by California Casualty | Auto Insurance Info |
Icy roads. Traffic jams. Black ice. Snow conditions. All of these can make a parent go crazy just thinking about their teen driving in these conditions. How do you talk to your new driver about driving in the winter season? We have some easy tips to get the conversation going.
- Decrease your speed. The faster you’re going, the more room you’ll need to stop.
- Be extra careful on bridges and overpasses.
- Avoid cruise control or overdrive.
- Don’t pass snow plows – their drivers may not see you, and the roads are clearer behind them anyway!
- Turn on your lights to be more visible.
- Steer into a skid – this means if your rear wheels are going right, gently steer in that direction.
- Gently tap your brakes, if you have ABS brakes, gently apply constant pressure.
- Keep your windshield wiper fluid filled and keep your headlights clean.
These helpful ideas do not have to just be for your teen. Share with friends and family.
by California Casualty | Educators |
Our Education Blogger is a public school teacher with over a decade of experience. She’s an active NEA member and enjoys writing about her experiences in the classroom.
Your personal life is yours, and it is precious. It is also necessary. Especially during winter break. There is no need to feel guilty about leaving work behind each day when you exit your classroom door. Enjoying your time outside of school makes you a better teacher. Relationships with students, parents, and colleagues may also improve when you maintain a balance between work and home. Over the years, I have learned, but not yet quite mastered, several ways to create a balance between my work life and home life.
Don’t Give Out Your Personal Information To Parents or Students
If you must communicate with parents and students outside of the school day, sign up for a social media account you can use for your classroom. Don’t give out your personal phone number, email address, or home address. Many parents and students are able to set respectful boundaries. However, there may be some parents or students who will abuse this communication privilege. This can sour your relationship with a parent or student if they continue to overuse your attempt to be “available.” You don’t want to find yourself in a sticky situation that could get you into trouble.
Keep Work At Work
Leave all of your grading and planning at school. Home should be your sanctuary, not a second office. Your family, pets, and brain will thank you for it.
Maintain Consistent Work/Office Hours
Try to arrive and leave at the same time each day. Make sure parents, students, and colleagues are aware of your daily “office hours.” Each day, I make a point to arrive no later than 7:15am and leave no later than 4:30pm. My “office hours” are 7:30-7:50am and 3:15-4:00pm. If a parent or student needs to meet with me, they know when I will be available.
Enjoy Family Time
Savor each moment you have with your own family. I love my job, and I adore my students, but I refuse to sacrifice precious time with my own family. I can never get that special time back. Grading papers, planning lessons, and returning emails can wait until the next day. So, file away those tender memories with your family without the guilt.
Protect Your Personal Social Media Accounts
Being “friends” on your personal social media with students and parents is not required. I am protective of myself and my family, so I stick to a few of my own rules for my personal social media account:
1) never be friends with a current student
2) students must be at least 13 years old (most social media services and apps require users to be 13 years old to join)
3) never be friends with a current student’s parent(s) or other family members
4) keep profile set to private
Social media can bring with it negative talk, upset feelings, and online bullying. I have no desire to get myself, or my family, involved in anything of the sort.
Don’t Check Work Email At Home
I review my work email on my school computer throughout the day, and in the moments before I shut the computer down to leave for the day. Then, I don’t check it until I arrive at school the following day. I used to have my work email synced to my personal cell phone. Big mistake. I found myself getting emotionally worked up at home about the occasional negative email from a parent or colleague. When there were “security” threats to our district email system (mostly viruses), my personal phone, along with all of my personal accounts, were at risk. Forget about sleeping when all I can think about is how I’m going to respond to the angry parent, or wondering if my phone would be affected because of a naive colleague who opened an email attachment from an unknown sender! Ditching my access to work email from home has significantly lowered my stress level (and I’ve even gotten a few more zzzz’s)!
Recruit Help
It’s okay to ask for help. Get a neighbor, a friend, a babysitter, or a grandparent to help you out at home if you need it. You aren’t superhuman! We all need a little extra support from time to time.
Be Realistic
Be realistic about what you can and can’t do. There may be nights that you won’t be able to cook dinner. That’s what delivery and take-out are for! It’s okay to bring a frozen, microwave meal for lunch (although that 5-minute cook time really eats into my lunch time). I promise, no one will judge you! Yes, it’s okay for dirty laundry to sit around in the hamper for a few days. You’ll get to it when you can.
Be Disciplined
Stick to it and mean it. If you crave more personal time, then be picky about your work hours, how you spend your time outside of school, and choosing to leave work at work. If you don’t think you can be disciplined, ask someone to help you by holding you accountable. Your partner or spouse can make sure you’re not checking work email, or bringing home papers to grade. Your best friend can check in on you to see if you’re keeping the right company on social media.
We’d love to hear from you! How do you create a balance between work and home?
This article is furnished by California Casualty, providing auto and home insurance to educators, law enforcement officers, firefighters and nurses. Get a quote at 1.866.704.8614 or www.calcas.com.
by California Casualty | Calcas Connection, Consider This |
It doesn’t take a natural disaster or tragedy to learn that you might be underinsured. An example comes from the holidays. The warmth of the season can turn into an economic nightmare if someone slips and falls at your home or apartment, your dog bites a guest, or someone gets food poisoning. Without enough liability protection, you could be in real financial danger.
Just do a search of personal liability lawsuits and settlements. You might be shocked by the results and the number of law firms filing such cases. You may think that a guest wouldn’t sue you for damages, but it does happen, especially if the injury is serious.
You’ve worked hard for the things you own; you don’t want to put them at risk.
Financial experts advise that as long as you can earn a livelihood, you should have as much liability insurance as you can afford. Most home insurance policies come with $100,000 liability coverage, but boosting your limits to $300,000 or $500,000 offers greater protection at a reasonable cost.
If you have a lot of assets or other exposures for a possible civil suit, you should consider an umbrella policy, which provides $1 million to $5 million coverage.
While you’re at it, what liability limits do you have with your auto insurance? You may be severely underinsured if you opted for the minimum liability limits required by your state. Just like home insurance, you should purchase as much liability coverage as possible, especially if you have a younger, inexperienced driver.
Accidents happen every day, but California Casualty can help you be prepared.
TAKEAWAY: If you don’t know what your liability limits are, or you’d like increase your coverage, Contact California Casualty’ Customer Service at 1.800.800.9410 option 3, or at [email protected].
by California Casualty | Calcas Connection, In Your Community |
In these trying times, it’s an honor to work with so many who give so much for our communities. California Casualty appreciates all that you do, and our employees and executives are proud to be a part of your everyday lives. From disaster relief to prize giveaways, we are dedicated to making a positive impact for you, your peers and your families.
Knowing the toll the California fires took on the people that we insure, the California Casualty Cares Committee of the Advisory Board wanted to assist the many heroes who helped others at their own peril. California Casualty donated $20,000 to the CTA Disaster Relief Fund to help CTA members who have experienced significant losses due to the disasters in California.
California Casualty is also working with other groups, such as the Police Officers Research Association of California, California Association of Highway Patrolmen, California State University System, and the California State Firefighters’ Association, to give an additional $12,000 in donations from the Cares Committee. These donations supplemented $7,500 given earlier in the year to help with the 2017 fires that struck Sonoma and Ventura Counties.
In an effort to remind insureds to check their policies and make sure they have enough coverage to protect against a disaster, California Casualty initiated “Wherever Your Journey Takes You…We’ll be There” Sweepstakes. Bloomingdale, Illinois 8th grade teacher Kathleen Nikides was the grand prize winner. She was surprised with the $25,000 award November 16 during an assembly at Stratford Middle School.
“I’m still flying high, I can’t believe I won. My husband and I will take some time to figure out what we will do with the money,” she said.
Kathleen found out about the contest from the Illinois Education Association, but never thought she’d win.
Teaching for 35 years, 30 years at Stratford, Kathleen loves advocating for students and helping them reach their full potential. “I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, and I still love every minute of it. It was great that my students were so excited when they learned that I had won.”
Kathleen is the co-president of the Carol Stream Education Association, which is an affiliate of the Illinois Education Association, and is thankful California Casualty supports education associations. “Thanks to member benefit partners like California Casualty, we feel valued, and that value is very appreciated right now,” she said.
More than 52,000 school administrators, instructors and education support professionals shared their journey and entered the contest.
Knowing how hard firefighters, law enforcement officers and EMTs work, and the danger they put themselves in to keep us safe, California Casualty invited first responders to sign up for the “Better Safe Than Sorry” Work Hard/Play Hard contest. Three winners – in California, Colorado and Oregon – will each be receiving a check for $2,250, to purchase the Liberty Safe of their choice, that they can fill with a collection of provided 5.11 tactical gear – a total prize value of $2,950. We’ll share who the winners are in the next California Casualty Connection.
In an effort to reduce tragic driving deaths and injuries, a total of $12,000 was recently awarded in the Fall Create Real Impact contest, sponsored by California Casualty and Impact Teen Drivers. The Create Real Impact contest encourages the creative efforts of youth ages 14-22 to prevent distracted driving – the number one killer of teens in the U.S.
Grand prizes were awarded for best video, writing, music and art submissions, and to schools that had the most entries. Create Real Impact is one of the many initiatives employed by Impact Teen Drivers to combat dangerous inattentive driving. Your kids, or students at your school, can learn more and enter the 2019 spring contest at www.createrealimpact.com.
TAKEAWAY: Learn more about California Casualty’s commitment to the groups we serve at https://mycalcas.com/community/, and share your pictures and stories about the men and women who make a difference for our communities at our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/CaliforniaCasualty.
by California Casualty | Behind the Scenes, Calcas Connection |
As disastrous wildfires recently tore through California once again, our employees went into high gear to reach customers, plan next steps for relief, and get their own feet on the ground to offer the needed face-to-face support.
From the first responders going above and beyond to save lives and property, to the devastated customers who were left with nothing but the clothes on their backs, California Casualty was there to give a helping hand to the decimated communities of Paradise, Concow and Magalia in Northern California, and the Southern California towns of Thousand Oaks and Malibu.
Our Partner Relations and Service Support Teams immediately started calling more than 530 insureds to see if they were okay, how they might be impacted, and help them if they needed to start a claim or required other support. Our employees talked to or left messages for more than 300 people.
The response was overwhelmingly positive, with many thanking California Casualty for reaching out and expressing concern for their safety. “You are even better than I thought you were,” said one policyholder, who was extremely grateful for the call. “Your call means more than words can say,” said another.
“The magnitude of the destruction, and knowing so many people were suffering, made this calling effort a lot more emotional than previous ones that we have done,” said Customer Support team member Karen.
Ruth, another Customer Support employee, said the calls were heart-wrenching at times. One insured told Ruth that she and a neighbor had barely escaped the flames, and they feared they might not make it out alive. She was beyond grateful that we called to offer compassion and caring. Ruth was able to email the customer her policy numbers and claims contact number, as well as information about how to contact the Red Cross and FEMA for additional assistance.
And Lorelei, a member of our Partner Relations team, said the calling effort made her proud to work for a company that takes the time to reach out to customers. While the magnitude of the disaster was overwhelming at times, she says one call to a retired California teacher was “life changing.”
He was in the hospital when the Woolsey fire broke out. His wife was rescued by first responders as their house was consumed by flames, but he had not been able to contact her.
“This was more than just an insurance call, it was a real connection. He needed someone to listen to him and be there for him,” Lorelei said. “He was obviously distressed, but I felt really good knowing what our company stands for and that we cared for him and his wife’s well-being. Just talking and listening to him made a difference, and he thanked me so much for doing that.”
Northern California Field Marketing Manager Christy leapt into action on the ground, meeting with insureds and bringing water, snacks and other necessities for evacuees and first responders to various locations around fire-stricken Butte County.
California Casualty Field Claims adjusters are now meeting with the hundreds of customers affected by the fires. As in past disasters, they are working with insureds to make sure their immediate needs are met, while helping them begin the long process to recovery. California Casualty will do everything in our power to lift up our customers during this devastating period in their lives.
California Casualty is there for our insureds in their greatest time of need. The people who commit to make a difference for our communities deserve financial protection with the highest levels of care, service, compassion, and understanding…which is why we exist.
As one of our adjusters said, “I think we are going to make you proud.”
TAKEAWAY: We love hearing your stories. Share your experience with California Casualty and add a review at https://www.trustpilot.com/review/calcas.com.
