Companies should consider forming partnerships with local health clubs and enrolling their employees. Health issues cost a firm an average of about $1,700 per employee per year.  You can reduce these costs with healthy employees through less absenteeism and reduced insurance premiums.

Phil Lyons

In an effort to curtail insurance cost many insured’s do not keep a close eye on the value of their property they are insuring. Homes usually have a small inflation guard built in, but typically commercial policies do not. Policies issued by Citizen’s wind and most commercial policies have what is known as a co-insurance clause as part of the policy language.

Typically co-insurance is set at 80%, but could be 90% or even 100%. So as an example you have a property that will cost $1,000,000 to replace today. Five years ago you purchased the building and insured it for $750,000 and have never adjusted the coverage. You suffer a total loss by fire and receive the  $750,000. Yes you are short by $250,000. A business risk you excepted, or didn’t think about.

Second scenario is more likely and that is a partial loss and let’s say it’s $500,000 damage. Are you covered for the total loss? You think so, or you hope so, but in reality you are not!

Here is why you need to pay attention to this clause in your policy. $1,000,000 value/$750,000 insured value = 75% insured. Since it’s below 80% the co-insurance comes into effect and the claim is paid $500,000 X 75% = $375,000 paid minus any deductible. So now you have a shortfall of $125,000 on your claim payment that you didn’t expect.

My tip is every three years have a Replacement Estimator done for your home and your business. Most all agents have access to online software that can give you a close estimate to the proper value. As a normal operating procedure we do this in house every year on our clients, but not all agents take the time. So request one this year and make it a habit every couple years to get it updated.

Vladimir F. Golik, P.A.
Broker, Keller Williams Realty Premier Properties

Hello to All. It was great seeing everyone today and sharing our “tips for the day.” As a reminder, if you want to “appeal” your real estate taxes on a property(s), the cut-off date to file is September 17^th, 2008. I would suggest you have a professional handle this important process.

The Netbook is here! Dell announced that they will start promoting this new type of notebook. A picture could be found by clicking here. It has a 7 inch screen, it’s about half the size of a regular notebook. It will NOT run on XP or Vista, but one of the other operating system called Linux.  Do not let the name fool you, Linux acquires “0” viruses and hardly crashes. It also comes with OpenOffice which is an MS Office product compatible program.  I have personally tested it and you can use Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.  There is no Outlook compatible program, but there are other Mail clients out there that you can use with this new system. I guess the most impressive feature about this is the price. Asus sells a compatible system now for $300.00. It will have WiFi built in, and a virtual drive, which is basically an internet hard drive as opposed to an internal hard drive.

You can now visit the stars and other galaxies by going to www.WorldWideTelescope.com.  From the convinience of your home pc, you can zoom into the planets and black holes that our universe has to offer.