Homeowner 101 – Save Money on Homeowners Insurance

Being able to save money where you can is something that all of us are looking to do. Tightening the belt around the New Year is a common resolution, and homeowners is one area where you can actually cut the fat a bit and be able to save money without scrimping on the coverage you actually need. Here we will look at a number of ways to get that coverage without having to pay more, and also, ways you can lower the amount you spend on your homeowners insurance overall.The number one way to save money on your homeowners insurance is by raising your deductible. You can drastically reduce your premiums this way but you have to be sure to balance out what you could afford to pay were the situation to occur. For instance, you may not want to raise your deductible if you live in a place where certain natural disasters are commonplace- but if you have a separate rider or insurance for that, then there is no harm in raising your deductible a bit for the overall homeowners coverage. Here’s what you stand to save in raising your deductibles.-$500 and save up to 12%.-$1,000 and save up to 24%.-$2,500 and save up to 30%.-$5,000 and save up to 37%.Combine your policies. It is always a good idea to purchase all of your insurance from one provider- this helps you to keep things organized, yes, but more often than not, you get a discount for purchasing all of your insurance from one company. For instance, by your home and auto insurance from the same company, or life and home. Usually you will find that in order to gain added business, insurance companies are more than happy to offer a discount.Don’t insure your land- sure, your home and belongings could be damaged by a fire or other natural disaster, but the land it is sitting on won’t. If you’re including the value of the land in your homeowners insurance, you’re essentially paying to cover something that is probably not going to endure any repairable damage.Make sure that your security is beefed up. Installing things like alarms of various sorts, deadbolts and smoke detectors often come with an individual discount per item. Installing a very sophisticated home security system may also offer a hefty discount, but you should always check with your insurance company to find out which is highly recommended to be sure you get the best discount possible.These are just a few of the ways that you can save money on your homeowners insurance premiums going into the New Year. If you find that your insurance company isn’t offering you the sort of discounts that you’d like, or if even with the discounts they offer your premiums are still too much, you may try shopping around for a new provider.

Essential Features of a Mobile Website for an Automotive Business

A website is highly beneficial for any automotive business, as automobiles are one of the most popular products searched for on the Internet. Although a website can be a good promotional tool for these businesses, the quick rise in mobile device sales and increase in mobile Internet use has generated a new need and opportunity to reach customers. In fact, mobile websites are proving to be quite valuable for every business interested in maintaining and then expanding its customer base.When developing a mobile website business operators have to be a bit more creative considering the limitations of mobile devices. Unlike PCs, phones have limited screen space, no key board, no mouse, and less bandwidth. With that being said, creating a mobile specific site that provides value and functionality within to the above said constraints is crucial in order to continue reaching current and potential customers.Below highlights the specific features that should be included in an automotive business’s mobile website.Mobile friendly design – minimum content and graphics: The design of a mobile website specific to an auto business should maintain focused content. Include only specific information related to the vehicles which is useful to the customers such as unique features, price, deals, and follow-up services. Owing to the less screen space of the mobiles, images of the vehicles should be made small and of low resolution. Avoid or limit the flash animations, videos, columns and navigation so as to give a cleaner look to the website. This also facilitates quick and easy loading.Additionally, you can even add a click-to-call button to your mobile website. This directly initiates a call to the business, creating a great opportunity for lead generation.SEO – for mobile search applications and engines: It isn’t enough just to be accessible through mobile search engines. Your automotive business should be visible when potential customers search for your products and services. Remember, search engines operate differently for traditional websites and mobile websites. Bots and algorithms used for mobile search engines are different from those used for traditional search engines. Hence it is necessary to optimize the website for mobile access.You need to concentrate more on automotive-specific meta tags, title tags, and keywords in your description of the vehicle. This improves your brand visibility and also gets potential customers through mobile search.You can even optimize your website for local search which will enable your business to appear when the customer is looking for auto dealers or services within a specific area or through their GPS units.Incorporate links in social media and blogs: Almost all Smartphone or mobile device users are active on social media websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Taking that into consideration, it’s a good strategy to incorporate sharing capabilities and access to all of these social platforms from your mobile website. Additionally, take the time to create fan pages so that your auto business is reinforced through multiple marketing channels. Since social media and blogs are strong marketing tools, your online mobile presence will be effectively felt by the customers. However, make sure that these features are small so that they don’t inhibit the loading of your mobile website’s pages.You can even give access to your existing automotive blogs by installing specific plug-ins that will automatically customize the normal blog for mobile users.High browser compatibility: Generally, an automotive business’s mobile website is very complex due to the number of vehicle models, specific features pertaining to each one, and the variety of auto services offered. Any number of these features can make the site difficult to load. In addition, not all mobile phones support the same format for downloading the content. Lastly, make sure that your auto dealership’s mobile website is compatible with browsers used by different phones like Android, iPhone, etc.Mobile users are becoming more and more dependent on mobile sites and applications as these provide instant access to information, deals and product research. Hence, it is necessary for any company, but particularly one in the automotive business, to develop an improved, simple, and yet functional design for their mobile website so as to enhance the user experience and engagement.

Understanding The Rules About Requests For References From Employees

As an employer, you’ll be used to requests to provide employment references, either from ex-employees or from the HR department of other businesses. You’ll be well aware that whatever you write is bound by the Data Protection Act (DPA) 1988. You’ll also be used to receiving references relating to new or prospective employees and understand that the way you keep such information is covered by the DPA. However, you may not be aware that employees have certain rights under the DPA to access references which, in some circumstances, may seem at odds with normal practice.Let’s look first at reference requests from someone who is no longer employed by you. That person has the right to request any personal data which you may hold, so it’s important that all personal data is accurate. However, the DPA has an exemption which states that you do not have to give the ex-employee a reference if it concerns their education, training or employment when such information was originally given in confidence. Even so, you may decide to provide a factual copy of the reference and that is acceptable. This exemption means that there is no obligation of the part of an ex-employee to give a new employer a copy of the original reference. Conversely, it also means that you cannot ask a prospective employee to give you a copy of a reference about their education, training or employment which had originally been written in confidence.Let’s now consider what happens when you have a new employee. You will have received references about that person which will be filed according to the rules and regulations of the DPA. Your new employee has the right to see any references about them which contain information which they already know, such as the dates of their employment and their absence record. But what happens when you are not certain whether information in a reference is already known to your new employee. For example, this could relate to their performance which may or may not have been discussed at an appraisal. In such cases where there is some doubt, you should contact the ex-employer and ask if they object to the information being disclosed. If they do object, then it is important to find out the reasons for the objection. Despite the objection, in most cases you will be expected to release the reference unless there is a strong reason against this. For example, removing the name and address of the person who wrote the original reference could be possible especially if there was a realistic threat of violence towards that person. In such circumstances you could withhold the reference altogether.Such decisions come down to what is ‘reasonable’ in the given circumstances. You have to weigh up the ex-employer’s request for confidentiality with the employee’s need to see the information about them. All references must be truthful and accurate, so it is equally important to assess how the employee making the request to see a reference would be affected by the information it contains, especially if they are applying for a new job.There may be occasions when it is not possible to obtain the ex-employer’s consent. In such cases, it would be reasonable to provide an overview of the information held in the reference and remove any information relating to other people.