Wednesday, December 19, 2012

First snow approaching - Blizzard conditions

Everyone is all a twitter as our first snow since March 5, 2012 is appraoching. As usual, the amount of predicted snowfall varies depending on which weather forecast you happen to follow. Greg Dutra on KWQC said to 2-4 inches for our area this morning @ 7AM. Dayton said he heard 4-6 inches.... One thing all weather forecasts have said, it is going to be WINDY! 50-60mph, which means even if we only get 2 inches it is going to blow, blow, blow and look like we are getting dumped on. Even if we get zero snow, travelling is going to be difficult. Our Yaris probably won't even stay on the road........... maybe I do want to drive the Mazda pick-up to my hair appointment.
So everyone in the storm track - be extra careful tomorrow.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Allied/Nationwide Security Attack/Breach

A portion of the Allied/Nationwide Insurace computer network was victim to a crimminal security attack/breach on October 3rd, 2012. Immediately upon discovery, steps were taken to contain the attack. An invesitgation was initiated to determine if any information was stolen.

On October 16, it was determined that some personal information had likely been stolen. No financial information was compromised. Along with numerous law enforcement investigations, Allied/Nationwide is continuing to conduct their own invesitagation to fully understand the attack. They continue to cooperate with law enforcement authorities.

The process of verifying who may have been affected and what personal information may have been stolen continued and on November 2, 2012 confirmation of the identities and addresses of individuals whose information was "likely" compromised was recieved. Allied/Nationwide has mailed letters to notify those people that they believe were impacted by this crimminal attack. Along with notification, Allied/Nationwide is offering impacted persons one year of free credit monitoring and identity theft coverage though a partnership with Equifax. The letter includes instructions for individuals to sign up for this benefit. Information is also included for some additional things a person may wish to do to protect themselves.

OMG!!! was the very first thing I thought when I received the first notice last week of this incident, how the HE double hocky sticks did this happen and why am I (as an agent) just now getting notice were my next two thoughts.

We had numerous conversations in the office about how we, as an agency were going to communicate with our clients. Do we call every client or just the ones that may have been compromised? How do we get a list of those possibly affected? Is the list complete? What if we miss someone? There was never any thought that we would not get in touch with our clients, it was figuring out the logistics of completing the task. When we were abe to start searching the system, we of course typed in staff first - low and behold someone in each of our family was on the list. So yes, we were all affected personally by this, too. Coincidentally, it pops up when our office is heading into a 4 day weekend and there is no time to complete the list, let alone gather all the phone numbers and make calls before 5PM Wednesday.

First thing Monday morning we get our list of possibly affected people compiled and Dayton starts the job of calling. By the way, my husband got his letter over the weekend.... Dayton had not received a letter. So we know who MAY have been affected but not who WAS affected at this point, and we know that atleast some letters have been mailed, quick revision to our talking points/script.
I have to say, we have WONDERFUL clients, for the most part they have taken this unfortunate news with an ounce of salt and been gracious. Several vigilant clients had thrown away their letter thinking it was a scam, we were able to provide them with the information in their letter to get enrolled in the free credit monitoring/identity theft coverage. We have had a few clients come into the office and Dayton has helped them get enrolled.

We have continued to receive updates from Allied/Nationwide. As of this morning, we know that only Personal Lines Auto clients/prospects were impacted. There also has to have been either a new quote or a requote performed by an agent since September, 2011. If you have NOT received a letter, your information was not compromised, even if you were on the original list. At  this time, there is no known use/sale of the compromised information.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Reflections

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and with the day fast approaching, it begs me to reflect on the things I am thankful for.

1.  I know how blessed I am to have been raised by loving parents. They worked hard to provide for our family and as an adult I realized that while I did not get everything I wanted, I did not want for anything I needed. As a kid it is hard to distinguish the difference of "want" and "need."

2.  As farm kids we did all the things farm kids did back in the '60's and 70's: walked beans, baled hay, kicked corn, castrated pigs, shelled corn, mowed the yard, etc. But we also had fun: we "fished for hogs" - sat on top of the wooden hog feeder with an ear of corn tied with baling twine hanging down about a foot off the ground and waited for a pigs to take a bite! We built forts and tunnels in the hay mow, we played in the crick in the summer and ice skated on it in the winter.

3.  Growing up in a small community, we knew which houses to visit for trick or treat; homemade popcorn balls, cookies & full size candy bars! Our school bus driver, Aubrey King, gave us a Christmas present every year. If we were running late, he would pull up our drive and honk the horn to hurry us up. My friends were, for the most part, the kids of my parents friends from forever! If one of our sports team went to state, the town pretty well shut down to watch them play.

4.  I am blessed with my family, husband, children, step children, their significant others, a grandson and our extended families, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

5. The mistakes, errors in judgement and total screw ups are part of what is me, and while I regret them, they are blessings, I think my guardian angel was shook up pretty good a couple of times.

6. I wake up each day, to live in a country where I can say what I want, work at a job of my choosing, move about as I please, worship or not, etc. not because I did anything special or extraordinary but because people that I don't know, took it upon themselves to leave their home and come to the United States. Beyond that, relatives, friends and total strangers have fought and continue to fight for MY freedom to do these things.


Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Sometimes it is the little things that count


Not sure about everyone else but overall, I had a GREAT weekend!

I did not get to yell "BBD!!" - deer hunters you know what I mean. I did get "buck fever." He was 150yds across the field, so well out of range even IF I had had my bow at my side, he was magnificent! and chasing does - none of which were the least bit interested but he was out in the open for at least ten minutes.
There is a difference of opinion in my house about "shooter bucks" - I like the tall racks, he likes the wide ones. This guy would have made either one of us happy!

My Hawkeyes got trounced by Penn State.

So why did I have a GREAT weekend? I got to watch several beautiful sunrises, I was with my best friend; yep I  know it's corny, but I love spending time with my husband, Ty came down Saturday and spent the night, we drug Rod's mom out to the cabin to eat breakfast with us and we had a FABULOUS dinner Sunday night at our neighbors; in otherwords, we enjoyed life!







Thursday, October 18, 2012

First Post...........

What holds us back from doing something we know needs to be done? In this case, creating this blog.
Fear of the unknown, fear of making a mistake, criticism from others, fear of success, or worse failure ........the list is long and most of it is a mindset. I mull things over and think, think, think before I take action. I tend to be fairly serious and cautious, particularly when something is work related and being put out there for the whole world to see. This personality trait is not a bad one, but it means I try to ease that band aid off rather than rip it off, hairs included!!

Well, I've mulled long enough, our new website is about ready to launch and nearly everything I've read on SEO's says you need to have a blog, tell me again, what are SEO's??? ....Truly folks, I have no idea about SEO's, spiders, crawlers, etc. I am from the "old generation" - MANUAL typewrites and mimeograph machines! My kids are the computer generation! At three, John could get on the Commodore 64 and pull up a game faster than I could, Joe has been on a computer all of his life.

I decided today was the day to rip that band aid off! Fairly painless, other than my inclination to mistype (not misspell) words, over punctuate and that natural tendency to over think.

But most important is the realization:
Fear of success......or fear of failure? If you don't try, you are guaranteed to fail.

Until next week  - Rita