Halloween Safe-Driving Tips

Children are twice as likely to be killed by a vehicle on Halloween (versus other days of the year) according to Safe Kids USA. You will be navigating roads crowded with children in the dark.  Take extra care behind the wheel on Halloween and use the following driving tips to keep trick-or-treaters safe.

1. Yield to Trick-or-Treaters: Be prepared for children to run into the street at anytime.
2. Refrain from Passing Idle Vehicles: The driver may be dropping children off. Be patient and take extra caution when traveling near other vehicles.
3. Park Your Mobile Phone: It is especially important to avoid any distractions while behind the wheel with children crowding the dark roads.
4. Communicate with Other Drivers: Use hazard lights when pickin-up/dropping-off trick-or-treaters. And, always use turn signals.
5. Consider Alternate Routes: Avoid driving near trick-or-treaters by taking routes that go around busy neighborhoods, not through them.

Shelly Guibert

Ben Goodwyn Agency

shelly@bengoodwynagency.com

Drive Safely Work Week

It is estimated that one in every four accidents involves a driver who is either talking or texting on a cell phone (according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety). That is an alarming statistic and should have you thinking twice about safely driving to and from work. The campaign is for drivers, passengers, cyclists and pedestrians. It also highlights how employers can get involved and focus on training for employees.

Here are a few suggestions for making your work commute safer for everyone.

• Change your voicemail to say you can't take a call because you are driving. When a caller hears it, maybe they'll try doing the same.
• When you have other passengers in your vehicle, the visible act of silencing or turning off your mobile phone may send a message that results in your passengers doing the same the next time they are driving.
• When you make a call to someone's cell phone ask "are you driving", then discontinue the call until later if the answer is "yes". By showing concern for their safety, it is likely they will also ask that question.

Shelly Guibert, Ben Goodwyn Agency  972.618.0100  shelly@bengoodwynagency.com

Texas Fires Break Records

There have been approximately 1,500 claims filed by Bastrop Texas residents and business owners from the Bastrop Texas fire that started on Labor Day weekend and which total $250 million (according to the Insurance Council of Texas).  This would make it the costliest wildfire in Texas history.  The second most costly fire in Texas history also occurred this year in Possum Kingdom.  That fire is expected to generate between $160 million and $175 million in insured losses.  Almost four million acres of land has been consumed by hundreds of wildfires this year and destroyed more than 2,700 homes.  Just the value of lost timber is approaching $100 million.

Your tax deductible contribution online to the Trusted Choice Foundation Volunteer Firefighters Assistance Fund will help volunteer firefighters that continue to fight these devastating blazes.  Every dollar helps.  You can get decals and stickers that announce your support.  You can also "like" the "I Support Volunteer Firefighters" Facebook page and sharing it with your Facebook friends to help spread the word and potentially increase donations to the Texas Wildfire Relief Fund statewide.  Our Texas firefighters deserve the best protection we can afford, now more than ever.

Travelers Insurance

Home and auto insurance from one of the best in the industry. Read more about Travelers Insurance below and call Shelly at Ben Goodwyn Agency for your free quotes today. 972.618.0100 shelly@bengoodwynagency.com

If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times, you get what you pay for. Travelers offers competitive prices. But when it comes to the 'get' part, Travelers gives you more than just coverage. We give you broad protection you can count on no matter where the road takes you.

Value: Service and savings merge

• Great discounts and pricing features
• Deductibles and discounts for every budget. Don't we all appreciate a little flexibility?
• Savings when you insure more than one car.
• Up to a 10% discount when you combine auto and home. Up to 15% if you add a boat.
• One-stop shopping for a wide spectrum of products that include auto, home, boat, flood, identity theft, umbrella, rental property and wedding.

Smart: Fuel for thought

• Claims centers staffed by trained professionals. You call us. We answer questions. You hang up happy.
• Claim professionals are trained at Claim University, our state-of-the-art training facility. Hey, the more we know about claims, the less you need to.
• Smart pricing. We'll help find the insurance plan that meets your protection and budget needs.

Covered: High-performance protection

• A wide variety of coverage, limit and deductible choices. Because everyone's different.
• Repair or replacement collision coverage option - if your car is totaled, we'll pay to repair or replace it with a new car of like kind, whichever is less.
• Auto loan and lease protection option to close the loan/lease gap. We offer you protection to cover your lease or loan. After all, being in an accident is stressful enough.

Easy to use: Smooth road ahead

• Over 60 ConciergeCLAIM locations for one-stop auto repair. We'll have you out so fast, you might just confuse it with a car wash.
• Convenient payment plans. You choose how and when you want to pay. Talk about self-empowerment.
• Travelers.com offers a wide range of services, from claim updates to tips for staying safe. Go online and get an answer faster than you can say 'answer'.
• Support from your local independent agent. If you prefer to talk to an expert, no problem. We've got that covered too.

Experienced & Reliable: The Road Well-Traveled. For 150 years, we've been in the customer-satisfaction business. Choose Travelers, and you get trained professionals - from independent agents, to claims professionals, to customer service representatives - all standing behind you.

• 24/7 claim service. Because things don't just go wrong between 9 and 5.
• Prompt, accurate inspections, in most cases within 48 hours.
• Best-in-class claim handling. Nine out of ten people who file a claim with us recommend us.
• Financially stable. Here for you. And your dad. And his dad before him.

Cyber Security

Loss of personal and private information is the biggest security risk today.  Public entities especially have a big exposure and many have credit card and bank account information.  They also have medical programs with public health records, tax records, public employee benefit and retirement information, names and addresses of public school children, and court and criminal records, the protection of which is often subject to federal statutes.  The cost of notifying potential victims, offering credit or identity monitoring services, consulting with a public relations firm to control reputation damage, as well as defense and settlement expenses, can be exorbitant.

In April 2011 the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts discovered that unencrypted data from the Teacher Retirement Center of Texas, the Texas Workforce Commission, and the Employees Retirement System of Texas had been posted on a public server for nearly a year.  Class action lawsuits have been filed against the state on behalf of approximately 3.5 million current and former state employees.

Employee training is key in these cases. It only takes one employee's mistake and you have a privacy issue on your hands. That's why insurance companies, when they consider insuring governmental or commercial organizations of cyber risks, focus on the proactive risk management techniques and employee training that the entity has in place or needs to establish.

Insurance is a "risk transfer vehicle".  It doesn't make the risk go away, it just pays for it if there's a problem.

Ben Goodwyn Agency 972.618.0100  shelly@bengoodwynagency.com