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This Thanksgiving Day, fire departments all across the nation will be called to nearly 2,000 homes for a cooking fire. Cooking equipment is the leading cause of home fires and fire injuries, with Thanksgiving Day being the worst. Here are 5 ways to avoid having your holiday turn damaging, or deadly.
1) Never leave cooking unattended. It’s a contributing factor in 33% of the fires 49% of the deaths, and 46% of the associated injuries related to cooking equipment. “I just went to watch the replay” is all it takes for a fire to start and get out of hand quickly. 2) Have a kid-free kitchen zone. Children under age 5 were more likely to be hurt by touching hot cooking equipment or scalded by hot liquids than by actual fire. Create a 3-foot kid-free perimeter around anywhere cooking is taking place or that hot food is being staged. 3) Keep flammable materials away from burner. In 10% of cooking fires, something flammable was too close to the equipment. What’s most frightening, is this is also the cause of nearly 1/4 of all the deaths. Hot mitts, wooden utensils, curtains, and food packaging are all dangerous if too close to heat sources. 4) Don’t use power strips or extension cords for appliances. Small, temporary appliances like crock pots, electric skillets, Instant Pots and the like are very helpful to feed large numbers of people, but appliances like these should always be plugged directly into a grounded wall outlet to prevent overheating and overloading the circuits. 5) Don’t fry your turkey. Frying dominates the cooking fire problem, and FEMA recommends not using deep fat fryers for turkeys altogether. Oil spillover ignition and operating a fryer on wooden decks or too close to trees or structures are big hazards that must be avoided. (And when alcohol is involved, it can get even more dangerous.) To learn how to more safely use a fryer, visit the US Department of Agriculture’s website. We hope these tips help you have a safe and fun Thanksgiving!
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Winter has officially arrived, which has been blatantly apparent in our recent freezing temperatures (brrrr)! Check out these tips for added protection.
Freezing temperatures • Have all furnaces serviced and chimneys inspected and cleaned. • Check your home’s perimeter and seal any air leaks with caulk and weather-stripping. Add additional insulation in the attic—most homes need at least 12-15 inches. Make sure insulation does not come in contact with recessed lighting that is not approved for insulation contact. • Insulate pipes that go through exterior walls or colder areas such as garage ceilings or unheated attics. • Turn water off to exterior hose bibs, and detach garden hoses and empty the hose bibs. • Locate the water main shutoff valve and keep the access path clear in case a frozen pipe leak or other water issue needs to be stopped. • If you will be away from home, make sure heating is set no lower than 60 degrees so that even cold spots do not become too cold. Open sink cabinet doors to allow heat in, and let faucets drip slightly to prevent frozen pipes. • Consider installing an automatic water shutoff valve to prevent extensive water damages. Snowfall • In high snowfall areas, make sure no exhaust vents become buried by snow. • Install adequate attic insulation. This helps keep your roof cold, which prevents ice damming as a result of snow continuously melting on the roof. When replacing a roof, consider an ice shield membrane underlayment. • Identify a local roofer that clears snow from roofs and removes ice dams to prevent roof collapse or interior water damage. Not all roofers clear roof snow or ice dams. Winter Storms • Service back-up generators and have adequate fuel supplies on hand. Do not store fuel inside. Even if the generator is portable, it should never run indoors. • Have emergency supplies on hand, such as flashlights, batteries and converters to use in the car to charge devices. • If a prolonged power outage means having to relocate, consider shutting off the water to the house and draining the water lines, and follow the steps listed above for being away from your home. For more information, please contact us or visit www.aig.com/pcg. The holiday shopping season will be here before you know it. But there’s an even more important shopping period to think about first: Open Enrollment.
Whether you’re buying your own health insurance for the first time or are considering switching plans, Open Enrollment may seem like a confusing, stress-inducing event. But it doesn’t have to be. Here’s everything you need to conquer this year’s health insurance signup process. What is Open Enrollment? Open Enrollment is the annual period of time when everyone gets a chance to sign up for health insurance for the coming year. This year, you may have heard the approaching enrollment period referred to as “Open Enrollment 2020”. Employers that offer health benefits also have an annual enrollment period to allow employees to switch plans. While most companies kick off their signup process toward the end of the year (usually October or November), the start date and enrollment window vary from business to business. Why is Open Enrollment a thing? Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010, signing up for individual health insurance was often a challenge. If you had a pre-existing health condition, or had a family history of certain types of diseases, insurers could deny you coverage or charge you much higher rates than healthy people. These practices prevented people from gaming the system by only signing up for insurance after they developed a health issue. But they also kept many consumers from getting coverage, either because they were denied insurance or because they couldn’t afford it. After the ACA was passed, new consumer protections were put in place to ensure everyone can get health insurance, regardless of health history. It also provided subsidies to help lower-income people pay for coverage. But these new policies removed the check in place to prevent people from getting insurance only when they really needed it. And thus, Open Enrollment was born. Under normal circumstances, Open Enrollment is your once-a-year chance to sign up for health insurance. If you miss this window, you have to wait until the next Open Enrollment period to get a new plan (with some exceptions – more on that later). By restricting signups to a limited time frame, insurers are protected from people dropping in and out of plans, paying for coverage only when they have an active health issue. What’s changed for this year’s Open Enrollment? For the most part, this year’s Open Enrollment will look a lot like last year. The signup dates are the same. The state and federal Marketplaces still exist, and are one of several ways you can purchase a health insurance plan for 2020. Subsidies will still be available for those that qualify for financial assistance. Looking for new health insurance for 2020? Start a free quote here. When is Open Enrollment?For health insurance plans beginning in 2020, Open Enrollment starts on November 1, 2019 and ends on December 15, 2019. But some states have extended the Open Enrollment period until January to give people more time to sign up. What information do I need to collect for Open Enrollment? In order to sign up for a plan during Open Enrollment, you’ll need a few key pieces of information, including:
Can I sign up for insurance outside of Open Enrollment? If you don’t sign up for a health insurance plan during Open Enrollment, and your life circumstances remain the same, you’ll have to wait until next November for your next chance to enroll. However, if your life circumstances do change, you may be able to get insured during a Special Enrollment period. Special Enrollment is a 60-day enrollment window that happens when you experience a qualifying life event – a fancy phrase for a significant change that impacts your status. Qualifying life events include things like:
Contact our Benefits Department today to learn more and get covered! |
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