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,

If you have any suggestions for content, please drop us an email.

21 really good things that happened in 2021

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Mashable | By Chris Taylor  on December 15, 2021 | Good Things

Behind the scary headlines, the human race is making a tremendous amount of progress.

Here in the news kitchen, we hear your complaints: This isn’t the 2021 you ordered. This isn’t the 2021 any of us ordered. Personally, and I think I speak for a lot of patrons of this establishment, I would like to send it back and get one with no Delta variant. Oh, and hold the huge dose of vaccine hesitancy, thanks. I’m allergic to coups at the U.S. Capitol; that should have been listed more prominently on the menu. Who put that damp squib of an international climate change conference on top? Combined with the side dish — a California roll on fire — it leaves a pretty bitter taste. 

Still, if you scrape those burned edges off the year’s news, a lot of the stuff underneath is actually really good. We don’t hear or don’t think about it, because nothing grabs the attention like a thing gone wrong. A positive story that continues quietly, year on year (the explosive growth of electric vehicles, say, or the collapse of the coal industry), can seem invisible. But trust us, good stuff is cooking, and we’re not just talking medical science miracles (like the first brain implant to make a blind person see or the first animal kidney successfully transplanted into a human). These are breadcrumbs compared to the big, hearty, global trends, ones that could make the 2020s a much more satisfying decade than the one-star reviews suggest.  

So here it is, direct from the news kitchen, our scraped-off version of 2021. All the big stuff that we can be justifiably proud of this year, in 21 digestible bites. Starting with one that is right under our noses: 

Good Things

1. We fully vaccinated half the human race in a year. 

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Shield Insurance is helping Roslyn & Maddox by donating $25 to the family for each non-client who gets a quote from Shield

Shield’s Referral Program is Changing Lives in the Local Community!

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Shield Referral Program Supports Local Sparta, Michigan Family

Your referral can make a difference for Roslyn and Maddox who both have a form of Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenital. Shield Insurance is helping this Sparta, MI family by donating $25 for each non-client who gets a quote from us.

No purchase is necessary!

CLICK HERE to get a quote and we’ll donate $25 to them! (Be sure to mention Roslyn and Maddox in the comment section!) You can also call or text the office (616) 896-4600 and one of our agents will take a few minutes of your time to offer up a quote. Don’t forget to mention Ros and Maddox

Your Referrals to Shield Insurance Agency Help a Local Family in Need

“The highest compliment we can receive is the referral of your friends, family & business associates. Thank you for your trust!”

Meet Roslyn
Roslyn and Shield Insurance Agency Referral Program

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The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies

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AllRecipies.com | By J. Saunders

The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies

Whenever you make these cookies for someone, be sure to bring along several copies of the recipe! You will be asked for it, I promise!

NOTE: I make icing with confectioners’ sugar and milk. I make it fairly thin, as I ‘paint’ the icing on the cookies with a pastry brush. Thin enough to spread easily but not so thin that it just makes your cookies wet and runs off.

By J. Saunders

Servings:60

Yield:5 dozen

Ingredients

Ingredient Checklist

  • 1 ½ cups butter, softened
  • 2 cups white sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 5 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt

Directions

Instructions Checklist

  • Step 1 In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
  • Step 2 Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
  • Step 3 Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Nutrition Facts

Per Serving: 110 calories; protein 1.5g; carbohydrates 14.7g; fat 5g; cholesterol 24.6mg; sodium 92.6mg.© Copyright 2021 allrecipes.com. All rights reserved.

Printed from https://www.allrecipes.com 12/20/2021

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She became friends with her Uber passenger then, like family, took a large pay cut to be his caretaker.

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Washington Post | By Sydney Page | December 9, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. EST | Like Family | Shield Blog

She became friends with her Uber passenger. They became like family, and she took a large pay cut to be his caretaker.

All it took was a five-minute car ride for Jenni Tekletsion to foster a friendship with her 88-year-old Uber passenger.

She met Paul Webb in March 2020, when he called an Uber to take him to a nearby Verizon store to get his cellphone fixed.

Tekletsion, 52, picked him up in her gray Toyota RAV4 at his home in Columbus, Ohio, where he lives alone.

“From the start, we really connected,” she said.

The feeling was mutual: “She was very personable, easy to talk to,” said Webb, who was diagnosed with dementia several years ago and has been unable to drive since having a stroke in 2017.

Only a few minutes into their car ride that day, “I could tell how lonely he was,” Tekletsion said. “I had a feeling that he needed help. I told him I live nearby his house, so I said, ‘From now on, when you need a ride, just call me.’https://fbe8d7153d534fc1148fc787bcfc9583.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

“I will take care of you,” she told him, and gave the stranger her phone number. “He trusted me.”

Webb took her up on the offer and called the following day, asking for a ride to a nearby gas station to buy milk.

In a matter of weeks, he called more often, and she also came by to check on him.

“I started coming here every single day after work to take him out to eat,” said Tekletsion, who was working remotely as a banker for a financial institution while also working toward her doctoral degree in business administration at Franklin University, which she is still pursuing.

Like Family

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9 Things You MUST Do Today to Grow Your Small Business

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SmallBizTrends.com | Published: Apr 29, 2018 Last Updated: Jan 22, 2021 | by Jeff Charles In Startup19

Growing a small business isn’t easy. It is one of the toughest challenges many face when they are looking to get out of the 9 – 5 daily grind.

The success of your small business depends on your efforts to grow profits using various methods. From employee training to marketing, every aspect of your business deserves attention.

Rapid growth doesn’t happen overnight, but there are several steps you must take to keep your business moving forward. It takes time and effort. However, when you start reaping the benefits, you will see that your effort is worth it. Here are some tips to consider if you wish to see your business grow.

How to Grow Your Small Business

Understand Your Customers

You can only develop products and services that will be a huge hit if you are attentive to the needs of your customers and prospects. One way to understand exactly what your customers want is through research and surveys.

You should be constantly inviting them to provide honest, even brutal feedback. Reviews and surveys are the best ways to get inside the mind of your customers. This makes it easier for you to develop products and services that are suitable to the current demands of the market. Moreover, it helps you understand the areas in which your company needs to improve.

Improve Customer Service

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Five Essentials to Include in Your Holiday Wellness Baskets

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Creating a favor kit stocked with COVID-19 must-haves, from masks to hand sanitizer, is a thoughtful touch if you’re hosting a handful of guests this season.

MarthaStewart.com | By Blythe Copeland | November 24, 2020 | Holiday Wellness Baskets

Hosting a smaller-than-usual holiday gathering frees up time (and money) for extra-special touches you might not have been able to organize in past years—and there’s no better favor for 2020 than individual wellness baskets. They’re beneficial from a health perspective, says Dr. Stephen Kissler of the Harvard School of Public Health: “This is classic public health prevention stuff,” he says. “Empowering people to prevent illness in themselves and from spreading it to others is great. It’s exactly what we should be doing—and I think wellness baskets are a really good approach to that.”

And when stocked with handy essentials and wrapped in festive packaging, wellness baskets make your guests not just healthy, but happy, too. “Guests will immediately feel special on an individual level and will remember your party for months and even years to come,” says Jamie Kutchman Wynne, founder and CEO of custom gift box curators Marigold and Grey. “2020 hasn’t been the kindest and so it’s more important than ever to let people know that they matter to you. This one simple gesture of thoughtfulness will go a long way and could be just the expression of kindness and generosity they need for their spirits to be lifted.” Ahead, several essentials to include in your kits.

Holiday Wellness Baskets

Hand Sanitizer

Click here for more Holiday Wellness Basket ideas

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The Great Resignation is hitting these industries hardest

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Fortune.com | MEGAN LEONHARDT | November 16, 2021 2:39 PM EST

The so-called Great Resignation picked up steam last week as quit rates reached record highs of 4.4 million in September alone, a whopping 3% of all Americans. But the trend of workers walking off the job isn’t consistent across all sectors. 

Quitting rates are especially high for in-person roles in traditionally lower-paying industries, according to the latest data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.

The industries hit hardest by quits in September are leisure and hospitality—including those who work in the arts and entertainment, as well as in restaurants and hotels—trade, transportation and utilities, professional services, and retail. 

When it comes to leisure and hospitality specifically, the industry logged nearly a million quits—987,000—with most coming from accommodation and food services workers.

Industries with highest percentages of workers quitting

The number of quits rose to a record high of 4.4 million in September 2021.

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Indoor Activities Guaranteed to Keep the Kids Busy at Home This Winter

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The weather outside may be frightful, but the prospect of having the kids home doesn’t have to be. 

By Brigitt Earley | December 11, 2020 | MarthaStewart.com | Indoor Activities

Snow days have always been tricky. A single phone call—”School’s canceled!”—changes the whole day, sending parents everywhere scrambling to keep their kids occupied from sun up to sun down. But this winter, moms, and dads face a new and unique challenge: keeping their kids busy at home for days on end. Though many schools are still in session (at least in some capacity), there’s no telling what the coming months will bring. If we learned anything in 2020, it’s to expect the unexpected. Whether in-person school gets cancelled or not, chances are kids will be spending a lot more time at home this winter. And with social distancing restrictions still in place, there will be fewer opportunities to occupy this extra time with trips to play places or play dates with other kids. 

What’s the best way to limit cabin fever and keep everyone—kids and adults alike—sane without resorting to hours upon hours of screen time? There are plenty of indoor activities that spark creativity, promote learning, encourage imaginative play, and—most importantly—are fun enough to keep whining and groans of “I’m bored” at bay (at least for a few precious hours). Here, are some clever ideas to inspire you.

Plan a treasure hunt.

Hide a few special treats and prizes around the house, then draw up a treasure map to help guide the kids’ hunt for the goods. While you do this, challenge the kids to come up with pirate costumes to really play the part. If that sort of activity takes more effort than you can muster, here’s an alternative idea: Turn to Etsy, where you can find tons of printable indoor scavenger hunts. All you have to do is download, print, hand out, then come up with a special prize at the end.

Bake your favorite recipes.

Give the kids a cookbook to sift through, and let them pick out a new-to-the-family recipe to try. Making something like a kid-friendly dessert is a great way to keep little ones busy while also teaching important skills. Kids will not only learn how to cook, but they’ll also absorb important math skills through measurements. Plus, you’ll all have something delicious to show for the hours spent.

Do arts and crafts.

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19 Things You Didn’t Know Your Smartphone Could Do

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The ‘Swiss Army knife’ of technology offers amazing tools that can replace your GPS and more

by Edward C. Baig, AARP, December 1, 2021

Want to create a video for all the world — or just your friends — to see? Newer smartphones allow you to take high-quality video that used to mean buying a bulky camera.

En español

Smartphones have become the Swiss Army knives of technology, going way beyond making and receiving calls while you’re on the go.

Yes, they’re often described as a minicomputer in your pocket. But you also have a radio, a flashlight — even a level for when you’re doing handiwork around the house.

As smartphones added features through the years, people began relying on them to take pictures, be their address book, wake them up in the morning and manage their appointments. More than 8 in 10 people age 50 and older own and use a smartphone, including 7 in 10 who are 70 and older, according to an AARP research report released this year.

But your smartphone can do much more. Here are 19 additional ways to use your iPhone or Android device and how to tap into those capabilities. All of the features are either baked into your phone already or available as free downloads from Apple’s App Store or the Google Play store for Android.

Tip: Sick of fumbling with your phone? Some of the functions here can be launched just by talking to it. For iPhones, say “Hey, Siri,” then state your command. For Android phones, say “Hey, Google,” then your command.

1. Battery tester for remote controls

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4 hidden ways erodes your culture (and how to avoid them)

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The Business Journal
By Heinan Landa  –  Contributing Writer | Aug 12, 2021, 4:05am EDT

More than a year after the pandemic turned much of the workforce virtual, fewer than 1 in 5 business owners intends to return to pre-pandemic office conditions, and the majority of U.S. workers want to maintain some regular telework schedule going forward.

Ultimately, most of us will settle into hybrid work where some employees are in the office and some are working remotely on any given day.

While hybrid work offers many benefits to our teams — and by extension our businesses — it also opens the door to a number of subtle culture killers that can do serious damage to engagement and retention.

Top 4 unexpected culture killers

1. Meetings

As tired as we may be of all-virtual meetings on Zoom or Teams, in this format each participant takes up the same amount of space, has the same means of contributing, and experiences that meeting the same way.

Now, consider a meeting where half the participants are in the office and half are at home. Can the remote participants distinguish who is speaking when? Do they have the same access to whiteboarding or visuals? How hard will it be for them to interject and be heard?

A return to the office also means a return to spontaneous chit-chat that snowballs into breakthrough ideas. Do you have a way to quickly pull more people into a conversation on the fly? Is collaborative note-taking an option?

2. Team-building

BizJournal.com

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