By Melissa Davidson
2020 has been unlike any year before it. Did you ever think that your four-legged friend would be your new co-worker? Or you’d become a full-time teacher while your children learned from home?
For many people, COVID-19 required you to work from home instead of the office. Maybe it has been more cost effective to be able to work from home, but are you sure your type of business is covered by insurance while doing so?
By Dan Wade, Esq.
We’re all familiar with auto insurance, health insurance and homeowner’s insurance, but what do you know about title insurance? Do you know if you’re covered?
Owning a home is likely the biggest investment you’re ever going to make. And like most homeowners, the “American Dream” comes with a mortgage attached. It’s safe to bet that as the mountainous stacks of papers were being shuffled around during your real estate closing, you may not even remember that you purchased title insurance for the lender.
By Rachel Phillips
The nature of business often requires some level of risk taking, but not all risks a business owner faces are under their control.
For example, an employee may be injured in an accident, or a security breach could result in data loss or theft. While no one can completely avoid all potential risks, partnering with a qualified insurance or risk management provider can identify where they might be vulnerable and create a plan to manage and mitigate damages.
Thomas Flynn, co-founder, president and CEO of Jaeger & Flynn, with offices inn Saratoga Springs, Clifton Park and Glens Falls, said all risk management processes follow five basic steps: Identify the risk, analyze the risk, evaluate or “rank” the risk, treatment, and monitoring the risks regularly to assess whether they’ve changed.
Flynn said risks fall into one of three categories: personal, property or liability.
Personal risks refer to risks that can affect the health or safety of an individual, such as being injured or suffering from an illness. Property risks are risks that can cause partial or total loss to property, such as theft or fire. Liability risks refer to the risks associated with being found liable to another because of negligence, reneging on contractual obligations, etc.
By Michael Cruz
Good news. The economy is doing well. Bad news. That will shrink the labor market. Often, I write about hiring and its associated pains. There is one way you can reduce that pain. It is investing in the people you already have.
We already know that it costs less to keep our customers than it does to acquire new ones. The same is true about the people that work for you. Hiring is difficult, it is expensive, and it is not a 100 percent solution.
Many years ago, I worked for a very fast-growing software company. When I joined it, the company’s sales were $18 million. When I left 7 years later, sales topped $450 million.
Amazing! One of the most stunning attributes of that industry was that we were all fairly young and inexperienced. We were a young company and we were a young management team. We worked to figure out our weaknesses and we brought in experts to address them. And that personal growth kept me loyal to the company. Even when I was offered more money to leave!
I outlasted every person that joined the company when I did. Many others quit. When asked why I stayed, I said: the growth afforded me opportunities.
New York state has enacted sweeping new workplace harassment protections that strengthens anti-discrimination laws to ensure employees can seek justice and perpetrators will be held accountable.
It eliminates the restriction that harassment be “severe or pervasive” in order to be legally actionable; mandating that all non-disclosure agreements allow employees to file a complaint of harassment or discrimination. It also extends the statute of limitations for employment sexual harassment claims filed from one year to three years.
By Maureen Werther
What would happen to a business if an unforeseen disaster struck? Are businesses prepared to weather the storm and rebuild without breaking the bank? Is a business eligible for business interruption insurance?
Those are some important questions business owners need to know about their coverage.
Business interruption insurance is the part of a policy helps businesses that may suffer damage from a fire, flood, or other type of disaster. It can be as important to your business as fire insurance.
provided by
Sherry Finkel Murphy MS, RICP
The ability to grab and hold on to the best talent is crucial to the long-term success of any business.
One of the most effective ways to keep employees engaged and motivated is by offering them a carefully crafted benefits plan. Along with salary, it’s what employees look at most carefully when deciding whether to join and stay with a firm.
When you give your employees the benefits they value, they’ll likely be more productive, miss fewer workdays and have a higher commitment to helping you build your business. In fact, the LIFE Foundation reports that three in four workers consider benefits a decisive factor in weighing job opportunities.
By Breanna L. Lundy
You may not be aware of it, but September is Life Insurance Awareness Month. Of course, you probably recognize, at least in a general sense, the importance of life insurance, but do you know the various ways in which it can help you?
Life insurance can play a sizable role in your ability to achieve some important financial goals, such as these:
Helping your family maintain its lifestyle.
If you are married and have young children at home, you and your spouse may need to work. If you were no longer around and your earnings were gone, could your family still afford to live as they do now? Adequate life insurance can help them preserve their lifestyle.
Capital Financial Group Inc., headquartered at 89 Saratoga Ave. in South Glens Falls, recently rebranded as the Employee Benefits Division of Upstate Agency LLC, its sister agency.
Both Upstate and Capital have been part of the Arrow Financial Corp. family of companies, which includes Glens Falls National Bank and Saratoga National Bank, for many years.
The joining of Capital under the Upstate brand seeks to deliver more value to the customer through efficiency and synergy.
By Jason Bowman
If you are like most people who find choosing a health plan confusing and stressful, rest assured that a little homework can help make the decision process easier.
When it comes to insurance, unfamiliarity can lead to choices that may not suit you best. But the good news is you get a “do-over” annually during open enrollment.
A good place to start is understanding common health insurance-related terms, such as the “metal” levels of bronze, silver, gold and platinum. It kind of sounds like the Olympics, minus all the excitement.
The idea behind these descriptions is to give you, as the prospective insured, an idea of how costs will be shared between you and your insurer. You will receive the same standard health services regardless of the level, but your cost-share will vary depending on which level you select.
Bronze level means 60 percent is the insurance carrier’s share, 40 percent is your share. Silver level is 70 percent/30 percent; gold level, 80 percent/20 percent; and platinum, 90 percent/10 percent.
To keep it simple, a bronze plan, in most cases will have the same exact network of healthcare providers and prescription drug coverage as that of a platinum plan. The noticeable difference among all levels will be the premiums and the cost of services at time of usage. Simply stated, pay less in premiums and you’ll pay more out-of-pocket at the time of service.