to define your 1-3-5 for the next day, so you’re ready to hit the ground running in the morning. If your position is one where each day brings lots of unexpected tasks, try leaving one medium and two small tasks blank, in preparation for the last-minute requests from your boss.

Yes, I know it can be tough to narrow your list of to-dos down to 1-3-5—but it’s important to prioritize. Like it or not, you only have so many hours in the day and you’re only going to get a finite number of things done. Forcing yourself to choose a 1-3-5 list means the things you get done will be the things you chose to do—rather than what just happened to get done.

Planning ahead like this also means you’ll be able to have more informed conversations with your manager when he or she drops something new on you that needs to be done right away—as well as the tools to re-prioritize your other work. For example, when a surprise presentation falls on your lap, try: “Sure, I can get that to you by 3 PM, but the Q1 reports won’t be ready until tomorrow then, since I’d scheduled to work on that today.”

3. Complete One Significant Task Before Lunch (Your Least Favorite One, if Possible)

I’ll admit that this one is tough for me, but it works. Take one of your big or medium tasks and tackle it first thing in the morning, before email even if you can. There’s no better feeling than crossing off a tough task before lunch. Author Brian Tracy calls this ”eating your frog,” adapted from the famous Mark Twain quote: “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

My co-founder, Kathryn, often defines her “frogs” in the evening to prepare for the next day; with that, she’s prepared to tackle them in the morning, and it keeps her from pushing off less pleasant tasks for many days.

4. Use Your Calendar as a To-Do list

If you find that you always overestimate how much you can get done in a day, an effective approach is to put your to-dos on your calendar, just like a meeting. Rather than outlining your daily to-dos onto a list, schedule them, leaving enough time each. Sending in your W2 confirmation information to HR might take 15 minutes, while preparing the Q1 strategy for your team may require a few hours. The important thing is to be realistic.

Lifehacker, a favorite site of mine, put it best:

Most people don’t schedule their work. They schedule the interruptions that prevent their work from happening. In the case of a business like ours, what clients pay us to make and do happens in the cracks between meetings, or worse, after business hours.”

When you try this approach, also make sure you block time in your calendar for catching up on email, brainstorming, or other important-but-not-deliverable-oriented tasks. For example, try blocking an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon to work through your inbox—and then don’t spend time in between trying to handle emails the minute they come in, when you’d really planned to be working on something else.

5. Reduce Meetings to Increase Productive Time

Finally, if you find you really can’t get done what you think you should be able to in a day, despite all the advice above—consider whether you might be suffering from meeting-itis.

As economist John Kenneth Galbraith once said, “meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.” In fact, multiple surveys done on the subject reached similar conclusions that somewhere between a quarter and half of the time spent in meetings is a waste, not to mention, you can’t really get your other to-dos done while you’re sitting down talking to someone else.

The solution: Limit your meetings. Before scheduling a meeting, think about if this could be resolved with an email or phone call first, or by popping into someone’s office for a few minutes. If a meeting is required, list the key agenda items to determine the necessary participants and the shortest amount of time you can schedule. And yes, it’s totally OK to schedule a 20-minute meeting, no need to round to 30! If you must have meetings, try to group them together to leave large uninterrupted periods of time during your day for the real work to get done.

Yes, reorganizing and planning ahead are both investments upfront—but just think how happy you’ll be when you actually get a full day’s to-do list crossed off. So get yourself organized, get all your to-dos in one place, minimize your distractions, and start conquering that (one-day-sized) list!

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/dailymuse/2013/02/10/why-you-never-finish-your-to-do-lists-at-work-and-how-to-change-that/

Unpredictable investment and job markets are rough on retirement planning. They also complicate the issue of how much life insurance is right for you.

Standard formulas — such as buying coverage equal to eight to ten times your annual income — are inadequate shortcuts. Online calculators are apt to tell you to raise your coverage by $1 million even if you already have insurance. The truth is that life insurance is a personal affair. Two couples may earn equal salaries, but it’s silly to say that someone with four young children should have the same coverage as empty nesters with no mortgage and a substantial retirement fund.

Low inflation and a recovering stock market may tempt you to low-ball your life-insurance needs. But other financial realities, such as puny yields on reinvested lump-sum benefits, may require that you have more coverage, not less. And you’ll likely experience life events that call for changes in your insurance: marriage, parenthood, homeownership, college expenses and retirement. Instead of relying on rules of thumb, you’re better off taking a systematic approach to figuring your life-insurance needs. That’s easier than it sounds, as you’ll see from the following process, because it “truly is an art as well as a science,” says Tim Maurer, a financial planner in Hunt Valley, Md., and coauthor of The Financial Crossroads (Companion, $25).

A simple strategy.  The purpose of life insurance is to allow your family members to pay the bills and live their lives as planned despite your absence. That’s why some experts and most online calculators sponsored by the insurance industry seek to figure the chunk of investment capital it would take to replace all of your income for 20 years or longer, held securely in Treasury or municipal bonds and certificates of deposit. With savings yields low and the prospect of longer life expectancies in retirement, this approach tends to aim high, especially if you assume raises and promotions. “You can find people who are extremely minimalist with insurance recommendations,” says Maurer. “But I see an overabundance of people who end up justifying more insurance than I think is reasonable.

Instead, he offers a simple strategy to calculate how much coverage to buy and to form a plan that’s easy to update. The idea is to assess whether you need extra coverage or different policies only after you project your life-insurance needs as the sum of four categories.

Final expenses.  A funeral, burial and related expenses tend to cost $10,000 to $20,000. Your beneficiaries may be able to get the tax-free proceeds from insurance faster than if they waited for money from your estate. Use $15,000 as a ballpark number.

Mortgages and other debts.  Total your mortgage balance, car loans, student loans and any other debts that would be a heavy burden on your survivors. They may choose not to retire the mortgage, especially if the interest rate is low, but the money should be available so that they won’t face the prospect of being forced to sell.

Education expenses.  This calculation can be tricky because you need to consider the cost of college at the time your kids enroll. But Maurer devised a simple solution. College costs have been rising by about 5% a year, which is the same rate he conservatively expects life-insurance proceeds to grow over time. He recommends looking up current costs for colleges you’re considering, deciding whether you want the insurance to cover all or a portion of the tab, and adding the amount in today’s dollars to your life-insurance calculation.

Income replacement.  Once you cover funeral expenses, debts and education, your family won’t need to replace 100% of your income — and that’s where the art part of the calculation comes in. Maurer recommends covering 50% of current pretax earnings until retirement. You can translate this into a target lump-sum benefit by dividing it by 0.05. For example, if you earn $100,000, divide $50,000 by 0.05, which works out to $1 million. That assumes the insurance benefits will earn 5% a year over the long haul, a conservative back-of-the-envelope figure.

Add all four categories to estimate how much life insurance is appropriate, then tweak the number to reflect personal circumstances. You might increase it if you don’t have a pension, but you could decrease your coverage if your spouse earns a substantial salary. If you or a family member has a troublesome medical history, add $100,000 or even $250,000. If you’re the one with the medical condition, you’ll find it tough to buy additional coverage later at a price you can afford.

For most families, this exercise will work out to an amount in the high six-figures, possibly even $1 million or more. But don’t be frightened. With term insurance, boosting your death benefit by hundreds of thousands of dollars should cost just a few hundred dollars a year.

For example, a healthy 40-year-old male nonsmoker might be considering a 20-year, $500,000 term policy for $360 per year. But he could buy $850,000 of coverage for $576, or a $1-million policy for $645, says Byron Udell, owner of AccuQuote, which represents dozens of life insurers. Women pay less — just $311 per year for $500,000 in coverage and $558 for $1 million. It’s not as easy as it used to be to qualify for the absolute lowest rates. You can get prices from dozens of companies at www.accuquote.com or www.lifequotes.com .

The time factor.  Also consider how many years you’ll need insurance. If you’re in fine physical shape, you can buy a new policy and lock in the price for 20 years. Because prices for term have been dropping steadily, you may not pay much more to extend your coverage if you reshop in, say, five years.

Some term policies come with the right to convert to permanent life insurance, which you can keep for the rest of your life regardless of health. Premiums will be higher than for term at the beginning, but they usually remain level indefinitely. The best reason to consider whole-life or universal-life insurance isn’t the accumulating cash value, although that’s part of the deal. The real issue is whether you’ll need coverage beyond 20 or 30 years — or after age 65, when term gets expensive. You might want permanent insurance, for example, if you need to protect kids with special needs who will always rely on you (or your estate) for support, or if you want to leave money to a school, charity or your children and you don’t expect to afford it any other way.

You need more life insurance if you…

Tie the Knot.  Your new spouse might depend on you even if he or she earns as much or more than you do.

Have a Child.  It takes a lot of money to raise a child–and it doesn’t get any cheaper if you’re not around.

Buy Your Dream House.  When you settle into your family’s permanent home, guard against its loss in case tragedy strikes.

Are About to Retire  No more insurance from work. If you die, your spouse could lose pension and some Social Security income.

Term vs. permanent: Get the best of both

Term insurance is popular because almost everyone can afford plenty of it. Some young people buy the amount of permanent insurance that fits their budget, rather than the protection they need. That’s not smart.

But it can make sense to combine term and permanent insurance with multiple policies or by buying a convertible-term policy and making a series of conversions over the years. One advantage of a convertible-term policy is that insurers don’t require a new medical exam when you make the conversions. That essentially gives you a pass if you gain weight, develop high blood pressure or even survive a bout with cancer.

Northwestern Mutual Life provided this example for a 27-year-old man who starts by paying $317 for $500,000 of term insurance, and then gradually converts it to whole life $100,000 at a time. If you shift $100,000 to whole-life at age 28, your annual premium would jump to $1,300. If you shift another $100,000 at age 31, your premium would rise to $2,600. Your premium would gradually increase whenever you shift money to the whole-life policy, topping out at $7,200 at age 40, for the entire $500,000 of whole-life insurance.

As long as the insurer remains strong and solvent, the policy’s cash value will rise every year, as will the death benefit. By age 65, in this example, the benefit is projected to be $990,000 and the cash value $475,000, which can be borrowed, withdrawn or tapped to keep the policy in force without paying additional premiums.

This kind of flexibility is attractive to Nirmal Bivek, a 32-year-old banker in Atlanta, who bought slightly more than $1 million in life-insurance coverage when his 3-year-old daughter, Sarina, was born. Bivek has already converted some of the coverage to whole life and expects to convert more of it as his income grows.

He added more insurance when he and his wife, Vijal, were expecting a second child and when they bought a vacation home. “I’m in good health now and term is cheap,” says Bivek, “so I’m buying as much as I can now and converting it over time.”

Source: http://www.kiplinger.com/article/insurance/T034-C000-S002-how-much-life-insurance-do-you-need.html

KFDA – NewsChannel 10 / Amarillo News, Weather, Sports

Many area businesses are looking into providing health insurance whether or not they’re required to under the Affordable Health Care Act.

Local health insurance agents say around 80% of area businesses are considering offering health insurance to their employees.

Businesses with 50 workers or more are required. This type will receive some tax benefits. Meaning they can deduct certain insurance expenses from their taxes.

Businesses exempt who decide to offer coverage anyway, will get a tax credit. NC&W Insurance Agent Manager Richard Walton says, “Especially around here, most people don’t want to pay a penalty to the government. They’d rather take that money and offer some sort of benefit to their employees. And there’s tax benefits for them too. You’re not going to get any sort of tax benefits on paying a penalty to the government.”

Some businesses who are currently offering coverage are finding ways to continue despite increasing costs. Amarillo’s Colonial Life District Manager Helen Rodriguez Burton says, “What they’re doing is they’re raising their deductibles. So let’s say last year they had a $3,000 deductible. They’re raising it to $5,000 this year. Putting in what’s called a gap plan, an indemnity plan. And being able to offset some of the expenses with that plan.”

This agent says they’re lowering their co-insurance from 80-20 to a 70-30 and even a 60-40 so they can keep the costs down.

Insurance plans could average around $200 to $400 per employee, but it depends on the group. Walton says, “You have to consider, you know, the gender. And just your population of employees. How old they are, are they smokers, are they healthy, or not healthy.”

Those required but choose instead to pay a penalty are looking at up to $3,000 in fines for each employee annually.

Source:  Jessica Abuchaibe, NewsChannel 10                       http://www.newschannel10.com/story/20618712/health-insurance-changes

Effective Jan. 1, the Texas Department of Insurance Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) approved new forms to help employers meet requirements for reporting coverage status and providing notice to employees. Texas law requires employers to notify employees if they carry workers’ compensation insurance, including a written notice of coverage or non-coverage to new employees when they are hired. In addition, a new employee must be provided written notice of the employee’s right to individually reject workers’ compensation benefits and retain his or her common law right to recover damages for personal injury. This notice must be provided within five days after beginning employment or within five days after receiving written notice that the employer has obtained coverage. View the DWC “Reminder” to covered employers.  All required forms and sample language for required notices are available on the DWC Main Forms page.

If you have questions on your Worker’ Comp policy or need information on establishing Worker’ Comp for you company please call, 806-376-6301.

Source: David Surles Contributing Editor for IIAT