Rabu, 21 November 2012
Thanksgiving Safety Tips from NFPA
THANKSGIVING SAFETY TIPS
The kitchen is the heart of the home, especially at Thanksgiving. Kids love to be involved in holiday preparations. Safety in the kitchen is important, especially on Thanksgiving Day when there is a lot of activity and people at home.
Safety tips:
•Stay in the kitchen when you are cooking on the stovetop so you can keep an eye on the food.
•Stay in the home when cooking your turkey and check on it frequently.
•Keep children away from the stove. The stove will be hot and kids should stay 3 feet away.
•Make sure kids stay away from hot food and liquids. The steam or splash from vegetables, gravy or coffee could cause serious burns.
•Keep the floor clear so you don’t trip over kids, toys, pocketbooks or bags.
•Keep knives out of the reach of children.
•Be sure electric cords from an electric knife, coffee maker, plate warmer or mixer are not dangling off the counter within easy reach of a child.
•Keep matches and utility lighters out of the reach of children — up high in a locked cabinet.
•Never leave children alone in room with a lit a candle.
•Make sure your smoke alarms are working. Test them by pushing the test button
Selasa, 03 Juli 2012
Fourth of July Safety Tips
By Hank Bernstein, D.O., Harvard Health Publications
Each year, especially during the early summer weeks around the Fourth of July, thousands of people are treated in emergency departments for fireworks-related injuries. While some are minor, many of these injuries are serious, for example, resulting in burns or blindness. In 2008, seven deaths from fireworks-related injuries were reported; perhaps these could have been prevented.
- Never allow children to touch fireworks of any kind, including sparklers even after they have "gone off". It can be hot, or even explosive and debris from fireworks can be extremely dangerous.
- Older teens should only be allowed to use fireworks under close adult supervision.
- Fireworks must never be used while drinking alcohol or using other drugs.
- Obey all local laws.
- If allowed in your area and you choose to do so, buy fireworks only from reliable sellers.
- Store fireworks in a dry, cool place.
- Only use fireworks outdoors and always have a good amount of water close by (a garden hose and a bucket), in case of emergency.
- Read and follow label directions.
- Light only one firework at a time.
- Never hold any part of your body directly over the firework while lighting it.
- Be sure all other people are out of range before lighting fireworks.
- Never throw or point fireworks at anyone.
- Never light fireworks in a container, especially a metal or glass container.
- Never light fireworks near a house or building, dry leaves or grass, or any other materials that can catch on fire.
- Never re-light a "dud" firework. Instead, wait 15 to 20 minutes, then soak it in a bucket of water and throw it away.
Rabu, 04 April 2012
Protect Your Phone's Data with a Passcode
Do you have a passcode on your iPhone or Android device? If not it is recommended as phones can easily be miss placed or stolen. A passcode to get into your device will help keep your information private and secure. Many personal and business phones have apps on them that hold a lot of important personal information. That information in the wrong hands can be dangerous and because of this we have three steps we recommend in helping protect your phone.Kamis, 22 Desember 2011
Safe Travels this Holiday!
The Holidays are in full swing and with Christmas just a couple of days away; many have already started their Holiday travels. Being the insurance people that we are, here are a few tips for a safe and secure season of travel. 4) Don’t skimp on heat in your home: This time last year our big recommendation in our “Traveling Over the Holiday” blog article was to keep the heat in your house at a reasonable level so your pipes don’t freeze. Again, we recommend this.
Those are just a few simple tips. We here at Fey Insurance hope you have a wonderful Holiday and Merry Christmas
Jumat, 04 November 2011
Alternate Source of Home Heating
Finally, having a working smoke alarm dramatically increased your chances of surviving a fire. Always remember to practice a hoe escape plan frequently with your family.
Source: US Fire Association
Kamis, 27 Oktober 2011
Home Security Alarm (re post)
On a daily basis you see ads on TV for home security systems. We at Fey Insurance highly recommend the installation of a Home Security System to add additional protection for you and your family. Insurance will work to put your property back in place after a fire or burglary, but a Home Security System will work to prevent or minimize the effects of that fire or burglary. If you are interested in such a Home Security System, please call us and we will tell you our opinion of the various manufacturers and what features to consider. For example battery backups are usually included in Home Security Systems, but we would also recommend cellular backups for your system in the event your normal phone service goes down or even disabled by a potential burglar. We would include carbon monoxide detectors in your system especially if you have a natural gas furnace or hot water heater. Central station monitoring is preferable to systems that go directly into a police or fire dispatch. Both are considered superior to a system that only sounds a local alarm in your home. There are discounts on your Homeowner policy for the installation of a Home Security System. Please call us to review those discounts. But the most important reason, in our opinion, to install such a system is for additional security for your family and peace of mind that you are doing everything to protect your family and your property.Kamis, 13 Oktober 2011
Fire Prevention Week
Kamis, 29 September 2011
Be Cautious When Using Smart Devices
Most corporate security types say the biggest issues involve personal mobile devices use to "hack" into corporate servers and data bases. Data encryption and passwords are highly recommended along with the ability to wipe out data from a Smartphone or tablet issued by the company. The latter can be extremely helpful in the event a personal Smartphone is stolen, and the corporate IT people want to wipe the phone of all secure access information remotely. Some corporations allow access to company data through personal mobile devices but only with devices that were provided by the corporation. Some corporations are requiring employees to register personal devices with corporate security/data processing so they can control how their corporate data is being accessed. All of these precautions are highly recommended by Fey Insurance.
It isn't just the business world that faces possible problems with personal smart phones, iPads, etc. accessing data. Accessing your personal and private financial information via Smartphone, iPads, etc can also be an issue. Many people have their banking applications on their devices as well as applications that have all their stored passwords. A lost device could result in access to your personal bank accounts and do a lot of financial damage. Password protecting your devices is key. The more passwords and protection you employ the better in protecting you and your family from potential financial ruin. Apple iPhones have tracking capabilities so if your phone is lost you can use your personal computer or another iPhone to track its location. They also allow you to wipe the phones clean of all data and make them useless to anyone who might find the lost phone and want to cause serious problems with your data.
If you have further questions, consult your Smartphone or table manufacturer, your phone service carrier or your corporate IT/security people for help.
Kamis, 21 Juli 2011
Our 100th Blog Post!
Our hope is that you have enjoyed the 99 other posts and found some information that was helpful in each one. For the years to come we will continue to add helpful content so that our clients and readers can enjoy a safe and protected life.
Rabu, 29 Juni 2011
Child Booster Seats
The institute for Highway Safety has provided a method to take much of the guesswork out of selecting the proper booster seat for your child. Seat belts are designed with adults in mind- so a child booster seat is an absolute necessity, and extra care needs to be taken when securing young children.
Children usually resist wearing a seatbelt because it is uncomfortable. Boosters elevate children so that the safety belts installed in the vehicles by manufacturers will fit the child better. The booster seat allows the lap belt to fit properly over the child’s thighs and not their abdomen. The shoulder belt should fit across the middle of the child’s shoulder. Not only will the belt be more comfortable, it will provide maximum protection in a crash.
The institute’s researchers used a specially designed test dummy configured as a 6 year old child. The researchers determined the effectiveness of how a 3-point lap and shoulder belt fit the dummy under a range of configurations representing many different automobile models. Based on a range of scores, a booster seat rating was assigned to each seat.
Rabu, 15 Juni 2011
Kidproof
The temptations and dangers to today’s children are unfortunately ever growing. The news will attest to this with stories of abductions, kidnapping, facebook driven depressions, internet bullying, etc. It is important that kids and parents today be proactive against such dangers. Being in the business of risk management we are always looking for ways to mitigate and avoid risk. One way to do this when it comes to kid’s safety is through courses put on by Kidproof. Kidproof is an organization that puts on safety courses for children. The courses are geared toward kids ages 5 to mid teens. Some examples of their courses are:
Cybersafe which teaches kids how to safely use the internet. They teach them how to see warning signs and unsafe situations online.
Another course is all about avoiding being bullied or how to deal appropriately with a bully. The course is called Bully Proofing.
Their most popular class is the Babysitter Training course. This course helps kids develop the skills needed to take care of other children.
Knowledge and education are always a good defense against certain dangers. Kidproof’s classes are a great way for parents to help make children aware and educated on today’s dangers. Visit www.kidproofsaftey.com today.
Kidproof is always looking to expand to help get the word out to parents in different communities in
Sabtu, 14 Mei 2011
Your Facebook Password
Infoworld reports potential issues with Facebook users' personal information and recommend changing your password...
"Symantec Tuesday warned that advertisers, analytic platforms, and other third parties may be able to access Facebook users' personal information using inadvertently leaked application tokens. The security company advised Facebook users to change their passwords on the social networking site in order protect their accounts from being mined.
Facebook said it has fixed a year-old flaw, reported by Symantec, that caused iframe applications to inadvertently leak access tokens. Those tokens can be used maliciously to get at users' profiles, photographs, and chats, as well as for posting messages -- which could include links to malware sites -- to their Facebook pages.
Facebook's fix, however, has only stopped the leak; the aforementioned tokens still reside in log files of third-party servers or are still being actively used by advertisers. Symantec estimated that as of April of this year, close to 100,000 applications were enabling the leakage: "We estimate that over the years, hundreds of thousands of applications may have inadvertently leaked millions of access tokens to third parties.
"Concerned Facebook users can change their Facebook passwords to invalidate leaked access tokens. Changing the password invalidates these tokens and is equivalent to 'changing the lock' on your Facebook profile," according to Symantec.
Details of how the leak works is viewable in Symantec's blog."
Kamis, 07 April 2011
Protecting Your Customer's Sensitive Information
Companies should develop a written information security plan that describes, among other things, the specific ways their employees should protect consumer information.
Sloppy handling of personal and identifying information can be devastating to a small business. A breach of security of this information can lead to personal identification theft of customers, and can open the company up to liability. The loss of reputation alone can destroy an otherwise successful company. So how can your company take steps to protect your customer’s information? Here are five steps that you might consider implementing:
1. Create a paper trail that documents your operations. Once you know where the trail starts and ends, you can analyze each step and develop a plan ensuring security of information. Limit access to sensitive data when possible and dispose of sensitive documents by shredding.
2. Electronic data should be protected with passwords and encryption.
3. If you use third-party services in the process of taking care of your customers, make sure they adhere to strict privacy standards. Ask for a copy of their privacy guidelines.
4. Regularly communicate with employees regarding your company’s privacy activities. Reference compliance within your employee handbook.
5. Have a plan to guide you if there is a breach of security. Know who to contact, what data to protect and how long it should take to plug the gap. You should also have a plan for notifying affected customers in the event of a breach.
Kamis, 31 Maret 2011
Secure Data with Dropbox
I recently posted an article about data loss and the risk of losing hard to restore information from your computer. In the article it was mentioned that we would share a few more specific examples of ways to protect your computer data from total loss. One example of securing your data and backing it up is a service called Dropbox. Dropbox is a cloud like program. This means that all your computer data is safely secured on different Dropbox servers throughout the country as well as on your personal computer. If your personal computer ever suffered a hard drive crash, was stolen or was damaged in a fire all you would need to do is replace your computer and download all your data from the Dropbox servers. You can do 2GB of storage for free or pay $9.99 a month for 50GB of storage. If 50GB is still not enough you can pay $19.99 a month for 100GB of storage.When you install Dropbox on your computer it creates a folder that you can copy and past your files into. You can copy and past document, video, music files, etc. When you place these items into the Dropbox folder on your computer it then syncs the information with the Dropbox servers via an internet connection. If you have multiple devices like iPads, iPhones or if everyone in your family has a different laptop you can all share one account and load each device’s information into the same Dropbox account. It then syncs and backs up all devices. This also allows you to access each others information from any device via the Dropbox folder on your computer, mobile device or even a special website that is created for each account. Not only does it back up and secure your information it also makes it easier to access from anywhere.
Kamis, 17 Februari 2011
Host Liquor Liability
Over the next several months there will be many reasons for businesses and individuals to host events and parties where alcohol may be served. Businesses may have happy hours for celebrations such as Mardi Gras, March Madness, St. Patrick’s Day, and Cinco De Mayo where they will be providing alcohol for employees or customers. Individuals may use the same reason to have friends and family over to celebrate and consume alcohol. Taking my party hat off for just a moment and putting my risk management/insurance hat on, let me discuss something called Host Liquor Liability. This is a coverage that often is part of a Commercial General Liability (CGL) policy and also included in homeowner policies as long as the individual and/or businesses are not in the occupation of making, selling or distributing of alcohol for money (meaning bars, distilleries, wineries, restaurants, etc. would have a different coverage simply called Liquor Liability). Host Liquor Liability is a coverage to help protect in cases where injuries happen because of alcohol incidents. One common example would be a participant is driving drunk and as a result crashes and injures people in an auto accident. Wherever the drunk driver last consumed alcohol could find themselves facing a lawsuit for injuries that were caused by the driver. They could be pulled into the situation because it was at their event and under their supervision that this driver consumed alcohol and then got behind the wheel intoxicated and drove off.
So here is one key thing about host liquor liability that all your employees, customers and/or friends and family will like to hear: if you are going to have an event with alcohol you are best to give it away. If at your event money changes hands and people are then able to consume alcohol you would have violated the no making, selling or distributing of alcohol for money rule. If you are having alcohol at a charity event the alcohol would have to be donated for the event or have a very good paper trail showing that none of the moneys collected to get in the event went toward the purchase of alcohol. Now, if your event is going to have a cash bar you will need to look into purchasing two items. The first is a temporary liquor license from the state and the second is a Liquor Liability insurance policy. Both of those can be costly and time consuming to acquire so your best bet is to just give it away… and be more popular with your employees, customers, friends and family.
Rabu, 22 Desember 2010
Safe Travels this Holiday!
The Holidays are in full swing and with Christmas just a couple of days away; many have already started their 1) Make your home seem like someone is still there. You can do this several ways. Leave your front and back porch lights on so that at night your house is lit up. Ask a neighbor to collect your mail while you are gone so it doesn’t stack up. You can also ask the post office to hold if for you until you get back. Another way to make it look like you are home is to ask a neighbor to pull in and out of your driveway at some point if it snows giving the appearance that you have been in and out of your house.
2) Don’t show off to the Facebook world that you are on vacation. I know this can be tough for some but letting everyone know you are out of town on Facebook can be dangerous. We recommend waiting until you get home from your trip before you post vacation pictures.
3) Car travelers should be prepared for heavy snow at all times. The best way to do this is to make sure you have extra blankest, windshield washer fluid, ice scrapers and even a small shovel. You never know when you might need any of those things. Also, be sure to have your phone charged during the trip so that you have it in case of an emergency.
4) Don’t skimp on heat in your home: This time last year our big recommendation in our “Traveling Over the Holiday” blog article was to keep the heat in your house at a reasonable level so your pipes don’t freeze. Again, we recommend this.
Those are just a few simple tips. We here at Fey Insurance hope you have a wonderful
Kamis, 11 November 2010
Online Backup Programs

1) Of the 700 million computers in the world, about 10% will crash each day.
2) 50% of the business who did not have a back up of their files will never reopen in the event a main computer or server crashes.
3) Only 6% of internet users actually back up their data on a daily basis.
The best way to avoid becoming one of the tragedies is to invest in an Online Backup program. For home use there are a number to choose from such as Mozy, Carbonite, IDrive, MiMedia, Norton Online Backup, SOS Online Backup and others. Presently they are easy to setup and once in operation they will all automatically backup any changes you make to your computer's files without you having to do a thing.
Depending on the size of your computer's hard drive and the speed of your Internet access, the initial backup can take some time. It can range from a few hours, to days or even a full week. If you have a lot of digital photographs on your computer, you could be looking at a week or so for the initial backup. But once the initial backup is established, the Online Backup will do incremental backups only on files which have changed or new files added since the last backup. Those incremental backups will run fairly quickly. Before deciding if Online Backups for home or business are for you, consider what the ramifications would be if you lost all of your personal photos or all of your business records in a computer crash.
Rabu, 15 September 2010
Cincinnati to have a Ban on Texting While Driving
On Wednesday Sept 8th
You can still use your phone to make calls and you can still use portable GPS Navigation Systems. One thing to make note of on the GPS devices is that you are only allowed to input information into the device if the vehicle is not moving and is out of the way of traffic. The extra stipulation on use of GPS Systems leads me to believe you can be pulled over for inputting data into the device while you are still driving.
Our
Rabu, 04 Agustus 2010
Vehicle Title Transfer
Several times a month our Oxford and Cincinnati insurance office receive calls from customers telling us to delete a car from their policy because they had just sold the vehicle. We always make sure to ask if this transaction was done between two individuals or if they sold it to a dealership. When we learn that it was sold to another individual we always offer a word of caution about deleting the insurance on the vehicle right away. A normal vehicle sale transaction consists of the current owner signing over the title to the purchaser of the vehicle. Once the title is signed over to the purchaser the purchaser goes to the Clerk of Courts in that county and has the title officially transferred into their name. As everyone who has had to go to the Clerk of Courts for one reason or another knows, sometime it is difficult to carve out time in your day to make it to the county office and wait in line. This is the type of "To Do" item that many would put off or not have time to do for several days. This putting off going to the Clerk of Courts to transfer a vehicle's title can cause a small problem for the person who had just sold and signed over the title. Technically until the title is officially switched over to the purchaser the liability for the vehicle can still fall back on the seller.
Our Oxford insurance office once had a claim on a vehicle that our client had signed over to another individual two years earlier. However, the purchaser never went and officially switched over the title and our insured was pulled into a claim on the vehicle two years later because his name was technically still on the title.
So next time you have a private sale of a vehicle be sure to follow up with the purchaser and make sure they have switched over the title prior to calling and deleting any insurance coverage on the car.
Jumat, 16 Juli 2010
Driving Drowsy

A 2008 study, taken from the Annals of Internal Medicine, suggest that some antihistamines may impair driving ability, even more than alcohol. The driver doesn’t even have to feel drowsy.
Forty study participants, when given diphenhydramine and an amount of alcohol to boost their blood alcohol level to .10 (legally impaired in most states), tested worse in a driving simulator when under the influence of antihistamine than under the influence of alcohol. A newer non-sedating antihistamine, Allegra, did not affect driving any more than the placebo given in a blind test screen.
The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America estimates there are 50 million allergy sufferers in the
If you have taken antihistamines, ask your doctor if a non-sedative prescription will work for you.


