Monitor Your Teen’s Driving
Do you have a teenager who drives your vehicles? Teenagers’ highest risk of death is from an automobile accident. And teenagers have the highest rate of accidents compared to any other age group.
With today’s technology, you can monitor your teen’s driving habits. There is a “black box” available that you can install in your car that will monitor your teen’s driving habits. Is this too much oversight of our teen drivers? Or, is it worth it since your teen’s life is at stake?
My daughters aren’t old enough to drive yet, so I don’t have to make the decision right now. But, I’m sure it will be a hard decision when the time comes. See details about this topic below:
Monitor Your Teen’s Driving
Automobile accidents are easily the leading cause of death for teenagers across America, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). For both genders, drivers between the ages of 16 and 19 have the highest average annual crash and traffic violation rates of any other age group. NHTSA data also show that unaccompanied 16- and 17-year-olds crash nine times more often than adults.
Research indicates that young novice drivers tend to underestimate the crash risk in hazardous situations. Teen drivers also tend to take more risks while driving, partly due to their overconfidence in their driving abilities. One way for parents to reduce their teen’s chances of being involved in an auto accident is to use technology to monitor their driving characteristics and provide appropriate feedback.
A number of “black box” products are now available on the marketplace to facilitate monitoring drivers. These small devices (often the size of a pager and starting at around $280) can be simply installed into the auto your teen drives by plugging them into the Vehicle Data Link Connector (on 1996 and new vehicles). They can detect and record your teen’s speed, aggressive driving such as “jack-rabbit” takeoffs, failure to wear a seat belt, unsafe backing techniques, driving locations, monthly mileage, and driving times. Thus, if your teen’s curfew is at midnight and they get home at 1:00 a.m., you will know it.
With some of these products, you can simply pop the memory card out of the “black box” and plug it into your PC to display the reports and graphs. You can then review the results with your teenager, providing a great educational opportunity based on solid, technology-driven evidence. Research indicates that this type of monitoring and coaching pays off big dividends in the form of safer teen driving. Numerous companies offer these products in the marketplace, with some of the more sophisticated ones costing upwards of $1,000. A few insurers offer discounts for families who utilize these devices.
Get more personal lines insurance and risk management tips and ideas from IRMI.
Copyright 2010
International Risk Management Institute, Inc.
Las Vegas 2010
Last weekend, I made my annual trek to Las Vegas. I usually go at least once a year since one of my good friends lives in Las Vegas. I went up with a couple of friends.
One of my friends came with his cousin, who goes to Las Vegas 3 or 4 times a year. He likes to play bacarrat, which I had never tried before. On our first night, he made $800 which got me interested in the game. He explained the rules to me, and I decided to try my luck at bacarrat a couple of nights later.
You may have heard of bacarrat. It’s traditionally a rich man’s game. Casinos usually have a bacarrat area for high rollers. However, many casinos now have tables where you can bet as little as $10 per hand.
On Saturday night, I joined my friend’s cousin on the table and simply bet the same way that he did. Basically, you have two choices. You can choose to play with the player’s cards, or you can choose to play with the dealer’s cards. After the cards are drawn, the person who is closest to 9 wins. It’s a 50-5o chance of winning, which makes it the best odds bet in the casino. I ended up making $400 that night playing bacarrat.
Overall, I still lost money on the trip. But it would have been worse if I didn’t learn this new game. I’ll definitely try it again next time I visit.
Wacky Insurance Claims
Have you ever filed an insurance claim? Many of us who purchase an auto or homeowner’s insurance policy may never ever file a claim. But for most people, there’s some type of accident or event that can be covered by insurance. That’s why we have insurance – for the unexpected events in our lives. Most claims are small – minor fender benders for auto insurance and minor weather related claims for homeowner’s insurance. Some claims are serious like a motor vehicle accident where someone dies or a total loss to a residence by fire. Again, that’s what insurance is for. And some claims are just plain wacky. They may be big or small, but they’re all quite unusual. Take a look at the following article for some wacky claims:
Wacky Insurance Claims
Posted 18. Sep, 2010 by Forest in General Articles, Opinion
Insurance is something we all don’t want to pay but can come in handy in situations that we never planned for. In many cases (like home and car insurance) it’s a necessary evil and although I hate extra monthly expenses it has saved my butt a few times!
Most insurance claims are straight up damage claims of the most common nature. Minor car crash, small storm damage, stolen cell phone and similar. However insurance can cover a wide gamut of situations and sometimes some trulelu wacky insurance claims are filed. Not all get paid but believe it or not some do manage to.
List of Wacky Insurance Claims
The wackiest thing I ever claimed for was falling through a loft and landing on top of the fridge in the kitchen! The fridge probably saved me a hospital visit but it’s not that uncommon to fall through roofs (Ok that statement is a huge assumption, maybe it’s just me that is so clumsy!).
This is a list of the funniest and wackiest insurance claims that I could find from an article on Yahoo (wackiest insurance claims), An article on eList Mania (10 bizarre insurance claims) and and article on Barrington Insurance Brokers (funny insurance claims).
- A farmers herd of cows got into his games room and went nuts causing $3000 (AUD) worth of damage. The claim was paid!
- A pet poodle swallowed it’s owners false teeth resulting in a $1500 (AUD) claim that again was paid.
- A wasp flew up a drivers trousers and got in his underwear causing him to panic and put his foot in the accelerator at a stop light, causing a traffic accident!
- A grandmother took off her opal ring whilst babysitting her grand daughter. The grand daughter decided the ring matched the cats eyes and tied it to the cats collar. The cat ran off into some nearby forest and the ring was never seen again!
- A closed bus station toilet was claimed as the cause of a man soiling his underwear and claiming for a new pair of trousers! I think this claim was likely refused.
- A man pulled out of his drive and hit a bus. He claimed that the bus was 5 minutes early and that was why it wasn’t his fault!
- Voodoo was claimed as a possible cause of a broken windscreen.
- Hitting a pedestrian was justified by someone as they said they had to to avoid hitting the bumper of the car infront of them.
- Power steering was blamed by someone knew to it for doing a small turn that ended with their vehicle facing the wrong way!
- Another person claimed that the pedestrian they had hit admitted it was their fault because they had been hit before.
Some of these are hilarious but I bet they are no where near the weirdest. I am sure insurance companies process some unbelievable claims.
