Personal Insurance

From weekend summer camping trips to long winter ski vacations, you need to make sure you are prepared when you head to the great outdoors. With these 11 apps, you’ll have the right resources exactly at your fingertips. (Most are free, but some offer optional in-app purchases.) Cairn: Safety is key when you are hiking. But when you don’t have cell…

There are many choices you need to make when it comes to choosing the right auto insurance. When it comes to customizing your policy, one of the biggest decisions is what deductible amount you will choose. WHAT IS A DEDUCTIBLE IN AUTO INSURANCE? Your deductible is the amount of money you will have to pay toward fixing or repairing your…

Folk wisdom says the odds of a lightning strike are one in a million, but technically, it depends on how you run the numbers. For example, the odds of being struck in your lifetime are actually 1 in 15,300, according to the most recent data from the National Weather Service. The odds of being struck in a given year are…

Whether it’s a hurricane or a routine power outage, navigating a dark house is never fun. That’s why many people choose to install backup generators in their homes. A backup generator can power your home until regular electricity resumes. While backup generators can come in handy in a pinch, owners should know the right way to install and maintain them. Knowing what to…

The first step in determining whether a car is totaled (or, in insurance terms, a total loss) is to calculate its actual cash value (ACV) at the time of the loss. The ACV is how much your vehicle is worth after factoring in depreciation. On average, vehicles depreciate more than 20 percent the first year and approximately 10 percent each…

Imagine this: You’re leaving your house, ready to tackle the working day, only to discover a large, inexplicable hole where your car is supposed to be. That’s the thing about sinkholes. They’re just baffling. At first glance, sinkholes are nature’s slapstick: sudden, unpredictable, dramatic and absurd. But there’s a serious side, too – lives have been lost in sinkholes, and the…

Whether you’re a hardcore biking enthusiast or more of a casual cruiser, riding your bike is a great way to enjoy the outdoors – and a healthier way to get around, too. After each ride, it’s important to remember to lock your bike up so thieves can’t steal it. Bike safety and advocacy group Bicycle Law estimates somewhere between 800,000 and 2…

If you’re like most Americans, you probably rely on the internet to do everything from buying birthday presents and booking vacations to managing your bank account and paying bills. But for every transaction you make, you’re trusting a company with some type of personal information. And even if you’re not making purchases online yourself, most corporate systems are still connected…