Memorial Day is around the corner and pretty soon the kids will be out of school. Where will your summer vacation plans take you and your family this year? If a rental car is part of your plan, let us help answer a common question people ask their insurance agents: Does my car insurance cover my rental car?

When renting a car, you are given the option of purchasing insurance from the rental company, but you may not need it. Your car insurance policy may cover your rental car, so before your trip, it's a good idea to speak with your agent. Ask your agent if your policy covers a rental car, and if it doesn't, inquire about the cost of adding that to your current coverage. Depending on the price of the insurance from the rental company and how often you travel, it may be a good addition to your auto insurance policy. If you don't own a car, ask your insurance agent about a non-owner auto insurance policy that provides benefits in addition to rental car coverage. Lastly, talk with your credit card company and see what coverage it may provide if an accident were to occur while you're driving a rental car.

If you're ever in doubt about the coverage your insurance policy offers you, it's always best to call your agent. Each policy is different, designed specifically for the needs of you and your family.

Studies show that using a cell phone while driving is just about as dangerous as drinking and driving, as shown graphically in this video from 20/20. Yet states have been slow to ban their use outright, with only nine states currently banning the use of hand held phones while driving and 35 more banning texting while driving. That may be changing, as the National Transportation Safety Board has recently released a FAQ sheet on the dangers of distracted driving (PDF) and is calling for a national ban. The idea of a nationwide ban is gaining traction, due partly to a study recently released by California, where traffic deaths have declined by 22% in the two years since hand held cell phone use while driving was banned.

If the ban is passed in all fifty states, how will it affect car insurance rates? Since policies vary so much from state to state, it's difficult to say. Currently, in New York, being ticketed for cell phone use results in three violation points on your driving record, and a fine up to $100, along with other mandatory fees and surcharges up to $85. The penalties are the same for texting or e-mail use while driving, except the maximum base fine goes up to $150.

Here's a chart of current State Cell Phone Use & Texting While Driving Laws.

It's always a good idea to check the price of a car you're considering against the Kelley Blue Book value, easily done on their website. Remember that price can be different in different parts of the country, and experts advise doing a Craigslist check on similar cars in your area to get a feel for local prices even if you're buying from a dealership. Edmunds is one of the best online sources for used car information (new cars, too) and they have a recent article on buying a used car for under $2500. One point the experts all agree with is spending an extra $35 or so to get a carfax report on any car you're seriously considering.

Of course, you may not have your computer when you're shopping. There are car-buying apps for that. Edmunds has a highly recommended app for iPads, iPhones and Droids as does Kelley Blue Book that can instantly give you the estimated value and reviews on any car -- and with an app like Craigslist Finder, you'll be notified whenever the car of your dreams comes up for sale.

Once you have the car, it will need insurance and the way you approach that may vary depending on whether your student is a high school or college grad. Laws vary in each state and insurance companies also differ in their rules, but for the most part, children can only be covered by their parents' policy if the parents' home is their primary address. Some insurers offer exceptions if students will be away at school, but others won't insure a car if it is garaged in another state. You'll also want to check with your agent - depending on the circumstances, there may be multi-vehicle discounts if the child is insured on your policy; the student may also qualify for a Good Student Discount or for safe driver training program that will enable a discount. There's a lot to consider and a lot of variables - your independent insurance agent can help you make the right decision.

While there is no shortage of glowing recommendations for all these services to be found online, accidents do happen and issues do arise. Before you decide to hand your home over to strangers you should be sure you're covered in the eventuality of any problems. The Insurance Information Institute strongly recommends that you speak with your insurance agent before you rent out any portion of your home, noting that traditional homeowners policies may well not cover any damages incurred by paying guests. You may need either an endorsement to your homeowner's policy or a separate business policy. In either case, make sure you're covered before you join the rental service so that you can travel with a light heart.

Traditionally, these were the choice of wealthy individuals and families, but umbrella policies are gaining in consumer popularity and are increasingly being purchased by the middle class. In this litigious society, a nip from the family hound or a fall on the family trampoline can lead to enormous liability lawsuits that can quickly exhaust even comprehensive insurance policies.

Who should have umbrella coverage? Some experts recommend that anyone with dogs, teenage drivers in the family or high risk yet attractive recreational facilities like pools, trampolines or ATVs should consider an umbrella policy. This handy worksheet from Smart Money (PDF) can help you figure out if an umbrella policy is right for you. We recommend that you talk to your independent insurance agent in the context of your total coverage needs, which should be reassessed periodically. Your agent can help you assess whether such a policy would us right for you and can find the right insurance policy, if so. Sometimes, you can even cover the cost of an umbrella policy simply by raising the deductible on your home or auto policies.

According to the Insurance Information Institute, umbrella policies are typically sold in $1 million increments and cost on average between $150 to $300 a year for the first $1 million in additional coverage. The next million will typically cost about $75 annually and about $50 for every million after that. Most insurance companies will not write one unless you already carry liability insurance of about $250,000 on your auto policy and $300,000 of liability insurance on your homeowners policy.

Just like knowing that you always have an umbrella in the car on a rainy day, an umbrella insurance policy can give you extra peace of mind. In this uncertain world, that might be worth a couple hundred dollars a year.

Wildfires are fires that start outside developed areas. Also known as brush fires, grass fires, vegetation fires and Smokey the Bear's nemesis, forest fires, uncontrolled wildfires have been making headlines in recent years as they devastate increasingly large portions of the USA. Wildfires have long been a huge issue for the Western states, but widespread drought conditions over the last few years have made them a real hazard on the East coast as well. Many New Englanders were startled by the odor of smoke and the pall in the air from last May's huge Quebec fires. And this season has begun ominously with the recent spate of wildfires up and down the East coast.

A wildfire differs from other fires by its extensive size, the speed at which it can spread out from its original source, its potential to change direction unexpectedly, and its ability to jump gaps such as roads, rivers and fire breaks. The primary cause of wildfires in the US is lightning, although many wildfires are attributed to human sources such as arson, discarded cigarettes, sparks from equipment, and power line arcs. Prolonged drought dramatically increases the risk of wildfires, as underbrush becomes tinder dry. The past winter saw record low amounts of snowfall in New England, leading to much dryer vegetation than usual and an accompanying greater risk of fire. Human development can also add risk factors, as was an issue in last spring's Texas fires, centering around the rapidly growing city of Austin.

While wildfires are unpredictable by their very nature, you can take steps to minimize your risk and possible fire damage. First of all, be aware of any current risk factors. You probably are already familiar with NOAA's severe weather warnings but did you know they also have fire risk watches and warnings? Keep this fire risk map bookmarked and check it now and then to assess your community's risk. The goal of an effective wildfire protection plan is to keep the fire from coming dangerously close to any structure on the property. Any structure or planting that's too close to your home or business can act as a wick, drawing fire to the buildings.

Follow these simple steps to minimize your possible damages.

Roofs: Choose a Class A rated fire covering for your roof and keep the roof and gutters free of debris.

Attics and Vents: Attics and vents can serve as entry points for windblown embers. Cover yours with 1/8 inch metal mesh screens.

Attachments: Awnings, decks, patios and porches can act as a wick bringing flames to the building. Consider taking down any awnings and clearing all decks or patios if the fire risk is currently at warning level or if any fires have been reported in your area.

Windows: Radiant heat from a wildfire can break single-pane windows; instead, choose dual-pane windows with tempered glass for increased protection. Make sure to close all windows before evacuating for a fire or, in areas of fire warning, keep them closed.

Plantings: Be extremely careful with landscaping within 15 feet of your home or business. Avoid plants that generate ground litter from bark, leaves, or seeds that slough off and those that have very low moisture content or small branches and needles that can easily ignite. Regularly prune all underbrush and consider using rock or gravel mulch, particularly directly by your building.

Outbuildings: Storage buildings, trash bins, pergolas, playground equipment, boats, RVs, and other combustible items can allow fire to reach the building. When possible, relocate these at least 30 feet from your home or business. And, while it should go without saying, be sure that propane tanks are located at least 30 feet away from any structures.

As you doubtless know from the media coverage, the Titanic sank 100 years ago last week. That disaster was long considered to be the most costly maritime insurance loss although the sinking of the Concordia Costa last year in Italy seems to have surpassed it. It's interesting, therefore, that a Titanic insurance document has just surfaced for the first time in a century. The document, which records the total pay out of £4,000 (an estimated £263,000 or $419,432 in today's money) by Royal Insurance, now part of the RSA Insurance Group has never before been seen by anyone outside RSA. This was only a small portion of the total insurance payments. As the ship's hull and machinery was valued at £1 million, owners White Star Line would have had hundreds of different insurers.

The Encyclopedia Titanica has over 100 articles about insurance claims on the Titanic. Initial estimates two weeks after the disaster were that life insurance payouts totaled around $2.1 million, and accident insurance payouts came to a little more than $1.5 million. The industry estimated that life insurance losses would end up at $4 million, accident insurance losses at $2 million. Many passengers carried specific life insurance and travel policies while the survivors of other lost passengers filed claims against White Star Lines. One Mrs. Irene Harris claimed $1,000, 000 for the loss of her husband, a theatrical manager. The first claim settled was for a Mr. Ervin G. Lewy of Chicago and in a morbid note, the article comments that without a death certificate, the company had to "strain certain points" to allow the payment. Eventually, White Star paid $664,000 to settle all the claims.

In a fascinating look back at the insurance industry of a century ago, this New York Times article from April 1912 is highly complimentary to the insurers who settled the Titanic claims so quickly. It also notes that while in the age of sail, a ship was never declared lost until a year and a day after it was expected in port, modern technology - i.e., radios - had changed that age old rule and now ships were considered lost almost immediately upon the disaster.

While the golden age of ocean liners is undoubtedly past, cruise ships are at sea in record numbers. While the chances of anything happening on a modern cruise are so slight as to be almost nil, you, like John Jacob Astor, may want to consider buying travel insurance if you're planning a voyage on the ocean deep. And you should periodically evaluate your life insurance coverage - a good idea whether you'll be taking any ocean cruises or not. Your independent Renaissance Alliance insurance agent can help!

*Image source: PD-US - The Titanic

Experts recommend that you routinely back up your data, develop data and disaster recovery plans and educate your employees to the importance of customer data security.

The last is crucial in today's increasingly mobile society. A recent survey has found that up to 80% of workers in small to midsize businesses routinely use their own portable devices such as laptops, iPhones and iPads to work from home or on the road. Although most companies have formal policies in place to protect their vital data in the office, a surprising data protection gap has emerged with the growth of off site workers. Fully one third of companies let employees make their own decisions about how -or whether - to back up company and client data on their own devices and as a result, valuable data could easily be lost or compromised. Instead of these informal arrangements, it's a good idea to implement a formal Acceptable Use Policy that may include installing security software on the employee's device.

If your business entails storing personal customer data electronically, you should talk with your independent insurance agent about exactly what your business liability insurance covers and discuss whether you need a specialized product to cover data loss coverage and electronic data liability to deal with the aftermath of a data breach. And while you're having that discussion, you might also inquire about cyber liability coverage for protection against various legal liabilities related to disseminating information via the Internet.

Are you in the market for a home insurance policy? While talking with agents you may hear terms that don't sound familiar to you and wonder why they are a part of your coverage package. While each homeowner's insurance policy is designed to best suit you and your family's unique needs, one type of coverage that you may come across is "other structures coverage." Individuals frequently ask what other structures coverage is and why it is automatically included on their policies. Those "other structures" include items such as pool houses, cabanas, and garages. Typically this coverage will go further and even cover things such as fences, sheds, barns, and in-ground pools. Considering all of the other structures on your property, this aspect of your home insurance may oftentimes be too easily overlooked.

Other structures coverage makes up 10% of your dwellings coverage and you do have the ability to increase it. For more information about your other structures coverage, or if you would like to increase the coverage, talk to your independent insurance agent. Talking with an expert is a great way to make sure you know exactly what your insurance covers and that it is taking care of the needs of you and your family.

Bike theft has been a problem just as long as there have been bicycles. College campuses routinely warn students about theft and just as routinely, bikes are stolen from campus in ever increasing numbers. When I was in college in the late 80s, the campus police used a battered white bike as bait, leaving it unlocked next to different college buildings and waiting for it to be stolen. School lore reported that it usually took less than thirty minutes. That was more than twenty years ago and I'm pretty sure that the timing hasn't changed much. One writer spent several months in several cities setting up his bike for theft and chronicling the fascinating results. In America's underworld, he reports, there are four major currencies: cash, drugs, sex and bikes.

As biking has become more and more popular over the last decade, bike security has become big business. There are three main types of bike lock: U-locks, the familiar U-shaped metal locks, often manufactured by Kryptonite; cables, which are simple to use but easily circumvented and chains with padlocks, which are efficient but heavy and time consuming to lock and unlock. The Santa Barbara Independent goes over the different types of locks but ruefully admits that if you must leave your ride on the street, you're better off with a cheap bike. Wired magazine also recently reviewed a variety of different bike locks, rating them for ease of use, difficulty of theft and weight, which is always a consideration when it comes to bike locks. Most high end locks offer a theft guarantee, so make sure to complete the required paperwork before you use your lock.

The Insurance Information Institute has a checklist for keeping your bike safe. They suggest marking your bike, writing the serial number down and taking several photos of it to help police in identification. They also recommend registering your bike with local police and the National Bike Registry. Bicycle theft is covered by your homeowners or renters insurance but there is ordinarily a rather high deductible. If your bike is particularly valuable, you may want to speak with your independent insurance agent about a floater policy to keep it covered at all times.

By now, most people are aware of how insurance companies are quick on the draw to cancel a homeowners insurance policy after the policyholder files a claim (or a few claims). The better underwriters will be more apt to cancel a policy if they feel the claim could have been prevented with better maintenance or effort to prevent a claim versus a true "act of God." Others use no distinction at all. So in all cases, I use the analogy that when it comes to filing claims, you only have a few bullets in your gun. Use those bullets in the situations when you really need them. This is made even more important by the fact that once you have been cancelled for incurred claims, no other companies will insure you as well and you will end up in the MA Fair plan, usually with less coverage and at a higher premium.

So if you have a $1,000 deductible and the claim might come to $1,300, think carefully before you file it. Save your bullets for the big one! The best advice? Call your agent to file the claim before contacting the insurance company and we will break it down for you and come up with a course of action that will help you the most.

There are also a wide variety of cultural traditions around spring cleaning, most notably from the Near and Middle East. In Iranian tradition, spring marks the ancient festival of Nowruz, which is preceded by Spring cleaning, or Khouneh Tekouni, which literally means 'shaking the house'. Extensive spring-cleaning is a national tradition observed by almost every household in Iran. In the Jewish tradition, the Passover holiday occurs in the spring and is marked by removing all leavened (yeast risen) breads from the house. It's important to make sure that not even a crumb of leavened bread remains, and so Passover is always preceded by two weeks of extensive spring cleaning. In keeping with America's great heritage as a cultural melting pot, it's believed that these two traditions may have contributed to the roots of our national interest in spring cleaning.

Whether it's a biological imperative or a cultural tradition, spring is a great time to deep clean your home and catch up on maintenance tasks that may have been neglected over the winter months. Martha Stewart offers a helpful checklist to cover spring cleaning tasks (PDF) and Bob Vila has a list for home maintenance. However you do your spring cleaning and maintenance, be careful! Spring cleaning can be dangerous (PDF) - the linked list points out common hazards. If one of your employees or helpers suffers a spring cleaning related injury, remember that under your liability clause, the costs are covered by your homeowners policy. To make sure that your policy is up to date, call your independent insurance agency today.

However, while they're still no big threat to traditional car rental companies, there's a whole new car borrowing game in town. The first major player in the new car sharing world was Zipcar, which is now available in most urban US and European centers. Zipcar, like a traditional rental company, owns its own vehicles. The difference between Zipcar and Avis or Hertz is primarily in technology and convenience. With Zipcar, you sign up for the service online and then can pick up a car in your neighborhood more or less whenever you want. Zipcar is convenient but now there's a new paradigm out there that promises to be even more groundbreaking.

Companies like RelayRides, Getaround, JustShareIt and Wheelz don't own their own fleets of cars. Instead, they use yours. In a business model that's like couch surfing for autos, a car owner can opt to rent out their car to previously vetted drivers. At first glance, it seems like genius. Owners are delighted by the idea that instead of their cars sitting idle all day, they're out there working and making money. The renters get all the convenience of owning a car without the hassles and daily costs. And the environment heaves a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, not all the kinks have been worked out yet - you might risk your auto insurance, or more. There are also many unanswered issues which the article raises, such as: What if a catastrophic accident results in a claim of more than $1 million, are you liable? What if you haven't been taking good care of your car and that contributes to an accident?

Traditional car insurance is not set up for this kind of car sharing and major insurance companies are strongly recommending against participation. Most insurance agencies feel that renting out your car is a violation of the terms of your car insurance policy. The New York Times reports that the Insurance Institute of America, in an emailed statement, said "If the 'renter' were involved in an accident, most likely the insurer would non-renew or maybe even rescind the auto policy," USAA, quoted in the same NYT article, says that "We would inform them (the car owners) that participating in such a program will generally result in non-renewal."

Still, it may be too soon to write off these companies completely. Given the convenience and undeniable appeal of these nontraditional car sharing programs, insurance companies may figure out some way to keep everyone happy.

Bats have an undeservedly bad reputation in public lore (well, except for Batman) but they are important little critters that keep the insect population down, have a role in pollination and seed distribution, and play other important ecological functions. Because of this, they are a protected species under Massachusetts law, and most other state laws too.

The Massachusetts Wildlife Department offers a useful Homeowner's Guide to Bats that offers information on what to do if a bat gets in your house, signs that a bat colony might be inhabiting your attic, advice for how to get rid of a bat colony that has adopted your home as their own, and other bat-related tips and pointers.

One other note about the video on a different topic from the bats: If you have roofers working on your house, make sure that they use safety harnesses or some type of fall protection! While a work injury would typically fall under workers' comp, as a homeowner, you don't want to take any chances.

Clickjacking is one of the newer tricks in the internet scammers repertoire. First discussed in 2008, clickjacking has come into its own with the popularity of social media like Facebook. Clickjacking occurs when a scam artist or other internet-based bad guy places an invisible button or other user interface element over top of a seemingly innocent web page button. In a clickjack attack, an unwary Facebook user may click on a innocent looking web page, thinking that the link is fine. In reality, the invisible link they are actually clicking can activate a button that can do any number of things, including changing the privacy settings on their Facebook account, putting up a fake "like" on their Facebook feed, asking them to submit personal information or even, in a worst case scenario, activating something on their computer like a webcam or microphone. Not only is the immediate user affected, but a fake Facebook "like" can lead many of their friends to click as well. This is embarrassing as well as potentially dangerous. Clickjacking is so serious that both Facebook and the state of Washington have taken legal action against suspected clickjackers in recent weeks.

How can you make sure that you're not taken in? Always be sure that you are using the latest version of your chosen internet browser. The latest version of Firefox can be found here at Mozilla; Internet Explorer here at Microsoft and Google Chrome here. You may also want to consider some browser add-ons, like NoScript, available for free download here. As always, however, your best protection against scammers is your own common sense. Review your Facebook privacy settings often and make sure you're comfortable with how much you're sharing. Always be aware of what you're clicking on. Remember, anything that's promising something for nothing is too good to be true.

If you are concerned about your vulnerabilities to identity theft, find a New England Renaissance Alliance insurance agent to discuss identity theft insurance. And if you are a business, you may want to inquire about Cyberliability Insurance.