GENERAL INSURANCE BLOG

Buying a home is probably the most significant investment that someone makes in their life. But how often do we cherish and maintain it? The idea of climbing over roofs and crawling in small spaces to clean and check things does not excite anyone, but it certainly is necessary.

Few things need to be done more regularly than others, such as weekly cleaning your windows and wardrobes. Cleaning the drainage pipes, washrooms, and bathrooms can be done once or twice a month.

If thinking about home maintenance gives you a headache, do not worry. We have created the seasonal maintenance checklist for your home to make things easier for you.

But what are the main things you need to focus on?

• The exterior of your house

• Plumbing and drainage systems

• Electricals

• Security system

• Heating and cooling systems

1. Spring:

'Spring cleaning' is crucial as this is the humid transition period between winter's cold temperatures and upcoming summer heat.

• Check the overall condition of the roof.

• Pour water into floor drains; this will help prevent sewage odours and clean the gutters.

• Schedule your AC for service and replacement of its filter.

2. Summer:

Summer is all about spending time with your friends and family. So, this checklist suggests what you would require to do to prepare for a fun summer holiday.

• Remove dead grasses, lay flower beds, ensure everything looks fresh, and water your garden or house plants regularly.

• Check all the hoses for any wear and tear or leaking issues and fix them immediately if you find any.

• Deep clean the interiors and exteriors of your house, including the driveways and sideways.

• Pest Control during this season is crucial, mainly to prevent mites from damaging your furniture.

3. Monsoon:

Monsoons dominate India’s climate. Indeed, they bring the much-needed water for our crops, but they are also accompanied by strong winds, floods, and power cuts.

• Ensure no stagnant water accumulation as it is the breeding ground for mosquitoes and many other insects.

• Install an effective ventilator to prevent the musty odour from the damp walls and things.

• The constant dampness can cause bugs and fungus on your carpet and rugs so take measures to prevent that.

• A complete waterproofing of walls and ceiling is necessary.

4. Autumn:

The autumn season is the best time to run an overall maintenance check of your home as it is dry, and the temperature is often comfortable.

• Inspect your doors and windows for any cracks, and if there are, get them fixed.

• Check the paint, and if you are planning to paint your house, autumn is the best time.

• To remove the accumulated sediments, clean your water taps, showerheads and water heaters. This will prolong their life and their efficiency.

5. Winter:

Most of us love to be cosy and stay indoors during winters, so it makes sense to focus more on the indoors during this chilly time of the year. But, winter is a season of a few marquee festivals of India, so take this opportunity to keep your home shining. This will even keep you engaged during the cold season.

• A thorough inspection of plumbing is essential. The pipes will likely develop cracks and leaks when the water gets cold.

• Check the heating and air ventilation systems of all appliances.

If you follow this easily doable checklist, you will considerably save your time in maintaining your home in the long run. Not just the maintenance but also the security of your home is equally important. Include a point of home insurance in your checklist for additional protection from unexpected mishaps. Buy home insurance online to get the best deals on your plan. You may even stand a chance to get lower premiums if you have worked upon the security of your home by installing safety equipment and systems.

Click HERE to buy home insurance online.

Disclaimer: The information provided above is for illustrative purposes only. To get more details, please refer to policy wordings and prospectus before purchasing a policy.

As per recent statistics, India has got into the top 5 of most cyber-attacked nations globally by recording more than 1.1 million cyber security assaults in the previous year alone. With the corporate industry being a large sector of revenue generation and economy booster in India, assuring digital security becomes a primary concern.

Businesses are a primary target of cybercriminals as they can gain access to clients’ sensitive data and severely compromise it. Data is the new oil, and the industry is valued in trillions. No business can afford the risk of data leaks, living in the internet-driven world where we are surrounded by many mischievous minds known as hackers.

The practical ways that businesses can implement to ensure safety from cyber threats are mentioned below.

1. Set up Firewalls:
It is the initial line or rather a wall of defence against cyber-attacks. It blocks unauthorized access from outside of the organization and blocks people from within the organization from visiting or opening malicious links.

2. Keep your systems up to date:
System updates are crucial as they consist of security patches designed to protect from the latest security threats. Keeping your system up to date will also help in boosting the operational performance and deriving optimum results.

3. Anti-virus software:
Antiviruses identify, block, and respond to harmful software on your system. Even if you use your system carefully to prevent it from malicious software or files, antivirus software is an essential component of a comprehensive security plan.
Antiviruses scan every file on your system and compare it to known viruses and other forms of malware. If it detects a harmful file, it will block the program from executing and avoid the multiplication of viruses to corrupt the system.

4. Virtual Private Network:
Businesses can improve their online security by setting up a Virtual Private Network. A VPN will shield your business' internet traffic from hackers by channelling all of your data via a strongly encrypted tunnel. The initial milestone to hack systems starts with targeting an IP address. As a VPN hides your IP address, Attackers won't be able to take control of your system.

5. Insurance to the rescue:
A public liability insurance policy protects businesses from the impacts of cyberattacks. This includes security for lost revenue resulting from a cyberattack, payments made to hackers to retrieve data, third-party coverage for losses, lawsuit expenses, and fines.

Other Security measures to practice:

• Reduce the collection of personal and sensitive information from clients as much as possible.

• Educate employees about cyber security through assessments.

• Encrypt important data using the best encryptions procedures available in the market.

• Back up your valuable data at regular intervals.

• Don't forget to shield your cloud storage.

While businesses must digitalize to meet the demands of their consumers, at the same time, they must show their preparation for the adverse technologies and the hackers behind them. Despite having all efforts, if a security breach occurs, a public liability insurance policy can offer the cushion that allows the business to survive the crisis.

So, wisely invest in effective antivirus software technology to ensure a safer environment in the working ecosystem.

Click HERE to buy a public liability insurance policy for your business today.

Disclaimer: The information provided above is for illustrative purposes only. To get more details, please refer to policy wordings and prospectus before purchasing a policy.

Have you ever been stuck in a health emergency due to a prolonged illness of someone in the family? If yes, you know how difficult it is to go through a tough time to wait for the total health recovery of the patient. It is also particularly challenging to take care of the patient on a daily basis. It requires a lot of willpower and patience to be a good caregiver to calm those in need.

You need to ensure that the patient follows a disciplined routine wherein he eats on time, gets good sleep, and takes medicines as prescribed. You also need to keep an eye on their symptoms, verify the reports and regularly monitor the patient’s condition.

Stroke patients are critical to handle. Their body becomes quite sensitive and vulnerable to any inconveniences. Hence, the caregivers of stroke patients need to take extra precautions to ensure that the patient stays mentally and physically healthy.

Wondering how you can take good care of stroke patients? This blog answers all your questions.

1. Exercise is the key:

It has been observed that most stroke patients face movement issues and find it difficult or incapable of moving their limbs. Their movement skills and capabilities get affected severely due to the stroke. As a caregiver, encourage stroke patients to indulge in exercises daily.
Design a quick workout routine for them and guide them to exercise in the right way to get the best results. This would help the patients regain their movement abilities and a speedy recovery.

2. Let them feel and reflect:

Instead of pushing the patient to be optimistic, it is essential to create a safe space for them. This space is an outlet for their emotions and a trusted source to avoid complete breakdowns. Having suffered through a traumatic experience and facing critical health issues is no joke.
The patients need to embrace their grief and express all their feelings without hesitation. An essential part of being a caregiver is to help the patient through their emotional process and help them get through all the challenges and hardships.

3. Encourage them to be independent:

Don’t create a help-seeking mindset in the patient. While they must have a safe space for letting out their emotions, it is also necessary that the patient is encouraged to help themselves instead of seeking support every time they need something.
As a caregiver, you must motivate your patient to feel independent. Doing things independently would give them a sense of achievement and motivation to carry out their work with more zeal and confidence.

4. Keep an eye on their condition:

A stroke is a severe ailment, and the treatment and recovery process involve a lot of heavy medications. Since the medicines help the body cope with certain major complications post-stroke, they are bound to have some alarming side effects.
As a caregiver, you need to educate yourself about all the medications, their probable side effects, and how they might affect the patients (which could also be due to pre-existing allergies and conditions). You need to inform the doctor about the same and observe the patient for any symptoms which might occur as side effects of the medicines.

A stroke can be a traumatic experience for the patient and his family. If not handled efficiently, strokes can turn out to be one of the worst nightmares. We discussed how intensive care could miraculously heal stroke patients, sometimes more than their treatments and medications.

Similarly, you need to take care of your health at all times as one cannot predict when such needs might arise, and you might find yourself in a difficult situation. To safeguard your and your family’s health, you must purchase the best health insurance in India that can offer the best coverage to the needs of your entire family.

Click HERE to know more about the benefits of health insurance in India.

Disclaimer: The information provided above is for illustrative purposes only. To get more details, please refer to policy wordings and prospectus before purchasing a policy.

How often do you feel frustrated and overwhelmed due to work pressure? Everyone deals with the chaos of life, but a little organisation does not hurt. Putting your thoughts in line can help you manage a significant chunk of your life without the intensity and pressure of things affecting you negatively.

Our previous generations faced a hard time and struggled a lot to keep all the fronts of life in order. But thankfully, the modern generation has taken up the concept of “self-love” and “self-care” seriously. And thanks to social media, people are now aware of why it is essential that you admire, love, and respect yourself in all facets of life. It helps boost your mental health and enables you to gain confidence to face all that life throws at you.

One of the most important aspects of organising your thoughts is “journaling.” Writing down your day and your reviews can give miraculous results. Penning down all that runs through your mind gives those abstract thoughts a proper structure. And now that you have a problem in hand, it becomes easier to find a solution. But there is more to journaling and its advantages. Let’s know about these incredible benefits of journaling you weren’t aware of.

1. Define your goals:

Jotting down your goals makes it real for your brain to grab the concept of accomplishing them. Your mind starts thinking about how you can achieve your goals. It further helps you to take a walk through all the possible processes you might have to go through to get the work done. It searches for resources and opportunities to help you attain your desired results.

2. Healing is a process:

Healing from traumatic experiences and emotional baggage is not accessible. But journaling can help you sort your feelings by giving them a form of a tangible problem statement. Once your brain sees your emotions on paper, it begins to put the pieces together to understand the actual issue. It gives you clarity compared to the clump of feelings with no beginning or endpoint.

3. Manage anxiety and stress:

Revisiting the most stressful occasions of your day by writing about them in detail gives you a certain sense of disentanglement and detachment. And once you detach yourself emotionally from the situation, you can see it from a rational point of view and analyse the whole scenario in pointers. This will help you improve your reactions and responses the next time you are stuck in similar situations.

4. Regaining confidence:

We all tend to lose confidence once in a while. Going through difficult situations creates insecurity, which takes time and effort to overcome. And at times, these insecurities quash your self-esteem to the point of no return. But journaling can help you escape this web of uncertainty.
You can write down all your accomplishments and how you managed to handle difficult situations on stressful occasions and never give up on yourself. These things act as a reminder of confidence and help you balance your emotions in the best way possible.

Other benefits of journaling include boosting mindfulness, improving your communication abilities and memory, providing a safe space as an outlet for emotions, etc.

In this blog, we saw how journaling could improve your mental health and help you keep your cool even in the most stressful situations. Similarly, it is essential to take care of your physical health too. Health emergencies usually come without warning. So, it is crucial to safeguard you and your family members in any unprecedented situations which can put your health at risk. You can explore your options and purchase health insurance that caters to your needs the best.

Click HERE to know more about health insurance and its benefits.

Disclaimer: The information provided above is for illustrative purposes only. To get more details, please refer to policy wordings and prospectus before purchasing a policy.