By now, you’ve probably seen a few people cruise by on an electric scooter. They may have been a few teenagers on their way to a friend’s house, somebody using the vehicle as a new way to commute to work, or maybe it was even yourself doing the riding. E-scooters have become common in many cities across the United States, with industry leaders Bird and Lime reporting millions of rides so far.
But, while e-scooters might be revving up in terms of popularity, new technology brings new complications and new concerns.
​
What are e-scooters?
E-scooters are not to be confused with mopeds or Vespa-like scooters, which allow users to sit, and travel at relatively high speeds. Rather, e-scooters are operated while standing up and often cannot go faster than 15 to 20 mph. Users get started by downloading an app that will help them  find a nearby e-scooter. They can then unlock the vehicle for an initial starting fee with total payment being calculated according to either distance traveled or how long the user rides the scooter.
E-scooters are usually dockless and operate like dockless bike-sharing programs with users able to find and park the vehicles in a wide variety of locations. E-scooters often do not require the operator to have a driver’s license.

Know the Risks and Rules
While operating an e-scooter, users are required to obey state and local traffic laws, but these can vary greatly depending on where you live or where you’re riding. Some jurisdictions have implemented laws pertaining specifically to e-scooters that limit where they can be ridden and how fast they can travel, so make sure you are familiar with the local rules before you take a ride.
Even if you are certain that you’re not breaking any laws, operating any type of motor vehicle, even an e-scooter, brings a certain amount of risk. E-scooters might not travel as fast as cars, but even at speeds as low as 15 mph, an accident involving a rider, pedestrians or other motor vehicles can lead to serious injuries including broken bones, head injuries and soft-tissue injuries.

Where Does the Finger Point?
With e-scooters still being a relatively new form of transportation, many insurance companies are still inconclusive on how coverage and liability applies to accidents and injuries caused or suffered by riders.
You may be riding at your own risk when you step onto a scooter, so it’s important to know whether you’re covered under your own insurance policies. Your homeowners and auto insurance policies may have been created before the rise of e-scooters, so there may be no mention of the devices.

A standard homeowner policy does not cover motor vehicles, and standard personal auto policies exclude liability coverage for vehicles with less than four wheels—e-scooters generally have two. Motorcycle insurance also might not cover e-scooters. Personal liability umbrella policies provide coverage for incidents excluded from underlying insurance policies, and thus may provide coverage for e-scooters.

It is important to know the specific details of your homeowners and auto policies before you can count on coverage for an injury or accident involving an e-scooter. Contact TWFG Insurance - Tony Voiron today for more information.

Mental health plays a huge role in your overall health and well-being. It affects everything, including how we think, feel and act, and helps determine how we make healthy choices and cope with stress.
Because it’s such a crucial component of your health, it’s important to focus on maintaining or improving your mental health. Here are five simple ways to do so every day:

1. Express gratitude. Taking five minutes a day to write down the things that you are grateful for has been proven to lower stress levels and can help you change your mindset from negative to positive.
2. Get exercise. You probably hear all the time how beneficial exercise is to your overall health, but it’s true. Exercising regularly can benefit your brain function, reduce anxiety and improve your self-image.
   
3. Spend time outdoors. Getting outside, especially when it’s sunny, can greatly improve your mood, which in turn, benefits your mental health.
4. Be kind. Helping others and being kind not only helps the receiver of the act, but can also help you. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy—holding the door or giving a compliment can go a long way.
5. Get a good night’s sleep. Fatigued individuals typically experience drowsiness, mood changes, loss of energy and appetite, headaches, and a lack of motivation, concentration and alertness. Strive for seven to eight hours of sleep a night to improve your mental health.

Eye Health 101
Keeping your eyes healthy is a very important task. Fortunately, it’s also an easy thing to do. Here are five simple ways you can keep your eyes healthy:

1. Get a regular exam. Complete eye exams consist of a series of tests designed to evaluate your vision and check for eye diseases.
   
2. Wear protective eyewear. When you’re playing sports or doing a task that requires eyewear to be worn, heed the advice and wear glasses or goggles to prevent injury to your eyes.
   
3. Don’t smoke. Smoking can contribute to a host of irreversible eye diseases, so quit or refrain from smoking to protect your eyes.
   
4. Put your shades on. Wearing sunglasses protects your eyes from the sun’s harmful rays. Don’t forget to put them on when you’re outside!
   
5. Give your eyes a break. Staring at a computer screen for too long can cause a painful strain on your eyes. Whenever possible, try giving yourself a short break from looking at the screen.
   

The Unexpected Ingredient in Your Oats
It’s not a superfood, and it’s not naturally occurring. It’s a pesticide. According to a report by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), almost three-quarters of the oat cereal, oatmeal, granola and oat bars contained traces of glyphosate.
What’s glyphosate?
Glyphosate is one of the most widely used herbicides in the world. It’s the main ingredient in hundreds of weed-killing pesticides.
Are oats safe to eat?
Federal officials report that the levels found in the oats is deemed to be “safe.” However, EWG claims that no level of exposure is safe, as glyphosate was classified as a probable carcinogen in 2015. To reduce your exposure, but still eat your oats, opt for organic oats.

TWFG Insurance Tony Voiron, Metairie La  (504) 322-7299 

The Lower Health Care Costs Act, a bipartisan bill proposed by the Senate Health Committee, was introduced on May 23, 2019. This bill sets out to address surprise medical billing, reduce the cost of prescription drugs and the overall cost of delivering health care, and improve transparency. The proposed legislation also includes a provision that would require benefits brokers to disclose their fees and any incentives they may receive from insurers.

Potential Impact
This provision was included in the proposed legislation after a February 2019 investigation by ProPublica revealed that the insurance industry often offers undisclosed incentives to influence brokers’ plan choices.

Dave Chase, co-founder of broker certification group Health Rosetta, says that, “By requiring advisers to disclose all of their sources of compensation, we can level the playing field for employers who are trying to lower their health costs. Instead of regularly accepting 5% to 20% annual cost increases, they can be more selective to ensure their adviser is actually serving their best interests.”

This proposed legislation would create a new level of transparency between employers and their benefits brokers, as many employers aren’t aware of the inner workings of health plan agreements or renewals.

What’s next?
The Lower Health Care Costs Act is just proposed legislation at the moment, meaning that there are no compliance obligations to meet. However, Sen. Lamar Alexander, bill co-sponsor, hopes that the bill will be on the Senate floor for a vote by July of this year. To view the proposal, click here. 

Many hardware and software developers have started to integrate digital assistants into their products, such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant and Apple’s Siri. These assistants offer a number of services and benefits, and can even be activated remotely using voice commands. However, because these platforms rely on connecting to a remote server, they run the risk of sending your recorded conversations or even personal information to others without your knowledge.

How digital assistants work
Every digital assistant uses the same underlying technology to answer questions and fulfill requests. Here’s an overview of how assistants record audio, send data to remote servers and analyze requests in order to respond:

• Devices that activate with voice commands use a series of microphones to constantly take short recordings and listen for a word or short phrase that indicates someone’s making a request. If the device doesn’t detect the phrase, these short recordings are deleted without being sent to a remote server.
• Some digital assistants also start recording a request after a button press or other prompt on the device.
• Once the device detects that a request is finished, a recording is sent to one of the manufacturer’s servers. Advanced software programs then analyze it and send a response the device.
• Most manufacturers claim that all recordings and other personal data is encrypted and inaccessible to outsiders. However, many manufacturers also have internal teams analyze recordings in order to upgrade their digital assistants.

Protecting your information
No technology is perfect, and it’s possible for smart devices to take unintended recordings for a number of reasons, such as a misinterpreted phrase, background noise, a damaged microphone or tampering. And, because the process of sending recordings to servers happens in seconds, you may not have a chance to prevent your information from being sent elsewhere.

Here are some tips you can use to control when your devices take recordings and protect your data:

• Check your devices to see if there’s an option to configure the digital assistant’s settings. Depending on your device, you may be able to disable continuous recordings, require a physical button press or turn the digital assistant off altogether.
• Read through and delete your conversation history. Some manufacturers let users view transcripts of recordings using a digital assistant’s mobile app. This option lets you see if any sensitive information was recorded and erase anything you don’t want outsiders to see.
• Check the manufacturer’s policy to see if you can opt out of the process that allows their employees to analyze recordings remotely in order to improve digital assistants.
• Go into the settings on your smartphone and other mobile devices to see what apps can access your microphone. It’s possible for some services to access microphones without consent, and they may have made recordings without your knowledge.
• Regularly change the passwords of any accounts associated with digital assistants to protect both your settings and transcripts of recordings.
• Think about the best area to place smart speakers and other devices with digital assistants. For example, you may not want to place these devices in an area where you frequently speak about work-related activities or other sensitive information.

TWFG Tony Voiron - Cyber Security Insurance in Metairie & New Orleans Louisiana

According to a study published by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday, May 6, 2019, the active ingredients found in sunscreens can end up in the bloodstream at higher than recommended levels. The FDA says that this small study, which involved 23 volunteers, warrants conducting further safety studies.

The Study
The study evaluated one sunscreen cream, one lotion and two sprays. The 23 volunteers applied the specified sunscreen to 75% of their body four times a day for four days. Over the course of seven days, blood tests were conducted to determine the levels of certain chemicals absorbed into the bloodstream.
The study found the maximum plasma levels of avobenzone, oxybenzone and octocrylene (in one sunscreen, they also tested for ecamsule)—the active ingredients in sunscreen—to be above the level of 0.5 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL). For example, the study found the avobenzone concentration to be 4 ng/mL and 3.4 ng/mL in the sprays, 1.8 ng/mL in the cream and 4.3 ng/mL in the lotion.
The 0.5 ng/mL level is significant because it’s the level at which FDA guidelines call for further safety testing.

What Does This Mean?
The effects of plasma concentration exceeding the FDA’s limit isn’t currently known. As such, the study’s research team called for further safety testing to be conducted. However, the research team stated that the results of this small study do not suggest that people should stop using sunscreen. Failing to use sunscreen can leave you vulnerable to the sun’s damaging ultraviolet rays.

What’s Next?
It’s likely that further safety testing on sunscreen and its active ingredients will be conducted. Until told otherwise, continue to use sunscreen as directed when you’re out in the sun to protect your skin.
 

​More than 50 people, mostly children, have been infected by the measles in the United States this year. This particular outbreak concerns southwest Washington and northwest Oregon. Nationwide, though, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that eight other states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Texas) have reported cases of measles in 2019, bringing the total of reported cases to 79.

What is measles?
Measles is a highly contagious illness caused by a virus called rubeola. People are most susceptible to contracting this illness in early childhood. In the current outbreak in Washington and Oregon, the majority of the cases involve children between 1 to 10 years old. Measles usually causes fatigue, runny nose, cough, slight fever, and head and back pains. In later stages, it can cause a high fever, Koplik’s spots (small white dots) inside the mouth and a rash that starts around the hairline and spreads downward.

Measles has a 25 percent hospitalization rate, is not treatable and has no cure. The virus can lead to serious complications, such as encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain. In some extremely severe cases, measles and its complications can be fatal.

How can the measles be prevented?
Measles can be prevented with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. This vaccine is typically given in two different doses, the first being administered between 12 to 15 months of age and the second being administered between 4 to 6 years of age. The CDC reports that the two doses together are 97 percent effective at preventing the disease, while just getting one dose is 93 percent effective at preventing the disease.

Without being vaccinated, you’re at risk of contracting measles, especially because it is a highly contagious illness. If you live in an area that’s experiencing a measles outbreak, call your doctor for recommendations on what to do. Your doctor may recommend staying in your house until the outbreak subsides. 

VOLUNTEER WORK
In addition to boosting your social well-being, volunteering can make you feel physically stronger, increase mental sharpness, aid in reducing stress and even help you live longer. Despite these proven positive effects, only 1 in 4 Americans regularly volunteer, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you’re curious about the specific benefits of volunteering or how to get started, read on.
Health Benefits of Volunteering
As previously mentioned, volunteering has proven health benefits. Here are just a few of those benefits:

• Increased mental and physical activity—Participating in volunteer activities gives you the opportunity to move and think in different ways than you’re used to doing at home or at work. And, there’s a good chance that you’ll be on the move while volunteering, which increases your overall physical activity level, too.
• Reduced stress levels—Giving back to those in need is said to enhance one’s sense of belonging, meaning and appreciation, which are all elements that can help reduce your stress levels.
• Increased social well-being—By going out and volunteering in your community, you’re broadening your social circle, forging new relationships and giving back to those who are in need. All of these activities can increase your social well-being, a component that plays a large role in your overall health. 

Volunteers may work full time, part time or be retired. They may volunteer with one organization a few hours a week, or with multiple organizations several hours a week. No matter what amount of time that is contributed, studies show that volunteers have an overall healthier, happier outlook on life.
How to Get Started
Many organizations can benefit from your volunteer time. A good place to start looking is within your community. Pick one that complements your talents, interests, schedule and physical abilities. When you’re thinking about what you’d like to do as a volunteer, it may be helpful to think about what’s motivating you. Some volunteers are motivated by the following:

• Helping others
• Learning about the community
• Meeting new and interesting people
• Working in a team environment
• Feeling like they made a difference
• Gaining valuable life experiences
• Acquiring new skills

Once you’ve determined what’s motivating you to volunteer, you’ll be able to narrow down your search for local volunteer programs. For example, if you enjoy helping others, it may be beneficial to try to volunteer at a hospital or clinic. If you want to learn more about your community, volunteer on a community council or committee.
You can browse online listings or a newspaper to identify volunteer programs. To ensure a successful outcome for both you and the volunteer program, ask yourself the following questions:

• When can I begin?
• How much time can I commit?
• How often do I want to participate?
• What skills can I offer?
• What skills can I gain?
• What would I not want to do as a volunteer?
• What community issue do I want to affect through my volunteer service?
• What group or population do I want to serve?

To get started, contact your local chapter of the United Way www.unitedway.org or try www.volunteermatch.org. 

Did You Know?
If your home becomes uninhabitable for reasons covered in your renters insurance policy, the insurance company will reimburse you for your temporary living expenses until you are able to find a new place to live. Renters insurance is there to not only protect the belongings in your home, but so much more.

There are so many misconceptions when it comes to what renters insurance is and what it covers. Here are some common myths about renters insurance:

I don’t have enough stuff to get renters insurance.

• Things add up fast! Your electronics, appliances, clothes and even food are all large expenses that can be protected under your policy.

My landlord’s insurance will cover the damages to my belongings.

• Typically, a landlord’s insurance policy only covers the physical building, not anything that’s within your walls or another tenant’s.

Personal belongings are the only things covered under renters insurance.

• Renters insurance can also cover damage to someone’s property within your home. And, depending on the limits of your liability coverage, it can cover some or all of the medical expenses if someone happens to get injured on your property.

I can’t afford renters insurance.

• Renters insurance can be incredibly affordable. Although pricing can always vary, some policies can cost as little as a couple cups of coffee at your favorite cafe.

Don’t wait until it’s too late to start thinking about renters insurance.
We spend a lot of time and energy filling our living spaces with items that make it feel like home—it only takes one unexpected event to have it all stripped away. Renters insurance can give you peace of mind knowing that you and all of your belongings are covered. 

Call TWFG Insurance Tony Voiron for a quote on Renters Insurance in Metairie and New Orleans La.

Manufactured homes, also commonly referred to as mobile homes, are built in a factory and moved to a chosen location, they aren't much different than a site-built single-family home — even when it comes to insurance.  Obtaining coverage specific to your mobile home is essential. A standard homeowners insurance policy will not cover your liabilities in the same way this specific policy will. 

The Basics
A mobile home insurance policy will provide coverage for your home and property such as the following:

• Coverage for your actual mobile home and any adjacent structures that are on your premises (attached patio, deck, shed, etc.). This protects against all forms of loss including fire, windstorm damage, and damage from falling objects, lightning and explosions.
• Personal property protection: Covers losses for removable property such as electronic equipment, bicycles, furniture and clothing.
• Personal liability protection: Covers losses in the event that someone or something is injured on your property. Policy pays for medical expenses for non-residents of your home and damages or defense costs as a result of covered accidental incidents.
• Protection for improvements
• Loss of use of your mobile home

Additional Endorsements
For added protection, consider purchasing these endorsements:

• Emergency removal: This policy pays for you to move your mobile home if an oncoming disaster (e.g., fire, tornado) threatens your home and safety.
• Trip collision: Protection for use when moving your mobile home to another permanent location.
• Worldwide coverage: Protection for your personal belongings if they are lost, stolen or damaged when travelling to another permanent location.
• Fire department charges: Provides reimbursement for charges incurred if your mobile home is located in an area that is not serviced by a fire department.
• Extended coverage: Used for valuables, such as jewelry, furs and heirlooms and for electronics.
• Additional dwelling rented to others.
• Water backup: Protects against damage resulting from water backups.

Top Ways to Save:

• Get a discount for having approved protective devices on your vehicle.
• Get a multi-policy discount on your premiums for your automobile and mobile home coverage. 

 
Call TWFG Insurance Tony Voiron for your quote today 504-322-7299.

The internet, smartphones and other online technologies have helped businesses streamline their supply chains and inventories. However, human error, software incompatibilities between vendors and a lack of transparency can cause even the most efficient operations to experience time-consuming and costly errors.

Online cryptocurrencies like bitcoin depend on a technology called blockchain that can instantly share, secure, verify and store records simultaneously. As a result, many businesses are using blockchain systems to implement efficient and secure recordkeeping systems.

What is blockchain and how does it work?

Blockchain is a new type of shared, encrypted recordkeeping system that can be seen in real time by everyone involved in a supply chain or other business operation. These systems work by recording a separate record, or “block,” every time a process is updated.
Essentially, each block in the system serves as a digital puzzle piece that verifies the next record, creating a digital chain. Each block is encrypted and can’t be changed, since altering any information in the record would be like taking a piece out of a finished puzzle and trying to change its shape.

Advantages of blockchain

Because each stakeholder in an operation keeps a separate copy of blockchain records, the systems allows for a large amount of transparency and communication. Businesses can also customize how users see information in a blockchain system. For example, an online retailer could let a customer view their orders and shipping statuses, but not their full inventory system.
Blockchain technology can give businesses an instant picture of both large and small-scale operations, such as a single product’s location or real-time sales figures. And since records can’t be altered or viewed without permission, they’re extremely safe from cyber attacks and data breaches.

Potential applications

Here are some of the potential benefits of a blockchain management system:

• Flexible scalability—A business can use a blockchain system internally to track projects and other workflows, or multiple organizations can share the platform to organize large-scale operations.
• Security—Records that use blockchain are encrypted, verified and shared between all users. As a result, blockchain is very secure against tampering and cyber attacks.

 

• Transparency—Advanced sensors and other tracking technology can update blockchain records to give businesses an ongoing view of a supply chain without fear of human error or biased reporting.
• Innovation—New services are beginning to automate complex systems like contractual obligations, employee security credentials and personal data protection using blockchain technology.
• Detailed analytics—Businesses can track individual products to gather important information at any time, such as the origin of a dysfunctional product or a food item’s expiration date.