Business liability insurance is a must-have for all businesses. Even if you run a small operation (e.g., bed and breakfast, pet sitting service, house cleaning service, local newspaper), you need to have liability insurance for your business.

Liability insurance covers injuries and damages suffered by a third party. Do not expect to collect from any claim against it. Liability insurance is meant to pay for any obligations you might incur in case someone gets hurt while he or she is on your business property or when there are property damages or injuries caused by you or your employees.

Not a few people have commented that doing business in America is like working in a legal minefield where even minor issues or senseless disputes end up in lawsuits. You may have read about the millions of dollars ruled in favor of plaintiffs. If you don’t want to risk everything you have worked for, you need to protect yourself and your business from any possible legal threat.

Types of Liability Insurance

Ideally, you should have liability insurance in place before you launch your small business. Remember, anything can happen or go wrong anytime, anywhere. Consult with your insurance agent for the appropriate policy and coverage you need. There are basically four types of liability insurance:

1. General Liability Insurance

This is the most common and offers a broad coverage of protection against lawsuits arising from auto accidents involving your business vehicles, property damage, or injuries to anyone anywhere you’re doing business such as when someone trips on your tripod if you’re a photographer or if your waiter burns a guest with the flambé he’s carrying. Some liability coverage may include libel, slander, and infringement on intellectual property. (You’ll definitely need this if you run a freelance writing business from home.)

2. Professional Liability Insurance

This type of liability insurance is for those who are in the service industry. It covers errors made during the performance of a service such as the malpractice insurance for doctors, and errors and omissions insurance for financial advisors, lawyers, accountants. and other professionals.

3. Product Liability Insurance

This type of liability insurance is for business owners who are in the manufacturing industry. It provides protection against accident, injury, or death that may be blamed to any product you manufacture or develop. Its coverage is best appreciated by toy producers and car manufacturers.

4. Employers’ Liability Insurance

This liability insurance protects you from possible lawsuits your employees might file against your business because of injuries or sickness or for wrongful termination, sexual harassment, and discrimination.

Occurrence Policy vs. Claims-Made Policy

Go online to find the best rates for your business liability insurance. If you wish, you can use an aggregator service to receive multiple quotes from different insurance companies so you can easily compare and make an educated decision. As you go about shopping, you will notice that the rates for a claims-made policy are lower than the rates for an occurrence policy. Don’t merely go for the cheaper premium; learn more about the package you are getting instead.

The occurrence policy is more expensive than the claims-made policy because you remain protected long after your policy lapses. As long as the incident occurred while the policy was in force, any claim against you for that incident will have to be paid by the insurance company regardless of the time of filing. This means that if you get sued three years from now for an incident that happened today, your current insurance will answer for any financial settlement that may be ruled against you in the future even if you have switched to a new insurer by then.

The claims-made policy, on the other hand, provides protection only from incidents that occur during the term of the policy and for which claims must be made within the same time period or for the duration that you are insured with the same insurance company without lapse or gap of coverage.

Shopping for car insurance is not fun, but it is important. If you choose to drive without car insurance, you put yourself, your family and your assets at risk. In addition to those serious risks, driving with car insurance is against the law, and if you are caught you run the risk of losing your drivers license for a long time.

But even though car insurance is a vital purchase, it is not a cheap one. The high cost of car insurance is one of the most common reasons drivers cite for going without this vital protection. Fortunately, there are some things drivers can do to lower the high cost of car insurance and get the protection they need. Putting together your own buying guide before you shop is one of the best ways to get the most comprehensive coverage at the lowest possible price.

Determine Your Insurance Needs

Before you start shopping for car insurance, you need to know exactly how much coverage you need. If you already have a policy in place, you can check the details within that policy and use those coverage levels to shop for a new, and hopefully cheaper policy.

If you do not currently have insurance, take a look at the value of the assets you own and buy insurance coverage worth at least that much. Most states have a mandatory minimum amount of coverage drivers must have, but that amount might not be sufficient to cover your potential liability.

Check Your Credit Score

You might not realize it, but how well you pay your bills could have a big impact on how much you pay for car insurance. That is because many car insurers consider not only your driving record but your credit record as well. Those companies claim that there is a statistical correlation between an individual’s credit score and their likelihood of having an accident, but no matter what the reason, it pays to be prepared.

Take the time to pull a copy of your credit report and review it carefully. Notify the reporting agency of any inaccuracies and demand that they be removed from your credit report. If your credit truly is bad, seek out companies that base their rates solely on how well you drive.

Drop Collision Coverage

Collision coverage provides reimbursement for damages to your vehicle caused by an accident, while comprehensive coverage protects you if the car is damaged by a natural disaster, or if it is stolen. If your car is an older model, it might not make sense to carry full comprehensive and collision coverage on the vehicle, since the maximum the insurance would pay is the book value of the vehicle.

To determine if collision and comprehensive coverage still makes sense, find the value of your car and compare it to the cost of that portion of the insurance coverage. If the cost of collision and comprehensive coverage exceeds 10% of the value of the car, you are probably better off dropping that expensive insurance.

Taking these things into account and knowing where you stand can reduce the cost of the car insurance you need without compromising your protection or putting your personal assets at risk. Taking just a few minutes to prepare can allow you to save hundreds, or even thousands of dollars on your car insurance over the course of a year.

The number of online scams is huge and growing. The sheer number of scams makes it difficult to catalog them all but there are similarities in the methodologies used by scammers that apply across a broad range of cyber crimes. It is important to recognize these techniques and know how to react when they are being used. Many of the newest scams are not really new, but modified versions of old scams.

1. Payment Forwarding and Processing Scam

Unfortunately, high unemployment and scarce job opportunities have led to a proliferation of scams that take advantage of individuals seeking a way to earn income. There are a number of ways scammers try to take advantage of unsuspecting job seekers.

One scam involves the victim’s participation in illegal money laundering activities. Two variations of this scam entice the job applicant to become part of a criminal operation. These are the payment forwarding or processing scam and the postal forwarding or reshipping scam. In both cases, the victim can be contacted by the scammer as a result of a response to an unsolicited e-mail, a resume posting or the victim sending a resume in response to a rebate or payment processing job.

In the payment forwarding or processing scam, the victim is asked to provide bank account information to the scammer (the new employer) or to open a new account using information supplied by the scammer. The scammer deposits money into the account and asks the victim to wire the money (less a commission) to a third account usually outside the country. There is no processing of rebates or payments, just the illegal laundering of money for a small commission.

2. Postal Forwarding and Reshipping Scam

In the postal forwarding and reshipping scam, the victim receives shipment of goods and then reships them to a foreign buyer, in return for a commission. This scam involves shipping products to the victim and then having the victim reship those products to another destination, usually another country. A scammer has likely purchased the products with stolen credit cards or other hijacked funds and the victim merely ships the products to another (usually foreign) address, where they will be fenced. This is obviously an illegal activity.

3. Phishing Expeditions

Many job applicants are anxious to secure employment and cyber criminals are more than willing to exploit that anxiety. Applicants post their resumes on a job site and wait to hear from an interested employer.  Unfortunately, not all jobs posted are legitimate and criminals troll some job sites looking for unsuspecting victims. In many cases, the scammer has designed professional looking ads that may include links to what appear to be legitimate company websites.

Not all job sites are the same.  Some require verification of recruiters to protect the applicants and have clearly defined privacy policies. Others may be more open and have fewer protections. The posting of bogus ads is often simply a ploy to capture the personal information of the unsuspecting applicant. The simplest trick is to include a link to a bogus site and instruct the applicant to click the link where additional information is requested. Other approaches may be a follow up e-mail from the “employer” offering an attractive sounding job and requesting personal information. Often, the excitement of finding a job after a long and frustrating search may cause the applicant to let down their guard and be taken in by the scammer.

Because of this threat, online job applicants should include only work-related information on the posted resume. After gaining credibility with the applicant, the scammer will try to get the applicant to reveal sensitive personal information such as social security number, date of birth, bank account numbers, and home address. A common rationalization is that the company needs the information because employee paychecks must be direct deposited. The applicant should not disclose this information based on an online job offer.

4. Jobs That Require Paying the Employer

Everyone has heard the expression that you should never pay for a job. Some scammers pose as headhunters or employment agencies that insist that the applicant pay a fee before starting the job. Once the fee is paid, the headhunter and the job disappear. If you want to deal with an employment agency, always thoroughly check them out before making any commitments.

A second type of scam involves trying to trick the applicant into making up front payments for some type of training as part of getting the job. A related scam involves the applicant receiving an advance paycheck for the job that is an overpayment and then the victim is asked to wire the amount of overpayment back to the “employer”. Once wired, the cash is gone and the employer’s check proves worthless, resulting in the victim’s loss of the wired funds.

Be Alert and Use Common Sense

Common sense is the best defense against employment scams. Examine how well the ad is written and if its language, spelling, grammar and sentence structure are up to standard. If not, the originator may be a foreign scammer. Before providing any personal information, think long and hard about why an employer would need the information. Do they really need your social security, bank account and credit card numbers and do you want to give anyone this information until you are 100% sure of their legitimacy?

5. Denial of Service Scam

Denial of service is a new scam that has been reported in certain areas of the country, particularly the northeast. In this scam, the criminal first gains access to personal information through one of the usual phishing methods such as e-mail, social media, careless telephone conversations or malicious software. Once enough information has been gathered, the criminal launches a denial of service attack. This involves using automated dialing programs and multiple accounts to tie up all of the victim’s means of communications, including phones.

By incapacitating the victim’s communications, the cyber criminal creates a diversion, making it impossible for the bank to verify transactions with the victim. The criminal impersonates the victim either by phone or online and raids the victim’s bank, online trading, or other asset management accounts.

6. Official Looking Phishing Scams

One popular scam is to use official looking communications from Government agencies to trick the victim into giving a scammer sensitive personal information. This may include getting e-mails from Medicare or the Treasury Department asking for information to apply for some type of rebate, refund or stimulus check.  Official looking communications may come with the IRS logo asking for information so you can get a tax refund, update your file or some other reason.

If you click on a link to these e-mails, you will likely be communicating with a cyber criminal, not an agency of the US Government. If you provide the personal information requested you are setting yourself up to be a cyber crime victim. Keep in mind that these agencies do not send you e-mails and they do not ask for any personal information in any reply to e-mails. If you receive any of these e-mails seeking to get personal information, notify the appropriate authorities.

7. Social Media and Online Dating Scams

Social media scams prey on the sociability of members. Although social media have become a very popular way to keep in contact with friends, relatives, business contacts and former work associates, they also can be a hunting ground for scammers. This risk can be mitigated by limiting the amount of personal information that can be used by scammers on phishing expeditions.

Cyber criminals will hack accounts when possible and use the member’s contacts to send out e-mails to their friends asking for money. Often, the rationale for the money request is that the friend is stranded somewhere and they have been robbed. Without their credit cards, passport and cell phones, they have no way to get home. A new scam, often called “grandparent distress”, has arisen. In this scam, the grandparent is urgently requested to send money because the grandchild is in desperate need of help because of an accident, medical emergency or some other reason.

Other scams may relate to dating. Often, the victim develops a relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend who may or may not be in another country. After the relationship and emotional attachment develop over time through online and telephone communications, the foreign boyfriend or girlfriend wants to come for a meeting so they can deepen the relationship with an in person meeting. At first, the scammer may not ask for any money for the trip to keep from arousing suspicion. Often, just before the trip the friend needs money for the plane ticket, visa or for some medical emergency and requests the funds. If the ploy works, the money is sent and the friend is never heard from again.

8. Advance/Upfront Payment Trick Scams

The number of advance or upfront payment scams is too numerous to mention. These scams are designed to achieve one goal – trick the victim into making an upfront payment or reveal sensitive personal information in return for a promise of a much larger payment. In addition to the well-known up front payment Nigerian 419 Scam, there are lottery scams, inheritance scams, prize winning scams, real estate and vacation rental scams and many others.

The current real estate market has produced a new scam where the scammer offers to pay an above market price for an advertised property but needs and advance payment for some trumped up reason. A scam commonly called the “mistake scam” involves the scammer issuing a counterfeit check or money order for more than the purchase or rental price and then having the victim reimburse them for the difference with a wire transfer. In the case of the prize-winning scam, the scammer may ask for your bank acct number and PIN to pay for shipping and handling.

Eleven Tips to Reduce the Chances of Being Scammed

1. Keep all of your virus protections and computer security features up to date.
2. When you receive an unexpected message on your computer, avoid the temptation to act quickly and take your time and think before reacting.
3. Online, on the phone and in everyday activities, be aware of the need to keep your personal information protected.
4. Never respond to unsolicited e-mails asking for verification of personal information even if the request looks like an official communication and has a familiar look and logo. Call the real company and ask them if they sent you a message.
5. Be alert to the dangers of responding to scary messages imploring you to click on a link for a download to fix a problem with your computer or virus protection.
6. Never send money or agree to deposit a check from someone you don’t really know and then agree to wire money back to them. Once you wire money, it’s gone. Do not fall for this well-known scam.
7. If you receive a job offer online, do the research and make sure the employer is legitimate by thoroughly checking them out with independent third parties.
8. Limit online resume postings to job related information. Use job sites that require employer verification to view the resume and have privacy policies.
9. Be diligent in reviewing your bills and financial statements, including statements received in the mail and viewed online.
10. Use common sense and be very skeptical of any investment recommendation sent to you by e-mail. Remember the popular saying of economists that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
11. Watch out for trick sign ups. Know the originator, you may end up with a difficult to cancel subscription or inadvertently download malicious software on to your computer.

Online Activities Require Vigilance

Modern society depends on online communications taking place in a secure environment. Because online communications have become such an integral part of everyday life, caution must be exercised in using these capabilities to their fullest without allowing the criminal element to take advantage of the situation to exploit unsuspecting users. Every user has to take every precaution to protect themselves and others from the threat of cyber crime.

Sources for this article included the FBI’s new e-scams and warnings and the Federal Trade Commission’s On Guard Online website.

Majority of the work force first steps into the world of employment with an associate degree. And with busy working life and personal commitments alongside, they often find themselves stuck on the same cubicle where they started out some years back and with the same paycheck while some of their colleagues have moved into an office of their own, working on wide desks, and now driving the best company car.

Although many jobs require only an associate degree to begin, everyone well knows that a bachelor or masters degree can give you the competitive edge to work your way up to supervisor or management level. But going back to school, especially if you have been gone for quite a while, can bring a lot of hesitations and apprehensions. With your age, hectic work schedule (and even your personal relationships to deal with), you do not have that much time (anymore) to sit down in a classroom and study. Others even have ‘extra’ commitments like a second job to pay off credit debts, or taking care of some family or ill parents.

On the process of trying to get a better degree, you will also be faced with the difficulty of leaving your current position — which means losing your regular source of income. Now nobody would want that especially at this time. But if you really have been considering pursuing your education and better compete in work, why not take advantage of getting an online degree? Decades back, the idea may not be as attractive as it is now, but with the economy in a mess and more working adults now returning to school, the idea of studying online really does have some merit.

In the modern age of technology where almost everything you need is online – you can now say sayonara to good ol’ days of reading and consulting bulky books and oversized encyclopedias for information. Today, the internet can answer most, if not all of our research needs – and now- even your advanced degree requirement.

Here is why Virtual Education is best for anyone with an existing career:

Zero Travel Time

Because you can participate in the course without having to be physically present in a classroom, you can save a great deal of time (and travel-related expenses) apart from the physical effort of getting form one place to another. You can quit worrying about dropping off your kid to the nanny and drive like a madman to grab at least a decent parking space. With a few and simple clicks of the mouse (and with a nice cup of coffee on the side), you are already in class!

You Get to Save Big-Time

Perhaps the best benefit to getting a degree online is the cost. Aside from the lower tuition fee itself, gas prices are going nowhere but up. Saving your car from the general wear and tear is already a huge thing. Getting your degree online is way cheaper than traditional learning. The costs to rent an apartment or dorm room close to school are simply nuts. And definitely, downloading course materials is way easier to do than digging for over a thousand bucks from your pocket to pay for your entire year’s textbook.

You Get to Go on With Life

Working adults cannot drop what they are doing to get that degree they need to advance their careers. Read the rest of this entry »

If you have landed your dream job with the help of Monster.com, here’s a wonderful opportunity for you to tell everyone of your experience and get a chance to win a prize just for sharing your success story.

The known top Job Search Engine on the web, Monster.com, came out with a press release last month encouraging those who successfully found jobs through their service to go out and let the world know. The campaign was launched to help motivate the millions of job-seekers across the globe who may be uncertain they could get employed by using online job search tools.

Indeed, searching for a new job is never easy. It could, in fact, be the toughest job one will have. Which is why your personal experience is very important. Let everyone know how Monster.com successfully changed the career, and perhaps the life of real people like you. Take a few minutes to tell us about what you have learned during your job search, offer any practical advice you could share, and let your story motivate those who are new in the entire idea of online job searches or those who have little faith in it. Let others know what they have been missing, encourage them to join Monster.com and discover new ways to find the perfect job.

Its parent company, Monster Worldwide, Inc (NYSE:MWW) has provided premier online employment global solutions for over a decade now, and wants to continue inspiring individuals to achieve their career goals. With the same vision shared, Monster.com has been, and up to present the most essential tool for the modern-day job seekers by effectively matching individual skills and interests with the vast requirements of today’s challenging job market. Their technology not only allows one to narrow down one’s search by location, keywords and employers, but also offer other extras like networking boards, job search alerts and online resume posting.

Send your story and be one of the six lucky winners of a special prize package, announcements of which are scheduled for November 8 and December 6, 2010. No story to tell yet? Perhaps you can help spread the good news and share this story through any of the Social Networking sites you use. We would greatly appreciate if you do.

The above post is a Sponsored Content. For more details, go to www.success.monster.com.

Note: If you are interested in writing on Environmental Graffiti please send an email to zero@environmentalgraffiti.com (the site is currently “by invite” only). Be sure to put “applicant.com” as subject and you will be provided with a special invite link (for applicant.com readers) that will allow you access right away. To learn more about the platform please read below.

Environmental Graffiti is the first environmental site in the world to bridge the gap between social media and paid-for journalism. Through a product called the Graffiti Index*, Environmental Graffiti is able to pay users for every page view they generate. If a user writes a popular article, with 100,000 views, they can potentially earn thousands of dollars, a welcome boost in today’s economic climate. Currently the platform pays 25% of all revenue and plans to scale that upto 80% in couple months.

The new site is a hybrid that brings together all the best aspects of social media and online magazines, benchmarking the social features of Facebook, Twitter and Digg, as well combining the editorial quality of National Geographic. The platform is a content democracy: users create the articles and determine which ones hit the front page. Environmental Graffiti edit the articles to ensure a strong focus on quality control.

Features of the Environmental Graffiti community include:

• Voting: the community votes the users’ best stories to the front page
• My Graffiti: a personal dashboard and quick link to all areas of the site including a users’ articles, feedback from editors, profile, traffic and revenue they have generated
• Profiles, inboxes and followers: a way to communicate with other members of the site
• Write: where users create the articles. Also includes story ideas and an image gallery to inspire
• Forums: where users can discuss issues with others who share your interests

Chris Ingham Brooke, Founder of Environmental Graffiti says

Environmental Graffiti gives you the freedom to express yourself, share your knowledge with millions of people and crucially earn revenue. From extreme sports to bird-watching, you control and create the news, the news does not control you.

Environmental Graffiti was started in May 2007 by Chris Ingham Brooke, then just 19 years old, working from a barn in Oxfordshire, UK. Armed with nothing but its fresh and eclectic take on environmental news, it took the online world by storm, generating 1.5 million unique visitors a month. After receiving requests from over 3,000 people to write articles, the new community enables users’ voices to finally be heard.