​It’s tax time, and for hackers, it’s their favorite time of the year.

With the amount of personal and financial information traveling through cyberspace, there are plenty of opportunities for them to steal personally identifiable information (PII), tax refunds and other personal details about taxpayers.

Insurance needs change as circumstances in your clients' lives change, which is why an annual insurance review is recommended by the Insurance Information Institute.  When you’re reviewing insurance coverage, these 10 questions can help insurance professionals and their clients figure out whether they may need to make a change to coverage:



1. Have you gotten married or divorced?

If you have gotten married, you may qualify for a discount on your auto insurance. Couples may bring two cars into the relationship and two different auto insurance companies, so take the opportunity to review your existing coverage and see which company offers the best combination of price and service. If you are merging two households, you may need to update your homeowners' insurance. And you may want to consider increasing your insurance for any new valuables received, such as wedding gifts, and for jewelry, such as wedding and engagement rings. After getting married, it is important to review your life insurance needs. If one spouse is not working, he or she might be dependent on the working spouse’s income; if so, reviewing life and disability insurance coverage is prudent.  The spouse who is not working outside the home should also consider having a separate life insurance policy because, in the event of premature death, the services he or she provides for the household would need to be replaced, and that could prove costly to the surviving spouse.

Maintaining adequate homeowner's insurance is a vital part of owning a residence and your homeowner's policy should be chosen carefully. This Financial Guide discusses the policy provisions to consider when deciding which homeowner's insurance policy to buy to be sure that your home is adequately insured and that you are getting the most insurance value for your money.

Table of Contents

• What Homeowner's Insurance Generally Covers
• Policy Coverage To Consider
• Shopping For A Policy
• Glossary
• Inventory of Belongings

This Financial Guide offers guidance about homeowner's insurance such as what questions to ask your insurance broker or agent and how to find the best insurer for your needs. It also explains why you need to keep a list of personal possessions and provides a homeowner's inventory sheet for you to use to make a list of your belongings, as well as offers useful tips on how to qualify for a discount and helps you purchase the policy that best fits your needs at an affordable price.

There is a growing awareness that good land use and planning can do much to reduce the impact of natural catastrophes. Communities that understand the risks they face and mitigate those risks become resilient and can experience sustainable outcomes when affected by natural hazards.

Around the world many communities are working hard to become more resilient, but 85 percent of people exposed to natural catastrophes live in developing countries where it can be challenging to achieve good land use and planning. Continued property development is inevitable, and the worth of the exposure at risk will rise. Only increased resilience can temper the impact of natural disasters. Related: 12 ways the U.S. is using nature to protect against natural disasters The root cause of a disaster that can occur after a natural event is the underlying vulnerability in human systems, not the natural hazards that expose them. Many land-use choices can be significant factors in their effect. Deforestation, for example, can increase the risk of landslides and flooding. The biggest effects, however, arise from our desires to congregate in towns and cities.

The below was taken from a newsletter I receive from CFO of the state of Florida.
Lets help keep our colleges safe.

Dear Fellow Floridians:
Many of our newsletter readers are parents; many are parents of current college students. As all parents know, the job of watching over your children never ends -- no matter how old they get. As the father of four beautiful children, one currently in college, I understand the feeling firsthand.

September is Campus Fire Safety Month, and it offers us a wonderful opportunity to speak to our own students and students across Florida about the importance of fire safety on campus.

What does a conversation about fire safety sound like? For starters, do you know if your student has a fire extinguisher in his/her dorm room or apartment? If so, do they know how to use it? Do they know how to get out of a building using a route other than the elevator? These sound like simple questions, but they are very important ones to ask.

Welcome to our new insurance agency blog!
 
This is our very first post. We're not quite sure what we're going to write about here, but the plan is to create helpful content for customers and prospective clients about information that is relevant to you.
 
We hope you'll come to view this as a top resource for keeping your family and your finances safe.
 
Here are a few of the topics we may be writing about:

• Answers to clients' frequently asked questions.
  
• Helpful information about insurance shopping.
• Safety and Health Tips and Ideas.
• Local Community Information.
  

Stay Tuned!