Shield Insurance Agency Blog

Welcome to the Shield Insurance Agency Blog. 

Here you will find a ton of articles on each of these topics: Auto Insurance, Boat/Watercraft Insurance, Business Insurance, Flood Insurance, Health Insurance, Home Insurance, Insurance, Life Insurance, Michigan Auto Insurance Reform, Recreational Insurance, Renters Insurance, RV Insurance, Things To Do At Home, Umbrella Insurance, and even a list of the Shield Agency Weekly Gift Card Winners,

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Shield Insurance Blog - Ransomware attacks against schools could rise

Ransomware attacks against schools could rise

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Federal agencies warned ransomware attacks against schools may increase this school year, in a joint cybersecurity advisory issued Tuesday.

BusinessInsurance.com | Judy Greenwald | September 07, 2022

Attacks may increase as the school year begins “and criminal ransomware groups perceive opportunities for successful attacks,” said the advisory issued by the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center.

“School districts with limited cybersecurity capabilities and constrained resources are often the most vulnerable; however, the opportunistic targeting often seen with cyber criminals can still put school districts with robust cybersecurity programs at risk,” the advisory warns.

“K-12 institutions may be seen as particularly lucrative targets due to the amount for sensitive student data accessible through school systems or their managed service providers,” it said.

Ransomware Attacks

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Nordic Walking Can Improve Your Heart Function. Here's How It Works. - Shield Insurance Agency Blog

Nordic Walking Can Improve Your Heart Function.

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A recent study found people with coronary artery disease saw improved health outcomes after committing to the nordic walking workout for 12 weeks.

HuffPost | By Jillian Wilson | Sep 8, 2022, 05:45 AM EDT | Updated Sep 8, 2022

It’s widely known that walking is great for you. Research shows that walking can cut your risk of heart disease, reduce joint pain and naturally relieve stress.

A study published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology in June also found that a specific kind of walking can be beneficial for people with coronary artery disease: Nordic walking. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronary artery disease “is the most common type of heart disease in the United States.” The study results suggest that people with the disease saw improved heart function after committing to Nordic walking for three months.

Nordic walking involves using poles similar to ski poles as you move. Unlike a regular walk, this kind of walking incorporates your upper body muscles in addition to your lower body muscles. According to the International Nordic Walking Federation, Nordic walking began as an off-season workout for skiers and has been around since the mid-1900s.

For the study, 130 people with coronary artery disease were randomly split into one of three groups. The first group followed a 12-week high-intensity interval training program; the second group followed a 12-week moderate-to-vigorous intensity training program; the third group followed a 12-week Nordic walking program.

After the workout program, participants were observed for 14 weeks, and their functional capacity ― or their ability to exercise or perform daily activities that require physical effort ― was tested by measuring how far they walked in six minutes.

Additionally, the researchers had participants fill out a heart disease-specific questionnaire and a 36-question health survey. Depression levels were also measured using the Beck Depression Inventory-II, which is commonly used to measure depression after heart attacks. Participants were tested at the beginning, the middle and the end of the study.

Nordic walking yielded the best results.

While all participants saw favorable health outcomes, those in the Nordic walking group experienced the largest increase in functional capacity compared to their baseline level at the start of the study.

In other words, those who committed to the 12-week Nordic walking program were most able to show increased exercise capacity during the six-minute walk test. And one’s functional capacity is “an important predictor of future cardiovascular events in patients with [coronary artery disease],” the study stated.

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Lower Prescription Drug Costs - Shield Insurance Blog

Drug Costs Lowered By States

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The sweeping federal bill aimed at cutting prescription drug costs follows years of action at the state level

AARP | by Emily Paulin, AARP, August 18, 2022 | Drug Costs | Health Insurance |

En español

Congress’ passage of a sweeping bill that will help millions of Medicare enrollees better afford life-sustaining medications was fueled by a blizzard of recent legislation to make prescription drugs more affordable at the state level. State lawmakers have introduced hundreds of bills aimed at lowering prescription drug costs in the past five years, with more than 230 measures enacted across all 50 states.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will allow Medicare to negotiate prices of some high-cost drugs for the first time, put an annual limit on Medicare Part D beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket costs, and impose tax penalties on drugmakers that increase prices more than the rate of inflation, among other things.

The move follows decades of advocacy for drug affordability by AARP and others, which until recently yielded progress mostly at the state level. “States are the laboratories of democracy,” says Jonathan Bartholomew, a government affairs director at AARP. “They’ve come up with really creative ideas to dissect, legislate and regulate this complicated and confusing marketplace, and I think that progress has really helped build federal momentum around this issue.”

AARP CEO Lauds Activists for Fighting for Rx Bill

Though states are restricted by federal law in how far they can go in directly reducing drug prices, they’ve worked to improve transparency around drug pricing, cap costs for consumers, bolster their drug-purchasing power and more. And collectively, they’ve spotlighted drug affordability as a national issue that calls for federal solutions.

Here are some key state initiatives that advanced prescription drug affordability in recent years.

Increasing price transparency

For states to pinpoint what’s driving price hikes in prescription drugs, it helps to have access to pricing data across a drug’s often long and convoluted supply chain. It’s why 14 states have passed drug price transparency laws that order manufacturers, wholesalers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), insurers and others to share cost information.

What pharmaceutical companies must report about their products differs between states, but common requirements include advance notice and justification of the initial price of a drug and when prices increase above certain thresholds; summaries of the state’s most prescribed and costly drugs; and rebate and reimbursement amounts for PBMs, which health insurers use to manage their prescription drug benefits.

Most of the data collected is made public, which can help doctors, consumers and other health care stakeholders. Advance notice of price hikes gives doctors and patients time to analyze patient care plans and adjust as necessary. Summaries of the most prescribed and costly drugs can show state officials where to focus reforms.

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Shield Insurance Blog - 16 Educational Podcasts for Minority Entrepreneurs

Minority Entrepreneurs and Educational Podcasts

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Hubspot | Written by Flori Needle

16 Educational Podcasts for Minority Entrepreneurs

Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success.

Podcasts are an excellent way for minority entrepreneurs to gain inspiration and actionable career advice.

However, entrepreneurs in minority communities searching for podcasts for and about people with similar experiences and identities to themselves may have a hard time doing so.

In this post, we’ve compiled a list of educational podcasts for entrepreneurs in minority groups that are worth listening to gain inspiration and insight from people with shared experiences.

Recommended Podcasts for Minority Entrepreneurs

1. Side Hustle Pro

Side Hustle Pro’s host Nicaila Matthews Okome interviews inspiring Black women entrepreneurs that have grown side hustles into profitable businesses. Listeners learn about their processes, failures, and successes and leave with strategies to leverage to help them build their side projects or interests into successful ventures.

2. The Diversity Gap

The Diversity Gap Podcast, hosted by Bethaney Wilkinson, discusses the gaps between good intentions for diversity and the actual impact of those intentions. Each episode features guests that discuss strategies and best practices for creating an organizational culture that allows people from all racial backgrounds to thrive at work. It’s a great listen for business owners and entrepreneurs looking to champion DEI at their workplace.

3. ¿Quién Tú Eres?

¿Quién Tú Eres?, hosted by Pabel Martinez of Plurawl, empowers Latinx communities to be their most authentic and full selves at work by redefining what professionalism means and looks like in the workplace. Each episode features a guest who defines professionalism and shows how they show up as their most authentic selves at work.

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Shield Insurance Blog - Commercial Inventory

Guidelines for properly calculating insurance coverage levels for commercial inventory

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Commercial Inventory | Business Insurance | Self-quoting Portal

Shield Insurance Agency is here to assist business owners in the state of Michigan with all of their insurance needs. We can help you determine how to calculate your insurance needs to adequately protect your commercial inventory.

Give us a call today and let us get started on helping you!

Guidelines for determining how much coverage your commercial inventory requires

Inventory can be a tricky business when it comes to determining how much insurance coverage you need to protect your investment. This can be made even more difficult if you are a seasonal business or if your business has significant fluctuations year over year. Even for businesses that are relatively stable, calculating inventory coverage can be challenging.

The first thing to look at is the time of year when your business has the most inventory. For some, it may be at the start of the year, and for others, it could be right before the busy holiday season. Whenever this time period may be for your business, it’s important. Once you review your inventory trends, and when they are at their highest level, you will be in a better place to determine your inventory insurance needs.

Typically, a business can look at its highest inventory level and make the decision to have its insurance coverage match that level. This is a smart idea for businesses that have inventory that is of extremely high value or moves rather slowly throughout the year.

Let’s work together to protect your inventory!

Michigan business owners can depend on Shield Insurance Agency for all of their commercial insurance needs. If you have questions about commercial insurance, we are here to help. Give us a call today and let’s get started working together! We look forward to hearing from you.

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Shield Insurance Agency Blog | 16 Easy Exercises That Can Improve Your Posture

16 Easy Exercises That Can Improve Your Posture

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16 Easy Exercises That Can Improve Your Posture: working from home or staring at your phone has you slouching, these moves are here to save your back, shoulders and neck.

Huffpost | Nicole Pajer | Aug 12, 2022, 05:45 AM EDT

Have you been slacking in the posture department?

Thanks to our smartphones, iPads and more, many of us spend our days with our necks craning down to stare at our devices. Working from home has also created complications, affectionately referred to by experts as “pandemic posture.”

Fixing your posture can not only relieve back or neck pain, “it can also have a significant impact on all things related to our respiratory function, core and pelvic health,” explained ­­­­Trista Zinn, a trainer and founder of Coreset Fitness.

Taking tiny steps toward improving your posture is the best way to go. Here are 16 exercises to try to help get you standing and sitting straighter.

Easy Exercises

Seated Row

“This exercise works all the muscles of the back, and helps counterbalance the weight of the chest and support the spine,” explained Sebastien Lagree, a trainer and founder of Lagree Fitness.

Sit cross-legged or straddle a bench with cables or bands wrapped around a doorknob or floor mount in front of you. Next, pull the handles back toward your rib cage.

“As you continue to pull the handles toward you, focus on lifting the spine or sitting taller,” Lagree said. “Each time you pull the handles in, aim to sit higher.”

Bent-Over Rows

If you don’t have a cable system at home, or access to a gym, grab some free weights and perform bent-over rows.

“Strengthening the muscles that retract the scapula leads to better posture,” said Dr. Alejandro Badia, an orthopedic surgeon in Miami. “This also helps avoid shoulder pain, which often occurs when we slouch or work in a slumped position.”

Bend your knees and lean your upper body forward, keeping a straight spine. Start with your arms straight down in front of you with your palms facing your body, then pull the weights back, squeezing your shoulder blades together at the top. Try not to over-extend the movement: Stop right when you get to where your pockets would be on your pants ― i.e., near your hips. Lower your weights and repeat the movement.

Cat-Cow

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Shield Insurance Blog - Why companies need to foster design, visual communication to succeed in hybrid working

Why companies need to succeed in hybrid-working

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Now that hybrid-working is here to stay, the ways an employee presents themselves and their company on screen matters more.

Worklife | July 20, 2022 | by Cloey Callahan | hybrid-working | Business Insurance

Strong presentation and graphic design skills have typically gone hand in hand with certain commercial or creative design roles that require them. Now, they’re being regarded as skills that every employee should sharpen, in order to excel in a hybrid or remote working setup.

That’s why some businesses are calling for design literacy to be baked in at the onboarding stage.

“How do you speak to others through graphic design, or design in general, at a time when we’re more remote than ever?” said Steven Heller, author of “Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design.”

Heller compares graphic design to going into a showroom and picking out furniture or going to a clothing store and picking out what you want. “You start thinking ‘how am I presenting myself,’” said Heller. “It’s easy to call it branding now, only because the term is used so prevalently, but it’s really just creating a style for yourself and that’s been done for ages … You make it your own.” 

At Canva, a visual communications platform for designers and non-designers alike, all new hires, of which there were 700 this year alone, go through a design school, regardless of position, where they’re taught frameworks for creating slides with a narrative vs. information mindset. They’re also sent weekly design tips from the creative team. The design school also goes over how to prepare fonts, how to choose colors, and more. It concludes with the new hire presenting to their team.

“Design literacy is becoming more important as the world has become more visual,” said Canva’s chief marketing officer Zach Kitschke. “We’ve seen this massive transformation in the past few years and the way we all communicate and live our lives look completely different. The hybrid world has become one where visual forms of communication, whether it’s presentations or video content or graphics – different ways of communicating a message — have become vital.”

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Take a Trip for Brain Health - Researchers suggest travel therapy may benefit adults living with dementia

Travel therapy may benefit adults living with dementia

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Researchers suggest travel therapy may benefit adults living with dementia

By Peter Urban, AARP

EN ESPAÑOL

Not that anyone needs an excuse to take a holiday, but researchers in Australia suggest that a break from the daily routine has mental and physical health benefits, including for adults living with dementia.

“Medical experts can recommend dementia treatments such as music therapy, exercise, cognitive stimulation, reminiscence therapy, sensory stimulation and adaptations to a patient’s mealtimes and environment. These are all also often found when on holidays,” lead researcher Jun Wen, a lecturer in tourism and hospitality management in the School of Business and Law at Edith Cowan University, said in a statement.

Wen and fellow researchers suggest in a paper published in Tourism Management that travel therapy, like music and art therapy, should be available to adults living with dementia. “This research is among the first to conceptually discuss how these tourism experiences could potentially work as dementia interventions,” he said.

Although some research has shown tourism’s health benefits for people in general, additional research is needed to demonstrate how it can enhance the lives of people living with diseases like dementia and depression, Wen said.

“Tourism is generally considered a form of leisure that liberates people from the everyday. The emotional states, thoughts, and unique memories evoked by tourism have the potential to positively influence the well-being of individuals with dementia,” the researchers wrote.

Here are some ways, according to the researchers, that a vacation could serve as therapy for adults living with mild to moderate dementia.

• Sightseeing provides an opportunity to get the brain working by stimulating thinking, concentration and memory — especially when interacting with caregivers or other tourists.

• Travel brings people to novel environments where adults living with dementia may “experience new emotions, moods and other reactions, thereby stimulating brain functions that enable them to process such feelings.”

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Your Complete Guide to Painting Wood Furniture—From Sanding to Sealing

Your Complete Guide to Painting Wood Furniture

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Your Complete Guide to Painting Wood Furniture—From Sanding to Sealing. Breathe new life into dilapidated chairs, dressers, desks, and more by adding a fresh coat of paint.

Martha Stewert.com | By Madeline Buiano | July 20, 2022

Whether it’s a dresser you’ve had for years or a unique chair you found in an antique shop, there are a handful of creative ways to breathe new life into worn-down furniture. One of the most common materials you’ll run into when refreshing old pieces is wood, which can quickly be transformed into something beautiful with nothing more than a coat of paint. 

“Painting or repainting your furniture isn’t just a budget-friendly way to personalize your home, freshen up tired furniture, or disguise aesthetic damage,” says Annie Sloan, paint and color expert, and creator of Chalk Paint Annie Sloan. “It’s a way of life, rejecting the buy more, buy new, buy now culture, and embracing hands-on, do-it-yourself, creative expressionism.” 

The best part? The process of painting wood furniture looks the same across the board, meaning you can use the required materials for more than just one project—whether it’s a desk, chair, dresser, or vanity, the same steps apply. 

Related: How to Refinish Wooden Furniture

The Materials You’ll Need 

You’ll need a few basic tools and materials in order to complete this project properly: 

  • Drop cloth 
  • Painter’s tape
  • 180- and 220-grit sanding sponges 
  • Damp cloth
  • Primer
  • Paint
  • Paint brush 
  • Safety mask 
  • Sealant 

Type of Primer 

The type of wood you’re working with will dictate what type of primer you use. Wood that isn’t stained needs a high-quality latex or oil-based primer, while wood that is stained needs a stain blocking primer (as does redwood and cedar). Additionally, furniture that has exposed wood, chalking, or chipped paint needs an oil-based primer. Sloan also notes that you should use water-based primer if you’re using water-based paints, and varnish-based products if you’re using varnish-based paints. 

Type of Paint

Experts recommend using chalk paint, which is also known as chalk-finish or chalking paint. It’s an easy and stylish way to improve and transform your furniture, says Gary McCoy, Lowe’s store manager serving the Charlotte, N.C. market. “Different from chalkboard paint, it’s a latex paint that has a fine powder added to the mix to create a unique matte finish,” he says. “The brushstroke and imperfections become part of the unique look.” 

Type of Paint Brush

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What To Do If An Airline Loses Your Luggage

What To Do If An Airline Loses Your Luggage

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What To Do If An Airline Loses Your Luggage? Air travel experts share their advice for dealing with missing checked baggage — and minimizing the risk in the first place.

Huffpost.com | By Caroline Bologna | Jul 28, 2022, 05:45 AM EDT

For many years, people felt relatively secure about checking their luggage for a flight. But the chaos of air travel this summer has thrown cold water on that confidence.

The odds of airlines losing your luggage have reportedly “skyrocketed” this year, with massive increases in the numbers of “mishandled” ― i.e., lost, damaged, delayed or pilfered ― bags.

“During the pandemic, many airports and airlines were forced to reduce their workforce in reaction to the restrictions the world was facing,” Alex Miller, founder and CEO of Upgraded Points, told HuffPost. “Now, as these restrictions have been lifted, people are returning to their travels again, leaving airports and airlines struggling to cope with the surge of passengers. This combination of an increased demand, with a shortage of staff, as recruitment hasn’t been able to counterbalance the increase, is leaving many travelers to arrive at their destination without their luggage.”

The result is countless airport photos showing mounds of lost luggage and a lot of frustrated travelers.

Of course, the obvious solution is to pack less and avoid checking a bag, but sometimes that’s just not an option. So what should you do if you find yourself in this situation and end up separated from your bag? Below, experts share their advice.

File a missing bag report.

“The first thing you should do if you notice that your baggage did not arrive at your destination is to report it immediately,” Miller advised. “The airline that you flew on is responsible for ensuring your luggage is delivered to your destination.”

Go to the airline’s baggage desk and have the customer service representative see if they can locate your luggage. It’s possible it was delayed but will arrive on a later flight. Or perhaps it arrived early and was placed in a separate area.

You might also be able to determine your bag’s location on the airline’s mobile app. If the bag is still missing, however, it’s time to file a claim.

“Once you’ve informed airline staff about your missing baggage, it is essential that you file a missing baggage report,” Miller added. “You should provide a detailed description of your luggage, including size, color and material of the bag. The report should also include your current address and contact information so the airline can contact you. You should also keep a note of any reference or tracking number that you receive from the lost luggage desk.”

Find out what compensation you’re owed.

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