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Home Insurance Quotes: Blizzard Preparation Tips

Your home is your biggest investment, and just like any other investment, it's important to take the right steps to protect your home. During the winter, a blizzard can be devastating to a home and its occupants if you're not properly prepared for the upcoming storm. Here are some tips to get your home and your family ready for that next big cold front headed your way and to help you save on home insurance expenses, avoiding extra payments.

Stock Up

If you live in an area where winter storms and blizzards are common, and especially if they're often accompanied by power outages, you should get into the practice of stocking up on necessities. Canned goods and dry goods for sustenance, bottled water for drinking and other items that may be vital during a blackout (like flashlights and fresh batteries) should all be stored somewhere safe and easily accessible. Lighters or matches are another must-have, and don't forget a manual can opener.

Stay Warm

Many people forget that if their electricity goes out, staying warm becomes a serious problem quickly. Be sure to have plenty of extra warm clothes and blankets on hand in case you lose your power. You should have some type of alternate heat source that's safe to use indoors; a wood-burning fireplace is ideal, as long as you have plenty of dry wood already stored inside. Make sure you have a lighter or some matchbooks stocked up as well.

Stay Close

Leaving the house for any reason during a winter storm is a bad idea. If you're caught out when a blizzard hits, look for shelter immediately and get off the road. It's smart to keep some of the same emergency supplies in your car as in your home in the event of a crisis: blankets, a heat source, some food and water, and emergency flares just in case.

Batten Down

Even in the most rural areas, your local news networks most likely warned you of the impending weather ahead of time. In order to prevent your home insurance quotes from going through the roof, prepare your house in advance from likely damage: cover your windows, block drafts coming in from around the doors, and make sure your roof, pipes and furnace are in good shape. If the power does go out and the house gets cold, leave a little water running to prevent your pipes from freezing, which could cause them to burst.

Practice Common Sense

Finally, use your best judgment to weather the storm. For example, although kids might be tempted to run outside and play during a lull in the storm, keep them inside and entertain them with crafts or art projects instead. Winter storms are unpredictable, and it's best to stay inside. Your best protection is to educate yourself ahead of time, and to be prepared with supplies and common sense once the storm does hit. Your best protection against increased home insurance quotes is to prevent as much damage to your home as possible during the storm, both inside and out, so take the proper precautions and try to stay safe and warm.

Looking at more deer related accidents

There you are, sitting comfortably behind the wheel, driving through the countryside as evening turns into night. You're probably thinking of putting your feet up when you get to your destination. Perhaps there's a bottle of beer or a glass of wine with your name on it. Then, in one of those heart-stopping moments, the headlights suddenly show you a deer in your path. It's one of these handsome beasts, big with antlers.

Unfortunately it's not moving out of your way and, in your heart you know it's got real mass. If you hit it head-on, there's going to be a lot of damage to the deer, to the vehicle and possibly to you. So you do your best to steer away. The majority of drivers do swerve round without anything more than an acute nervous reaction. Some vehicles roll over. This is a problem in vehicles with a higher center of gravity. Some hit trees or other stationary targets off the road. These crashes get messy.

The Highway Administration collects statistics on deer-related accidents and the trend is upward. Although many states have a herd management policy in place, controlling numbers is not an exact science, and numbers seem to have been rising steadily. Despite more signs going up to warn drivers in areas where there are herds, accident claims have been rising. Coming into Fall, this is one of the two times in the year when herds move around more. It's one of these migration patterns sparked by the reproduction cycle and, at this time of year, it reaches its peak in November. As the dinosaur movies say, nature finds a way.

You should keep a proper lookout when the risk is at its highest, between 6 and 9, if you want to avoid becoming a statistic and also if you want to prevent your own auto insurance costs from spiralling after a crash. This means having your headlights on high beam whenever possible and driving within the limits of what you can see. If you arrive safely, you earned that beer or glass of wine and can confidently wait for lower auto insurance quotes at renewal time.

Insurance for businesses and the role Colossus plays

Well, the roots of the name as applied here start during World War II with the very first computer used for code-breaking named Colossus after one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. We then move forward to 1965 when D F Jones published a science fiction novel about a computer taking over the world. A few years later in 1970, the movie industry jumped on the bandwagon and filmed the book (or at least took the idea from the book and made a movie about a supercomputer first dominating the US and Russia, and then exercising control over the world. The movie is famous for its last line which is that "...freedom is just an illusion." Well this is an example of reality following science fiction predictions with a sense of irony. Go back twenty years and you find small armies of human actuaries slaving away to calculate the risk of anyone making a claim for losses suffered. Once the rates had been set, another army of humans took to the field as claims adjusters. These humans did something that was unthinkable and met with those claiming, worked out a value for their claims and then sent their regional offices a recommended settlement figure.

Labor is usually the most expensive element in any industry's cost profile. In a service industry, it's always the biggest cost. So with the arrival of ever more reliable computers, the insurance industry set out to make as many human beings as possible redundant. After all, when you are handling trillions of dollars, the last thing you want to do is pay a math geniuses to calculate risks and few hundred humans to talk to the claimants. Now we have scoring models that use "secret" algorithms to estimate when policyholders are likely to file claims, and programs to manage claims. The head office now sets the profit target for the insurer by adjusting the percentage payable on claims. So how does this work?

Every activity that a business carries out is broken down into an average cost from the data that has been collected by the insurance industry. So if you have a traffic accident driving a particular make and model, the computer will know how much it costs to repair state by state. If you have a business interruption, the computer will also know what the average settlement is for a business of your type with a turnover close to yours.

These figures were all relevant in setting the premium rates, i.e. the estimated cost of all the losses was divided between all the insured. But suppose the computer instructed claims adjusters to settle at figures representing only 80% of those estimated figures. This would pay you less and generate immense profits for the insurer. At a time when business insurance rates have been rising faster than inflation, it's disconcerting to hear of the power exercised through the new Colossus. Yet this is reality. Claims are being squeezed while business insurance rates rise. In this case, it's the insurance industry that's coming into control of the world.