Home security

Home security

SF Chronicle 10/07/2012

Have good deadbolts on all your doors? Strong latches on your windows? Do you always lock your doors and windows? Have a barky dog?

If you can answer "yes" to the first three questions, you're way ahead of most when it comes to home security - and get bonus points if you have the dog. Because most burglars enter homes through unlocked doors or windows or by forcing open locked ones, even the most basic measures of protection will greatly improve your security.

The odds of your home being burglarized are actually quite low: Only about 1 in 50 U.S. homes is broken into each year. But over time, the odds can turn against you. And given the financial, physical and psychological damage that can result from a burglary, it makes sense to do more to become more secure.

In addition to having good locks on your doors and securing other entry points, other simple steps include setting up lighting systems and improving your own habits (consistently locking doors and keeping track of keys, having someone pick up newspapers and mail when you are away and keeping valuable items out of sight).

Another option is to buy a home alarm system and pay to have it monitored. There is evidence that these systems do make a difference: Homes with security systems are about one-third as likely to be burglarized as homes without them. Although part of the difference no doubt has something to do with the home's location and other protections in place, electronic alarm systems clearly matter - the discounts offered by homeowners' insurance companies to customers who have them attest to their effectiveness. But while an alarm system will improve the security of your home, it may not be worth the cost if:

-- You live in a very low-crime neighborhood.

-- Your house is well-secured physically (with locks and other measures).

-- Someone almost always is at home.

-- Your neighbors will keep an eye on your house and call the police if they notice anything suspicious.

-- You possess little of substantial value that could be stolen and have good insurance coverage.

-- You don't worry much about break-ins.

-- Children, houseguests, or others are likely to frequently trigger false alarms.

-- The hassle of setting the alarm and avoiding false alarms might make you avoid using it regularly.

If you decide to go the home alarm system route, Bay Area Consumers' Checkbook magazine and Checkbook.org rated local installers for service quality and price - and found big differences on both measures.

Choosing a good installer is essential to making sure the system is effective, convenient and unobtrusive; minimizing false alarms; and controlling costs. Some companies are twice as likely as others to obtain top service quality ratings from their surveyed customers.

Have several companies come to your home to propose system designs and quote prices. Some will be much better than others in designing a system that meets your needs conveniently and at a reasonable cost. Even for the same basic design, you will find substantial price differences. For one particular job, Checkbook's shoppers got quotes ranging from $1,304 to $4,961.

When pricing a system with a central station monitoring, take into account the cost of monitoring. Some installers will lock you into using their monitoring services for several years. Checkbook found monitoring costs can vary substantially: from $999 to $1,359 for basic landline monitoring for three years. If you already have an alarm system, keep in mind that with most systems you can switch monitoring companies if you find a better deal elsewhere.

Editor's note: The Chronicle is partnering with Bay Area Consumers' Checkbook magazine and Checkbook.org, a nonprofit consumer group that rates various types of local service firms and professionals, to help you find the best services in the Bay Area. Chronicle readers can find Checkbook's full article, with advice on home security, choosing an alarm installer, price comparisons, do-it-yourself tips and - for the next four weeks - use Checkbook's ratings of Bay Area home security companies for free, at  

http://www.checkbook.org/interactive/homesecu/other/bay/article.cfm

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Personal Finance: Protect valuable files for disaster

Personal Finance: Protect valuable files for disaster

By Claudia Buck,  cbuck@sacbee.com

Published: Sunday, Sep. 16, 2012

When it comes to keeping important papers in a safe spot, insurance agent Gary Hatano vividly remembers one client's solution.

While visiting the home of a retired military veteran, Hatano asked to see a copy of his life insurance policy.

"He said, 'Hold on a minute' and went to his refrigerator," recalls Hatano, a Farmers Insurance agent in Folsom. From the bottom of the vegetable bin, the retiree pulled out hisinsurance policy, neatly wrapped in aluminum foil.

While a tinfoil packet under the refrigerated carrots may not seem like the most sophisticated solution, Hatano said he couldn't argue too much with his client's intentions. In a fire, the packet presumably wouldn't burn and everyone in his family knew exactly where it was.

We should all be so wellprepared. From torrential floods in Louisiana to blistering California wildfires, this year's weatherrelated calamities are a reminder that events beyond our control can strike anyone, anytime, anywhere.

If a natural disaster hit your household, would you be ready? We all have important paperwork that we want to safeguard: insurance policies, loan papers, marriage or divorce documents, even the vaccination records of our kids or pets.

Not to mention all our personal family photos, videos and music sitting on our computers.

Knowing what to grab in case of a hurried evacuation could prevent the loss of irreplaceable family mementos, as well as documents that could be tedious and timeconsuming to replace. Here are some options:

Grab-and-go binder

Having a grab-and-go box or binder can be a lifesaver. Think of it as a onestop spot to keep all your key documents. It can be a binder, a file box, or anything portable enough to carry on your own.

Hatano, the insurance agent, says he keeps a documentfilled binder hidden at home. It contains copies of all his family's crucial paperwork: property records, bank accounts, names of key professionals (financial planner, attorney, banker, insurance and real estate agents). There's also a copy of his trust.

"Trying to recreate all those copies would be a nightmare," said Hatano, who also considers the binder a helpful resource for his wife, in case something happened to him.

The binder does not contain originals of those documents, however. Originals should be kept in a safe deposit box, a fireproof safe, at an attorney's office or with trusted family members, Hatano advises.

Makin' a list

Another essential safeguard: a household inventory.

In the event of filing an insurance claim, "It's hard to remember what you have," said Perry Ghilarducci, a Sacramento CPA who heads Avaunt Ltd. He recommends keeping copies of receipts, warranties, serial numbers and appraisals of your household valuables.

You can record a video or simply make a roombyroom list of appliances, furniture, electronics, books, clothing. And don't forget the backyard and garage.

Websites such as www.InsureUonline.org, sponsored by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, have easy tips on creating a household inventory. There's also a Home Inventory Guide on the California Department of Insurance site, www.insurance.ca.gov.

And don't forget your cellphone. Especially when so much of our personal life resides in our handheld devices, you don't want to be stranded if your phone gets lost, drowned or burned. Keep a card ideally laminated in your wallet with a list of important numbers, everything from your kids to doctors to the financial and professional contacts you might need in an emergency.

Back it up

Whether it's your home or office computer, a backup is essential. A simple hard drive that automatically backs up everything stored on your computer is the first line of defense. But if it's damaged in a fire or flood, all your family, financial and business files and photos could be wiped out.

To better protect your hard drive, a California company, ioSafe ( www.iosafe.com), manufactures a series of hardy protective "safes" for computer hard drives that it claims are waterproof and fireproof, whether submerged in water for three days or burned in intense flames up to 1,500 degrees for 30 minutes.

It's essentially a second hard drive that plugs into a USB port, acting as a tougher twin to your computer's own hard drive.

"It's for the things your insurance can't replace: your family photo albums," said Robb Moore, CEO of the Auburnbased firm. "What would you grab as your house is burning? Your family photos and videos are the most compelling."

Akin to an airline's black box, the hard drive boxes are shown in online videos being dropped off balconies, burned in barbecues and run over by tractors. Starting at around $249, they can be found at Fry's, Best Buy or online.

Others are migrating to storing computer data online in the socalled "cloud," using backup systems that aren't sitting on their desktops.

Ghilarducci's firm, for instance, provides online document storage for its tax clients.

"It's a virtual file cabinet, if you will," the CPA said, noting that clients can log in, using a personal password, to retrieve their tax documents whenever needed. Clients are encouraged to use the access to scan and upload other financial documents mortgage, insurance, household inventories, for instance for their eyes only.

For his own office computer and personal laptop, Ghilarducci says he's looking at companies such as Carbonite ( www.carbonite.com) that automatically back up computer data to an online data storage center.

Safeguarding your possessions doesn't necessarily have to be a hightech solution. As ioSafe's CEO put it: "Do something to protect yourself against natural disaster."

Even if it's as simple as a zipclose bag or a dashoutthedoor binder.

WHAT TO TAKE ALONG WITH YOU

If disaster strikes, the California Society of CPAs says you should leave home or work with copies* of these documents:

• Birth and death certificates, marriage licenses, wills or trusts, military discharge papers and other important "life event" documents

• Property titles

• Social Security cards

• Passports

• Insurance records

• Credit card numbers and contact information

• Automobile pink slips

• Medical records, including prescription numbers

• Passwords and user names for bank accounts and websites you frequently use

• Phone numbers and addresses of relatives, friends, doctors

• Federal and state income tax returns for past three years

• Receipts for highend purchases (jewelry, art, hightech equipment, etc.)

• Bonds/stock certificates

• Household inventory

*Originals should be kept in a safe deposit box or fireproof safe.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved

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Travel: Credit card, frequent flier changes portend problems

Travel: Credit card, frequent flier changes portend problems

By Ed Perkins, Tribune Media Services, Posted:   10/04/2012

You'll soon be facing two new reverses in your ongoing struggles with travel suppliers. Although the preliminary indications are relatively obscure, they presage possible big new developments in the next few years. You need to start planning now.

Paying with plastic

Allegiant Air has quietly initiated a new way of treating plastic. Its all-up fare displays now feature a "debit card" price; if you want to use a credit card, you pay an extra $4 per flight regardless of the base price. The fine print still lists a higher base fare, then subtracts a $4 "debit card discount," but the net effect is the same: You pay $4 more to buy with a credit card than with a debit card.

What's going on here? Airlines would like to avoid the fees that credit card issuers charge. For Internet purchases like airline tickets, industry reports say those fees are roughly 2 percent of the transaction cost. Debit card fees are lower, about half that figure. Even a 1 percent difference represents lots of dollars on the multibillion dollars in airline revenues.

The reason for Allegiant's use of a "debit card discount" rather than "credit card surcharge" stems from a bit of Orwellian logic: Contracts between the card systems and merchants specify that merchants can't add credit card surcharges to nominal list prices, but they are allowed to give "cash" or "debit card" discounts.

So far, none of the other "usual suspects" airlines has introduced such pricing. But, as I've often noted, nothing catches on in the airline business as fast as a bad idea.

As consumers, you have a big stake in the outcome to this battle. Credit cards provide some important benefits that debit cards do not:

-Legal protections, such as charge-back laws, apply to credit cards but not to debit cards.

-Debit cards typically do not provide such ancillary credit card benefits as rental-car collision protection, other types of "insurance," and warranty guarantees.

-Debit cards typically do not award miles, points or cash discounts.

-Credit cards allow you to repay a purchase over extended time periods, while debit cards deduct a charge from your bank account immediately.

As this battle develops, I expect to see some blurring of the distinctions and the addition of some benefits to debit cards. In addition, independent payment systems such as PayPal will likely play a much bigger role. For now, however, you just need to keep watching developments -- and to decide on any given transaction whether to pay more for a credit card buy than with a debit card.

Frequent-flier devaluation

Delta Air Lines has reduced the miles it awards for travel on "unpublished" fares, including student, consolidator, group and similar fares. Mileage earning will run from the standard 100 percent to as low as 25 percent, depending on the fare class.

Unpublished fares in the Asia Pacific region are exempted due to some contract fine print.

I suspect this is the first of many such devaluations. When American started the first frequent-flier program, the spread between the highest and lowest fares was much less than it is now, so earnings based on miles flown made some sense.

Now, however, my belief is that most airlines would prefer to base earnings on amount paid or the equivalent, rather than miles flown.

Foreign lines and some smaller U.S. lines, which established programs much later, adopted this system. I think the giant U.S. airlines will try to follow as quickly as the public relations impact will allow.

The clear conclusion: Miles and mileage programs don't improve with age.

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