Your body is an absolute reflection of your healthy lifestyle choices. For the most part it is very basic to tell what someone thinks about their own health which is seen in their physical body and how they look. You are able to tell when one cares about themselves and they appear physically fit while at the other end of it you realize the people that do not care about their health seeing that they are very overweight and you should see them out at restaurants eating the absolute worst foods possible.Before I go any further, I know there are some people out there by now yelling at the top of their lungs saying “But I’m born this way!” Unfortunately, Well, I’m not a medical professional so I cannot answer that question towards a biological standpoint. But my personal opinion is that the “genetics” reasoning is thoroughly laughable. Your skinny friend that eats everything she wants and never gains an ounce of weight is like that because she has a faster metabolism. That fast metabolism is because they are being physically active. It’s the same thing for the person that is overweight that continues to keep getting bigger and bigger. The reply to that is to start making healthy lifestyle choices. Begin consuming beneficial healthy foods rather than junk and begin exercising. Your metabolism will then increase which will also help you burn fat.So what are these decisions that you need to make so that you can live a healthy life? As I said, start by fixing those eating habits. And this does not only mean to count how many calories you eat & drink. Even if you meet your calorie goals for the day, it doesn’t mean you’re being healthy. You should watch what foods you consume as part of those calories. If it’s made up of candy and chips, you’re not doing your body any favors. So begin by eating fresh fruits & vegetables, lean meats, and high protein foods. In fact, as you get started with a new healthy lifestyle plan, don’t even walk up and down the aisles at the supermarket. Stick to the edge of the store and you should find everything you need to eat healthy (except for the bakery section).You should additionally get started in some sort of regular workout program to begin to improve your healthy lifestyle choices. If you’re very overweight, you obviously would not run a race tomorrow or begin doing the exercises which an athlete would do, but you have to begin somewhere. Rather than sitting on the couch today, take half an hour and go for a walk. Then tomorrow do exactly the same, but push yourself to take fifty additional steps in the same amount of time. Slowly increase the number of steps and/or minutes until you can run the entire 30 minutes. This will not happen overnight and it could actually take you several months to get to this point depending where you currently are. While continuing to work to that, add a little bit of strength training to your exercise program. This is very good for you and will be of great help to your body and increase your metabolism.The combination of a beneficial nutrition and a little physical activity will put you on the correct track to having a life of health. Those eating habits will consist of about eighty percent of how you look, so it is obviously of great importance. Your workout routine will consist of the other 20%. This may allow you tone your body as well as giving you that extra push for weight loss and become healthy.Your choice to live a healthy lifestyle is your own decision. No one can make you a believer of it and it has to be something you want to have. If you do not want to change how you live it just will not happen. You must desire that vision and set the goals for yourself in order to have success with these healthy lifestyle choices.
Is Florida Home Insurance Too Late to Get in Line For a Washington Bailout?
The financial crisis brings more shocking news every day. This week was no different as executives from General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler landed in Washington with their corporate jets to ask for their share of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.In a shameless display of arrogance and entitlement, leaders of what used to be “best in class” companies begged for billions of dollars with their tin cups outstretched in front of the US Congress. Before the Big Three ever arrived in Washington, billions had already been committed to AIG and some of the largest financial institutions in the country.During this financial meltdown we’re seeing something we never expected to see in our lives – broken promises from major corporations and government entities on a scale never considered possible. We’ve reached a point where even large companies and large states like Florida can’t meet their obligations using the bond markets.If you are a Florida home insurance consumer, your biggest asset is now at risk during the financial crisis – your Florida home.Can you name a more sacred promise than the one a home insurance company makes to you when it takes your money and agrees to insure your home?When you buy homeowners insurance in Florida the insurance company is promising you fast and fair payment of your claim. Florida insurance companies buy reinsurance to help them make good on this promise to you. Reinsurance is backup coverage that insurance companies buy to help protect themselves from big losses above certain levels.The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund was formed as a way to help stabilize the Florida home insurance market after Hurricane Andrew caused billions in damage to Florida in 1992. By offering reinsurance at affordable rates, the fund helped to make homeowners insurance available and affordable for many years.That all changed after the Florida hurricanes of 2004 and 2005 when Florida home insurance became overpriced and hard to find again.The Florida legislature responded to the Florida home insurance crisis by voting in 2007 to expand the reinsurance sold by the Cat Fund by $12 billion – raising its total risk to a total of $28 billion. Florida home insurance companies were required to purchase this additional reinsurance from the state and to pass along the savings realized on reinsurance to home owners.As a Florida homeowner, you didn’t get the rate reductions that this law was supposed to provide. You didn’t get the 24% average rate reductions that were predicted when the legislation passed. And to make things worse, the Florida Cat Fund took on an additional $12 billion in risk.Now the Florida Catastrophe Fund has told us that the frozen bond markets won’t be an acceptable source to raise the cash it needs to meet its commitments to the insurance companies after a major Florida hurricane. It recently estimated that it could pay out $13 billion over the next twelve months – That’s $15 billion less than the $28 billion it is on the hook to pay!What does all of this mean to you as a Florida home insurance consumer?You didn’t get the rate relief you expected and your state took on financial obligations that it has no hope of paying.You are at risk if Florida experiences a major hurricane in the next year. Once the losses of your Florida home insurance company exceed certain levels, your company will ask the Florida Cat Fund to reimburse them in order to pay your claim. Since the Florida Cat Fund is short on cash, you might have a long delay in getting your claim paid.The promise to pay your Florida home insurance claim has never been more at risk than it is today.Now that you know that the Florida Cat Fund can’t meet its obligations, let’s look at the idea of a National Hurricane Catastrophe Fund that some in Florida have been pushing in Washington for many years. This National Cat fund would offer an additional layer of loss protection above and beyond the obligations of the Florida Cat Fund.The theory is that a National Catastrophe Fund would be funded in part by insurance premiums paid by policyholders in states that are part of the fund. A National Cat Fund would be a separate fund that would earn interest and grow during the years when there aren’t any claims.Supporters claim that no taxpayer money would be needed to sustain a National Cat Fund. History tells us there would be storms so large that federal tax dollars would have to be used to cover major losses.And everyone knows that the federal government can’t keep its funds separate. Just ask someone in Washington to show you the billions that are supposed to be in the Social Security Trust Fund. You won’t be shown any cash – just a drawer full of T-Bills and IOU’s.Now that the Big Three Auto makers and other shameless Fortune 500 companies have beaten Florida to the punch in Washington, it is very unlikely that a National Hurricane Catastrophe Fund will pass anytime soon. Even President Elect Obama will shy away from any additional federal obligations as he faces all of the red ink in Washington today. So don’t look to the federal government to make good on the promise that was made to pay your Florida home insurance claim.Finally, Citizens Property Insurance Corporation has consistently reported that it doesn’t have anywhere near the money it needs to pay out the almost half a trillion dollars in hurricane exposure it after a major Florida hurricane.A large hurricane would mean that Citizens can’t pay even its primary obligations – those that it must pay even before losses reach levels where Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund reinsurance kicks in. And as a policyholder with Citizens, you are subject to paying higher special assessments after a major Florida hurricane than policyholders who have private homeowners insurance – special charges tacked on to your annual insurance bill.In this new brave world where even governments can’t keep their promises here are some steps you should take as a Florida home insurance consumer right now:Get a Florida wind inspection done and harden your home as much as possible.Avoid Citizens Insurance Florida if you can.Find a home insurance company that is strong financially and one that has spread its risk across both Florida and other states. Fewer policyholders will mean faster payment of your claim.Report your insurance claim the same day as the Florida hurricane. This will make it more likely that you will get paid before your insurance company looks to the Florida Cat fund for reimbursement.Last but not least. The fact that the Florida Cat Fund is short on money has not been lost on Florida home insurance companies. They are being charged for reinsurance by an entity that has publicly stated that it can’t meet its obligations. That means insurance companies are not getting what they paid for.You should expect Florida home insurance companies to try to buy more of their reinsurance in the private market and not from the State of Florida in 2009. And they will look to pass that cost through to you in the form of higher insurance rates. If they don’t get the rate increases they need, your Florida home insurance policy might be cancelled.As the Florida home insurance crisis continues, it has never been more important for you to stay on top of the Florida home insurance market for private insurance. You never know when you might have to find a new Florida home insurance carrier.
Extended Role of Management Consultants
Over the recent years the idea of management consultants have changed dramatically in both, management consulting and in other professional services. Management consultants have started to rethink and redefine their business, widening and enhancing their service offerings, merging or establishing alliances with other consultants and professional service firms, and abandoning self-imposed restrictions on the sort of work they are prepared to undertake. These changes have been triggered by a number of factors, including the growing complexity and sophistication of doing business in national and inter- national environments, market deregulation and liberalization, new opportunities for innovative consulting, growing demand for integrated and “one-stop” professional services, competitive pressure coming from other professions and, above all, the advancement of information technologies and their rapid penetration into management and business processes. In using consulting and other professional services the clients are asking “what will add value to my business”. Rather than identifying needs, devising a solution and implementing a new and “tailor-made” system for every client, a consulting firm has a range of products that are offered to all clients (or categories of clients).Advice and know-how have turned into a commodity. The client can choose among standard offerings “off the shelf” – diagnostic instruments, change and project management programmes, training and self- development packages, production control systems, enterprise resource planning or customer relationship management systems, e-business or knowledge management software and so on.Commoditization of methods and systems is currently a feature of knowledge management and transfer. It responds to demands from clients, who want to get the best system, methodology or approach at an affordable price, within reasonable time limits, and with a guarantee of applicability and standard performance. This is what the commoditized professional services aim to provide. Professional service providers who have commoditized their knowledge enjoy an enormous business advantage – if the product is in demand and sells well. They can serve large numbers of clients. Instead of using experienced and highly competent consultants for each assignment, the consulting firm can develop standard procedures for delivering standard products, and hence use more junior and less experienced staff, and cut the price.In larger IT and management consulting firms, outsourcing has become the fastest-growing area of service and an indispensable source of stable and long- term income. This reflects the fact that the consulting firm may be better equipped to carry out certain activities, which it can perform more efficiently and economically than the client while keeping up to date with advances in the field. It also reflects new ways of doing business and managing knowledge, in which clients focus on their core business and use intellectual capital and financial resources in areas of their principal strength.Consulting in finance, including financing the enterprise and financial control of operations, also started developing rapidly. A number of the new management consultants had a background in accountancy and experience drawn from working with firms of public accountants. To meet their clients’ needs and to attract clients from new sectors of economic and social activity, management consultants have developed various strategies, creating and offering new special services, specializing in particular sectors or, on the contrary, providing broad comprehensive packages of services.In recent years consultants have stepped out of the traditional limits of the management field and deal with plant automation, communication systems, quality control, equipment design, software development, economic studies, environmental protection and the like if these are of interest to clients and can enhance a consultant’s competitive edge. In addition to improving service quality and offering new sorts of services, management consultants have become more dynamic and even aggressive in searching for new clients and trying to convince potential clients that they can offer a better service than others. This has brought about many developments in the advertising and marketing of consulting services.Many large consulting firms have sought to internationalize their operations in searching for new markets, adapting to the changes in the international economy, and taking advantage of the new opportunities for consulting in the developing countries. In large consulting firms, foreign operations may contribute 30-70 per cent of income. Great efforts have been made to increase the long-term benefits derived by clients from consulting assignments, by diversifying and perfecting the intervention methods applied at all stages of the consulting process. Many organizations private and public have become experts in using consultants. They have developed their own criteria and methods for selecting consultants, collaborating with them during assignments, monitoring their interventions, learning from their approach and evaluating results. Consultants have become indispensable advisers in major business decisions and transactions.