July 2014 Newsletter

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Insurance News You Can Use Newsletter July 2014

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Volume 4 Issue 7
July 1, 2014
DONOVAN INSURANCE SOLUTIONS
The Power of Inspiration b y P aul Donov an
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The Power of
Inspiration
1
The Link between
Auto Rates & Credit
Scores
2
Benefits Update 2
Encouragement
Chronicles
3
Movie Trivia 3
Catastrophes and
Soft Markets
4
Headline News 4
Inside this issue:
The world is full of discouragers, it’s almost at epidemic proportions. It’s easy to
laugh at people’s ideals, to pour cold water on their enthusiasm, and dampen
spirits. Dale Carnegie once said, “You have it easily within your power to increase
the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of
sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will
forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them
over a lifetime.” Every person has had a moment in their life when they were sad
or down from an experience. That certainly has been true in my life and probably in
yours. Thankfully, many of us can look back at a parent, teacher, friend, coach, or mentor that
spoke a special word of encouragement to us at just the right moment. For some of us, that word
was infused into us as a challenge. Then the challenge became the fuel for an inward fire to
achieve a goal or accomplishment. Other times, the voice was simply comforting and reassuring,
drawing upon a lifetime of understanding to provide a balm of relief. The point: Someone believed in you.

- Who inspired you and how many lives have you influenced in a positive way?
- Do you make it a habit to bring people up or down?
- What specific things do you do every day, to show others their importance to you?

The word encouragement means, “to put courage into.” Encouragement provides inspiration needed to
face our day to day challenges. A story is told of a newspaper cartoonist who amused himself one day by
sending telegrams to twenty acquaintances selected at random. The telegram had one word on it,
“Congratulations.” As far as he knew, not one of them had done anything in particular to be congratulated
on. However, each took the message as a matter of fact and wrote him a letter of thanks. Everyone who
received the message had done something that they regarded as clever and worthy of congratulations. The
power of praise is limited only by its lack of use. How many people do you know that could benefit from
a sincere congratulations or great job or possibly, you’re the best? Silent appreciation doesn’t mean much.
Let others know your positive regard toward them. You never know what great affect you may have on them.
“You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life.” ~Zig Ziglar
P A G E 2
I N S U R A N C E NE WS Y O U C A N US E
4 Little-Known Truths About Credit Scores and Car Insurance Rates
- Are there any advantages of going to an urgent care center vs. the emergency room?
When you’re sick or injured, the last thing you want to do is to have to decide whether to go to
an emergency room or an urgent care center. Naturally, if you’re experiencing a life threatening
emergency call 911 and wait for responders or go to the emergency room for immediate care.
However, there is another alternative—Urgent Care Centers.
Urgent care centers are becoming increasingly popular and offer a few advantages:
1. Wait times are often less at urgent care centers. If you have an injury or illness such as a sprained ankle or an ear
infection, you may end up waiting for hours in the emergency room. In addition, most urgent care centers are open for
extended hours, and they are often able to accommodate you much more quickly.
2. Costs for care at an urgent care center are much more reasonable and you may end up paying lower copays at an urgent
care center. Emergency room co-pays (especially if you are not admitted) can be very tricky so it’s important to know
your health insurance plan benefits (check your plan’s benefits to find out your out-of-pocket costs).
Emergency rooms also have advantages:
1. If the emergency is life threatening, most E.R.’s have all the specialists and equipment on hand and available. When
life is on the line, time is of the essence.
2. If you are admitted into the hospital from the E.R., most insurance programs waive any emergency co-pays.
If you’re ever in doubt about which care facility to choose, it’s a good idea to ask your primary doctor for guidance. And if
you can’t reach your doctor, you might want to call an urgent care center in your neighborhood or your insurance broker can
help you with providers in your area.
Urgent Care centers versus Emergency room bc/bs
Good, bad or nonexistent, a customer's credit score still matters when shopping for auto insurance. However,
the impact isn't always equal across geographies or insurers (see report from WalletHub.com). Recent reports
determined how transparent insurers are about their use of credit score information, how big of a role the data
plays in underwriting decisions, and how scores are impacting policy premiums on a state-by-state basis.
1. Your credit score still matters. On an average basis nationwide, the fluctuation in premiums between an
auto insurance applicant with excellent credit and one with no credit history is 65%.
2. Some carriers relying on credit card data have a 116% fluctuation in premiums between the customer with
excellent credit and the one with no credit history at all.
3. It depends on where you live. Your credit score will likely have the most impact on your car insurance premiums if
you live in the District of Columbia (a 126% fluctuation was reported). Other states on the high-impact side include
Wyoming at 114%, Indiana at 110% and Maine at 109%. The least impact was seen in Vermont, where
the good-credit-bad-credit fluctuation was 18%.
4. Transparency Varies Widely Between Insurance Companies. Transparency refers to how easy it is for
consumers to find out if the firm is accessing their credit information and what data is being accessed.
It goes without saying that maintaining good credit offers many advantages other than procuring the best auto
insurance rates. To find out if there’s savings in your future, give us a call 727-935-4858.
“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is God's gift; that's why we call it the present”
Anonymous
“A man has joy in an apt answer, and how delightful is a timely word.” Proverbs 15:23
P A G E 3
V O L U M E 4 I S S U E 7
Guess the Movie Quotes b y P a ul D on ov a n ( j us t t he me s s e n g e r )
Encouragement Chronicles B y P a ul D o nov a n
The mighty and majestic Queen Mary was the largest ship to cross the oceans when it was launched in 1936.
She enjoyed a distinguished career through four decades and a world war. After retirement the Queen Mary
was anchored in Long Beach, CA and converted into a hotel and a museum. Restoration crews removed
three massive smoke stacks slated to be scraped and painted. However, once detached from their supported
location, the smoke stacks crumbled. All that remained of the 3/4 inch steel plate from which they had been
constructed, were several layers of paint that had applied over the years. The steel had disintegrated.
The Queen Mary suffered a condition common to mankind. Polished and attractive exteriors crumble over
time if not supported by internal substance. Our lives break down, get out of balance, deteriorate and
collapse without a solid set of values.
1. “Rosebud” (this is easy but do you remember what was Rosebud?)
2. "A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."
3. “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
4. “Ah, yes… I knew your people Sean. Your grandfather; he died in Australia, in a penal colony. And your
father, he was a good man too.”
5. “He Can’t Go Down With Three Barrels On Him, Not With Three He Can’t.”
6. “You’re not the man I knew ten years ago.” “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.”
7. “Why are you so good to me?” “You’re my girl.” “I’ll always be your girl.”
8. “Into the garbage chute, flyboy.”
9. “I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly…”
10. “How dare you open a space man’s helmut on an uncharted planet. My eyeballs could have been sucked from their
sockets.”
11. “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
12. “What’s that? It’s hideous!” Well, that’s not very nice. It’s just a donkey.”
13. “You see, in this world there’s two kind of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those
who dig. You dig.”
14. “Why do you want to fight?” “Because I can’t sing or dance.”
15. “Let my People go!”
16. “So what do we do? Well, there are two treatments I’d recommend. One is a series of painful shots injected into
your abdomen and kneecaps, and the other involves a musical number! Me me me me-ow! How many shots?”
17. “It’s nice, I never had one before. What, a room to yourself? A bed.”
18. “A day may come when the courage of men fails… but it is not THIS day.”
19. “Out of rum. Why? Why are we out of rum?”
20. Some men aren’t looking for anything logical like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned with or
negotiated with. Some men want to watch the world burn.”
“I intend to live forever. So far, so good.” Steven Wright
Answers on next page
“Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I
dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the
universe. Frank Zappa
Commercial-insurance rates climbed only 4% in Q1, 2014 compared to the same period last year. That’s the smallest
quarterly increase in over two years. Some of this had to do with the lower than expected property losses driven by
hurricane related activity (no hurricanes made U.S. land fall during the 2013 hurricane season). If the mild
predictions are correct, insurers may be looking at another year of low wind-related property catastrophe losses.
Here’s some key thoughts to help understanding property-catastrophe market conditions.
¬ What factors have helped contribute to the soft market? The 2014, the market had plenty of capital, enjoyed strong
growth in premiums and experienced low catastrophe losses in 2013. Global catastrophe losses in 2013 totaled $31
billion, well below the 10-year average of $56 billion. This allowed insurers to report higher profits than the previous
year.
¬ How can catastrophe modeling help secure better pricing? Accurate data in risk modeling is of the utmost im-
portance. Catastrophe risk modeling products are better at accurately predicting loss events by incorporating more types
of data and modeling different types of events. For example, after the storm surge that accompanied Sandy, insurers
became more concerned about modeling for flood losses. In short, underwriters are depending more and more on
modeling to gauge and price risks with catastrophic property exposures. Complete construction, occupancy, protection
and exposure (COPE) data is therefore, pivotal.
¬ Will a major disaster shift the market? The market could again begin to harden in response to a
very large catastrophe. However, the 2014 market is so well capitalized that it may take multiple
catastrophic losses to shift the cycle. Short of such losses, we can expect property-catastrophe market
conditions to remain soft for some time, which means insurance companies will need to continue to
price competitively for desirable business.
Innovations also bring additional change to the marketplace. New construction codes, advanced materials and better
understanding of risk can help secure better pricing. It takes a skilled broker and marketing team to build your case with
an underwriter. Make sure your broker details their game-plan in obtaining the best program terms, conditions and
pricing for your business.
Pg. 4
Catastrophes and Soft Markets By David Pagoumian
“I've
- Ten years ago, there were more than 1,100 enclosed shopping malls in the U.S. Since then, more than 400
have been shuttered, becoming “ghost malls,” or have been re-purposed for use other than retail space, such as
for industrial, educational, churches or office space. The de-mallification of America isn’t likely to stop. If
trends keep steady, predictions are that about 15% of U.S. malls will fail or be converted into non-retail space
within the next 10 years.
- U.S. government is considering whether to sue banks and mortgage lenders over the kickback they
received from insurance companies when placing inflated premium “force placed insurance” on properties that
were uninsured. Compounded reason - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost over $168 million in 2012 alone.
- Massive crackdown at Dept. of Labor (DOL) busts 152 Tampa Bay firms, collecting $1M in back wages. Fair Labor
Standards Act (FLSA) violations centered around restaurant chains. A major restaurant chain took the brunt of the
heat by creating illegal tip pools involving kitchen staff, overtime compensation, illegal deductions from workers’
wages for credit card transaction fees, failing to maintain accurate and thorough records of employees’ wages and
work hours, and violating child labor laws by allowing minors to perform hazardous duties, such as operating and
cleaning a meat slicers. In total, the DOL determined that 1,518 workers in the Tampa Bay area were owed back
wages. Compensation totaled $861,820, $152,081 in liquidated damages and $12,509 in civil money penalties.
News Making Headlines
Answers to page 3 Trivia: 1. Citizen Kane, 2. The Godfather, 3. Casablanca, 4. The Quiet Man, 5. Jaws, 6. Raiders of the Lost Ark,
7. Forrest Gump, 8. Star Wars, 9. Anchorman, 10. Toy Story, 11. The Shawshank Redemption, 12. Shrek, 13. The Good, the Bad and
the Ugly, 14. Rocky, 15. The Ten Commandments, 16. Cat in the Hat, 17. The Blind Side, 18. The Lord of The Rings, 19. The Pirates
of the Caribbean, 20. The Dark Knight (Batman Trilogy).

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