After a 21-month hiatus, we’re officially reopening the InsureMe Insurance Blog! We're rested and ready to entertain, inform and fulfill our mission: helping people find the right insurance.

Penny Hagerman and I (Jeb Foster) will be your faithful bloggers. Penny has been writing about insurance for years, and her friendly and clear writing style can make sense of even the toughest insurance concepts. (I’ll endeavor to do the same.) Read more about Penny and me here.

Our goal will be to provide advice and resources that will help you find the right auto, home, health, life or long-term care coverage. We’ll also occasionally provide handy tips on things unrelated to insurance, like say, how to save money on gas. Fridays will be dedicated to all things not-insurance. Because as riveting as this subject is, it’s good to take regular breaks.

Why a blog? And why insurance?
We’re glad you asked. You see, as we said earlier, InsureMe’s mission is to make it easy to find the right insurance. We do that mainly by helping people get free quotes from local insurance agents and carriers. But we also know that finding the right policy requires having the resources and information to make a smart decision. That’s why we provide free articles and guides, as well as this blog. (Also, we love that blogs allow for two-way communication, so please, leave your comments and questions.)

Will there be more videos?
For those of you who enjoyed or were moderately amused by our weekly videos (see past episodes here), we regret to say that we’ll be sticking to the written word for the foreseeable future. As much as we loved making the videos, our film guru, James Omdahl, and fearless anchor, Megan Mahan, are no longer with InsureMe. (Yes, it’s sad.)

How often will you update this blog?
We will post about 3-5 times per week. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on whether we’ve got some good, relevant stuff to share with you.

In the meantime, bookmark this page, add our feed to your RSS reader, and come back soon (and often)! Oh, and if you're looking to save on your insurance bills, get a free quote here.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Download one of our free Insurance Survival Guides
• Browse our Insurance Resource Center
• Watch a short video about InsureMe

Posted by Jeb Foster at 03:16 PM | Permalink
 

If you've browsed the video archives here on the Insurance Blog and are looking for more video goodness, head to over to the Agent Blog where the camera rolls on!

Yours in Cinematography,
The InsureMe A/V Crew

Posted by Megan Mahan at 04:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
 

And remember, InsureMe helps you find the Right Insurance.

Posted by James Omdahl at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
 

The Third and Final Installment in a Series on Home Winterization

Get your head in the gutter
Clean gutters prevent ice dams. Ice dams cause water to enter your house—never a good thing. While you’re cleaning, make sure your gutters are working properly—i.e., directing water away from your house. And remember: While you’re cleaning, use good ladder technique.

Duct, duct, duct…
A large percentage of the heat traveling through the ducts in our homes never reaches its final destination—the vents that channel heat to living rooms, bedrooms, etc. Because of cracks and poor insulation, a lot of heat is wasted warming places that don’t need warming, like the spaces between your walls and the outdoors. By giving your ducts some attention, you stand to save money and stay warm and toasty this winter.

Consider having a professional inspect your heating system’s ducts, filter, heat exchanger, pilot light and thermostat at the beginning of winter.

This MSN article suggests vacuuming ducts every few years—your lungs will thank you.

Check your carbon monoxide and smoke detectors, and fire extinguishers
I don’t think I need to go into specifics about these. Make sure that (a) you have all of these items, and (b) that they are in good working condition.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 08:33 AM | Permalink
 

The gift-giving, the decorations, the plethora of holiday cheer…the rampant criminal element. Not to be a buzz kill on your holiday celebrations. But as you exchange those presents and trim the tree, keep in mind that the number of burglaries increases during the holiday season.

To avoid being the victim of a holiday crime, just take a few simple precautions.

- When you go out, leave some lights or the television on so your house looks occupied.
- If you go out of town, splurge on automatic light timers, and ask the neighbors to pick up your mail and newspaper.
- Don’t advertise your holiday swag. Wait until garbage day to set your boxes on the curb.

The holiday season is also a good time to reassess your home insurance needs, namely theft endorsements and floaters for all those new, pricey possessions. If you give or receive jewelry, computer gadgets or fine art, you should probably discuss additional coverage with your insurer. An endorsement to your homeowners’ policy allows you to set a higher amount of coverage on certain personal items covered under your current home policy.

A personal articles floater covers purchases, like jewelry, for their full value, based on a receipt or appraisal. If you are storing expensive items in your car while shopping and they are stolen, they won’t be covered under your auto insurance. However, if you have adequate homeowners’ insurance with the appropriate add-ons, you may be reimbursed for a portion of the cost.

The lull after the holiday season is also a good time to update your home inventory. Ward off post-holiday blues by compiling a list of your new stuff. Don’t forget to keep receipts and to record as much information as possible. To simplify the process, download free, home inventory software from the Insurance Information Institute.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 08:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
 

Scary news via the Insurance Journal today: the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has released findings indicating that many arctic regions, including the North Pole, could be ice-free in summer months by the year 2040.

This new data was presented at the America's Geophysical Union fall meeting, which is currently underway in San Francisco, according to IJ. The NCAR indicated that the arctic ice is no longer being replenished in the winter months, not to the extent necessary to keep the "historic balance."

While an NCAR bulletin reported that the trend is likely to accelerate and create ice-free summers in the Arctic by 2040, the bulletin also stated that while some noticeable changes have already occurred, new data "suggests that the decrease over the next few decades could be far more dramatic than anything that has happened so far." The study's lead author, Marika Holland, called the changes "surprisingly rapid."

We've reported about the correlation between global warming and insurance rates before. While some climate experts have attributed global warming to the increase in hurricane severity in recent years, the new NCAR study shows us that folks on coasts may have more to worry about that increased home insurance costs.

An earlier NCAR study (2005) found that by the year 2100, Arctic summers may be "as warm as they were nearly 130,000 years ago, when sea levels eventually rose up to 20 feet higher than today." For low-lying cities, including metropolises like New York, Tokyo and London, the effects would be disastrous.

The silver lining? The NCAR report concluded that society can still minimize the impacts of Arctic melting ice.

Quick links:

The full Insurance Journal report

The NCAR study and information

Previous InsureMe post on global warming and insurance

Posted by Megan Mahan at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
 

Civil libertarians are groaning. Chefs are insecure. But, presumably, health insurers are happy with New York City’s recent ban on trans fat. Why? Because fewer of their premium-paying customers will check into the clinic for heart problems.

First the low-down on trans fat: It’s terrible for you. According to Wikipedia, eating it tempts coronary heart disease. It’s also associated with obesity, diabetes and liver dysfunction.

Citing the American Journal of Public Health, the Wikipedia entry on trans fat claims the substance is responsible for 30,000 deaths annually in the U.S.

The problem, though, is age-old: What’s bad for you also tastes great. Will New York’s fries and cookies taste as good after the ban? Perhaps not, although many maintain that trans fat isn’t as crucial to flavor as many think. (Read a great article in today’s New York Times about how chefs are coping with the new regulation.)

Trans fat occurs in some food naturally, but most of the trans fat we consume is the result on an artificial process called partial hydrogenation. Because of the economics of production and, ironically, the erroneous belief that the trans fats of margarine were healthier that the saturated ones of butter, fast food companies incorporated trans fat into their recipes in the 1960.

Knowledge of the health hazards has many fast food operations scrambling to alter their frying techniques, however. In 2003, the FDA decided to require food manufactures to come clean about their use of the stuff. New York City joins Denmark in imposing a blanket ban on the use of trans fat.

With the exception of their New York restaurants, McDonald’s (it’s weird to call McDonald’s restaurant, isn’t it?) hasn’t been able to kick the trans fat habit. They say removing the lethal substance would "jeopardize the iconic nature of [their] french fry.”

I suspect, though, that their fries will retain their iconic nature in the trans-fat-free Big Apple.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)