Although the results of the health-insurance reform passed earlier this year will take years to fully work out, there’s one way your small business might be able to save on health insurance right now, reports CFO Magazine: Do what a growing number of small businesses are doing, and self-insure.

Large companies have used self-insurance for a long time, but until recently, the conventional wisdom held that was only a good fit for businesses with 1,000 or more employees. But new data from PricewaterhouseCoopers shows the percentage of employers with fewer than 1,000 people that self-insure has risen from 29 percent in 2008 to 48 percent in 2010.

Here’s how self-insurance works: Rather than paying a monthly premium to an insurance company, your company agrees to pay for employees’ medical claims. As with insurance, you build some type of deductible or co-pay into the agreement, so the employee is paying some of the cost. Your company may still use an insurance company to administer some benefits, and may choose to get stop-loss insurance (which covers claims above a certain dollar amount and below a certain limit, so you can “cap” your costs).

One 95-person company cited in the article has saved money by paying claims compared to what it would have spent on premiums. Other benefits include avoiding state taxes and other costs that insurers usually pass on to you-and you also save because you’re not paying the insurance company’s profit margins.

Many small business owners like self-insurance because it allows them to design a plan that will save them money and fit with their employees’ needs. For instance, if most of your employees are in a certain age group or are women, you can tailor coverage to fit their most likely medical issues.

Is self-insurance for you? Well, it’s not a way to avoid dealing with health-care reform; you’ll still have to meet the requirements of the new law. And it’s not a good fit for companies that are planning a merger, expect layoffs or have fluctuating cash flow. But it does enable you to avoid certain regulations that come with dealing with insurance companies. Michael Thompson, a principal in PwC’s human-resource services group, says self-insurance typically results in long-term savings, but you have to be comfortable handling the short-term risk.

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Making a green home has become easy and reasonable in the present scenario. It does not take much of efforts and cost to trace some of the effective heating and cooling devices that will help to build a green home. Here are some of the excellent tips to make your home eco-friendly:

The first step to make your home green is to build walls that are well insulated. Such walls maintain a healthy balance of heat flow out and in of the house during winters and summers respectively. This dramatically reduces the amount of energy required for heat flow in and out.

In the present scenario many people use motion sensors at the entrance of their homes. These motion sensors detect all kind of movements and turn on the interior lights on detection. This not only detects the movement of thieves or unknown person into the compound but also detects your movement. So ensure that the lights of your house are switched off. Switch on one light at night or when you are not at home.

It’s a wonderful idea to replace all the bulbs and tube lights with compact fluorescent and light emitting diodes. These light systems consume less power and produce less heat. It is also advisable to avoid any use of fancy coverings over these lights because that will obstruct the way of illumination and you’ll require switching on more lights to get the desired light.

Check all the appliances that you use in your house. Make sure that all have green labels that are mostly characterized by star rating. There is two, three, four, or five star rating imprinted on the electronic appliances that give an indication of how energy-efficient the appliances are. If the appliance has a five-star rating it is most energy-efficient and consume lesser power than the others who have two, three, or four star ratings.

Use of solar panels can also reduce the amount of energy and power consumed. Solar heaters are comparatively expensive than traditional heaters but are cost-effective in the long run. Install these panels on the roof or terrace as they will heat up using the energy of the sunlight and will save lots of energy.

Upgrade your windows and make them energy-efficient. Use glass that reflects heat or else the air-conditioner in your room will consume more power to cool your room. This is because normal glass traps heat. Replace windows if they are old and have a cut or a leakage. Windows with a leak allow the entry of wind, rain water, and heat into the room that forces the electronics like heater and air-conditioner to consume more power for proper functioning.

Last but not the least, one most important step towards a green home is to create a surrounding that is full of greenery. Use plants, flowers, and other greens wherever possible to ensure more savings on energy and power.

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In May, amid the economic downturn, Kaufmann closed mkDesigns after two factory partners went under and several clients lost financing for projects. The experience was “devastating,” Kaufmann said, but after some soul searching she committed to pursuing her passion for making “thoughtful, sustainable design accessible.” Kaufmann launched a new firm, Sausalito, Calif.-based Michelle Kaufmann Studio, and sold the assets of mkDesigns to Waltham, Mass.-based Blu Homes. Her new firm will design prefab homes, but now Kaufmann is focusing more on larger community developments, which she says will benefit from economies of scale. We sat down with Kaufmann during last week’s West Coast Green conference in San Francisco to discuss the prefab industry.

What opportunities do you see for startups in the prefab space?

It is the perfect time to be starting a business. You have to be smart about it, surgically focused and hard working. I think there are more opportunities now than ever before because the playing field has been leveled. I think the prefab home market, in general, is ripe for innovation. Builders and developers are looking for alternative methods of construction. They want it to be green, and they are looking for prepackaged solutions. It helps them with risk management and inventory control.

How much does technology play in prefab, or is it just a new way of doing architecture?

There is so much broken with the standard architecture and construction process for single family homes. Only 3 percent of homes are designed by architects. We as builders and architects can complain about it or do something about it, and technology is a critical part of that. We’ve been using innovation and technology in every other industry to bring good design to the masses, yet we’re still building the way we’ve been doing it for a hundred years. The model is broken and wasteful. Have you ever heard of someone saying that I just finished a house and it was done on time and on budget? You never hear that. That is wrong. Imagine if we said that about our phones. That product would not last. There is just so much we can improve because it is so broken.

What were the main lessons you learned from mkDesigns?

You need to be smart about prefabricated green building, to make it easier for people to have a green home. Not just for the families living in them but for the builders and developers. It isn’t a question if they want a green home. They want healthy homes, but we have to make it easy. We can’t make them cost more or take more time than a non-green home. Those are the right elements to target. That is what makes it all happen. Scale is the key issue I think for any company approaching the idea of prefab green homes. It’s tough to do it with one-offs, which is why I’m now focusing on communities. I don’t see how you could make it accessible without scale. If companies are going to be successful, they have to figure out how they will address scale.

What would you have done differently in the way you executed with mkDesigns?

I don’t know that I would have done anything differently. We had a lot of successes. It was the timing and the lending crashing as well as the factories going out of business. Maybe in hindsight it may have been better to build everything in our factory and not trust factory partners. But that would have been impossible to tell at the time. We thought they were healthy enough to stay in business, but in one case their backers backed out and in another they didn’t share the true story of what was happening.

What will it take for prefab homes to become a significant portion of our built environment?

Financing is a key part. I was fortunate enough to spend the day with the founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard. It was interesting to hear him talk about the work he’s doing with Walmart. He’s trying to get them to do all organic food. If Walmart does all organic food, that changes the world’s production of food. I realized that it is important to have a grassroots movement to do proof of concept, but the thing that pulls it off is working with seemingly unlikely characters who have the scale capacity. It will be the bigger home builders embracing offsite technology, which they’re starting to do, that will change this industry. I think that’s why it is a really interesting time now. The big builders are now concerned about what they’re building — they need differentiation — and rethinking their models to figure out how to do more with less.

Will the scale-up require big investors?

Different businesses have different business plans. Some will take on investment money, some might be self-financed. What needs to be rethought is the lending practice. When we come out of this [economic crisis], we will have a totally different lending model. I think we’ll see more private companies rather than the big banks lending to individuals. Maybe a builder might look to take on investors to build a project rather than going to the banks. The most successful companies in the building world will be the ones who figure out how to do it without being dependent on the banks.

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Breast Cancer and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP) offers breast cancer screening and treatment to low-income, uninsured, and underinsured women.

However, due to inadequate funding, the program can only assist one in five eligible women, the ACS reported. That’s why the agency is urging Americans to show their support for this program so that all women have access to breast cancer screening and treatment.

“Income level should not determine whether someone survives breast cancer,” Dr. Carolyn D. Runowicz, ACS president and a breast cancer survivor, said in a prepared statement. “While the NBCCEDP has done extraordinary work to save the lives of women from breast and cervical cancer, it serves only 20 percent of eligible women due to lack of funds.”

The ACS wants Congress to pass legislation that would reauthorize the NBCCEDP to allow for greater flexibility to reach women in greatest need and increase funding by $48 million so that the program could help an additional 130,000 women.

Since its creation in 1991, the NBCCEDP has provided 5.8 million screening tests to more than 2.5 million women, resulting in the diagnosis of more than 22,000 breast cancer cases, 76,000 precancerous cervical lesion cases, and 1,500 cervical cancer cases.

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(HealthDay News) — A cold winter followed by a sudden and sustained warming trend, not to mention the botanical blossoming that global warming has brought, has boosted pollen counts to near-record highs across the United States this spring, experts say.

All of that has led to one of the most miserable allergy seasons in recent memory for the 50 million Americans who find themselves suffering itchy eyes, runny noses and scratchy throats this time of year.

“In Atlanta, we recently saw the second highest pollen count ever — 5,733. A level of 1,500 is considered very high, so this was off the charts,” explained meteorologist Carl Parker, from The Weather Channel. Pollen counts are measured in grains of pollen per cubic meter in a sample that’s collected over a 24-hour period.

As so often happens, weather is largely to blame.

“Timing is everything and, in a lot of years, you might have bouts of warm followed by cold. This year, across a lot of the country, we were cold for a long time, and then the air pattern warmed and it was like we flipped a switch,” Parker said.

Adding to the problem “is the same system that’s bringing in the warm air has also been blocking rainstorms from coming in, and normally, rain comes through and knocks the pollen down, clearing things out,” he said.

The pollen problem is primarily affecting areas east of the Rocky Mountains, said Parker. In the west, he noted, there are still areas that are getting snow.

Another factor in the increased pollen counts is climate change. Parker said that concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) have increased in the past 100 years, and plants thrive on increasing levels of CO2. “Some types of pollens have doubled because of climate change,” said Parker.

“CO2 is good for plants and they’re making more pollen,” agreed Dr. David Rosenstreich, director of the division of allergy and immunology at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. In addition, he said, “Pollen seasons are lengthening a little bit because of global warming.”

Still, Rosenstreich said that counts will vary from year to year, and although they’re particularly high right now, they may not stay that way for the whole allergy season.

One bit of good news for allergy sufferers is that the allergy season is “on fast-forward,” he said. “It’s all happening right now.” Most of the tree pollens should start to decrease in the next couple of weeks.

Whatever the pollen count, Rosenstreich stressed that there’s no need to suffer through allergy symptoms. “We have medicines that can help,” he said.

If you’re taking preventive medications for your allergies, Rosenstreich said that it’s important to take them in advance and as directed by your doctor.

“Most allergy medicines work better to prevent allergic symptoms than to treat them when they’re in progress,” he explained.

Both Rosenstreich and Parker had other tips for those with allergies on high pollen count days:

* Stay indoors as much as possible. But, be sure to keep your windows closed so the pollen doesn’t get in. Parker said that if you must go out, it’s best to avoid the morning hours because pollen is much worse then.
* Keep your windows closed and run your air conditioner. It doesn’t need to be set to cool, just to filter the air. Make sure the filters for your air condition are clean, however.
* Use the air conditioning in your car to filter the air.
* If you have to do yard work, Parker suggested wearing a mask to help cut down on the amount of pollen you’ll breathe in.

And, finally, with a suggestion that’s sure to make mothers across America happy, Parker said he’d recently heard that eating certain vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts might lessen allergy symptoms.

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The moral of this story? Cyber bullying is not alright, kids. It’s silly, childish, dangerous, illegal and maybe a little pathetic. Calm down, play nice and be more concerned about your own love for the Biebs than someone else’s. The end.

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The trio – who is the best-selling act so far this year, according to Billboard magazine – was nominated for Best Vocal Group, ad its song “Need You Now” was nominated for Single of the Year and Song of the Year, and its video for Video of the Year.

Lady Antebellum won two awards last year – Vocal Group and Single of the Year.

Only Miranda Lambert has more nominations so far – five. But she can only win three because she’s competing against herself. She was nominated twice for Single of the Year for her songs “White Liar” and “The House That Built Me” and the same songs both were nominated for Video of the Year.

“White Liar” also was nominated for Song of the Year, as was “The House That Built Me.” But Song of the Year is a songwriter’s award, and Lambert didn’t write “The House That Built Me”; Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin did.

Zac Brown Band is up for three awards: New Artist of the Year, Vocal Group of the Year and Song of the Year for its “Toes.”

Luke Bryan, who played Allentown’s Crocodile Rock Café in November, was nominated for Best New Artist. So was Chris Young, who opened for Tim McGraw at Allentown Fair last year.

The final five categories will be announced Wednesday morning by Lambert and Dierks Bentley on “Good Morning America.” They are Entertainer of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, Album of the Year and Musical Event of the Year.

Berks County native Taylor Swift wasn’t nominated for any awards Tuesday, but would be eligible for Entertainer of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year, both of which she won last year. Swift has a new album, “Speak Now,” due Oct. 25.

“The 44th Annual CMA Awards” airs live from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville from 8 to 11 p.m. Nov. 10 on ABC-TV.

LADY ANTEBELLUM, with Danny Gokey, 7 p.m. Thursday, Allentown Fair grandstand. Tickets $35. www.allentownfairpa.org, 610-433-7541.

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So we at Page 2 couldn’t be more relieved to learn that Troy Polamalu’s nearly three feet of hair is insured by Head and Shoulders for $1 million through Lloyd’s of London. That fired up a little nostalgia about the great hairstyles in sports that we’d insure so they could live forever.

Randy Johnson
The Big Unit’s mullet was as filthy as his pitching. Johnson’s aura was never the same after he clipped those greasy locks in the late ’90s. His mullet was pure intimidation and it’s a shame that it will only live on in photographs.

Alexi Lalas
There’s nothing wrong with the current look of the ESPN soccer analyst, but back in his playing days Lalas’ hair looked like Sideshow Bob mated with Carrot Top. That bright red waterfall coming out of the back of his head was the best thing about the 1994 World Cup. We just wish Carlos Valderrama had rocked the matching goatee like Lalas.

Dennis Rodman
The former NBA star keeps it relatively plain these days. Nothing like when he was ripping rings with Michael Jordan in Chicago. Rodman switched from lime green to blonde with black swirls to rainbows to bright red with the Bulls logo in the back. We wish we could’ve insured any one of those in the hopes of preserving it for posterity, but the good news is it probably wouldn’t take much convincing to get him to recreate that follicular magic.

Oscar Gamble
When it comes to afros, the 17-year MLB vet was the best in the business. Much like Polamalu, it was nearly impossible for Gamble to keep a hat or batting helmet on. Unfortunately his hair quickly became a target of George Steinbrenner and Gamble was forced to cut it when he joined the Yankees.

Tim Tebow
No, not the buzz you Gator/Bronco fans have come to love. We’re talking about the monk-cut he received recently while being hazed welcomed in Denver. That could’ve become legendary, if only someone had saved Tebow from himself and made him keep it.

There are so many great hairstyles that have gotten lost over the years in sports. Let us know which one you miss the most in the comments section.

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The state had about $133 billion of coastal property covered by insurers according to 2007 data from AIR Worldwide, distributed by the Insurance Information Institute. Nationwide, Bloomington, Illinois-based State Farm and North Carolina Farm Bureau Insurance Group are the biggest property-casualty carriers in the state by premium revenue, according to North Carolina Department of Insurance data.

“Insurers with larger market shares in coastal insured properties will see the most meaningful impact,” said Elizabeth Malone, an analyst at Wunderlich Securities Inc., in an interview. “Hurricanes that come on to the Atlantic coast could have greatest impact on the properties on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.”

Earl, one of the strongest hurricanes of the Atlantic season, had maximum winds of 135 miles (217 kilometers) per hour, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. The center’s forecast maps show Earl is likely to move just past North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras and then on toward Nantucket and Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts ranks fourth in the U.S. with about $773 billion in insured coastal property. Virginia, which borders North Carolina, ranks ninth with about $159 billion and South Carolina is eighth with $192 billion.

Providence, Montauk

Providence, Rhode Island, and Montauk, New York, have a 35 percent chance of experiencing tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph within the next four days, according to Tropical Storm Risk, a London-based venture that grew out of a U.K. government-supported tsunami initiative. New York has about $2.4 trillion in insured coastal property, second to Florida.

Two state-created entities of North Carolina sold $305 million of catastrophe bonds in May to protect against hurricane damage, according to Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer, which helped manage the deal. Catastrophe bonds pay fixed-income investors more than benchmark rates for taking the risk they could lose their principal in the event of a disaster that meets pre-defined conditions.

The North Carolina Joint Underwriting Association and the North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association were created to provide coverage for property owners who can’t buy policies through standard insurance markets.

‘Too Expensive’

“The state has a history of a fair number of events taking place,” said John DeMartini, head of consulting firm Towers Watson & Co.’s catastrophe risk-management practice. The state- created pools have grown as larger companies “decide that the risk is a little too expensive relative to the premium that they can charge in the state.”

State Farm, the largest U.S. home insurer, is tracking the storm, said Holly Anderson, a spokeswoman for the company. Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide is watching Earl, according to Elizabeth Stelzer, a spokeswoman. A call to the North Carolina Farm Bureau wasn’t immediately returned. All three companies are owned by policyholders.

Allstate Corp. and New York-based Travelers Cos. are among the publicly traded insurers with the most business in North Carolina’s property-casualty market. Allstate, of Northbrook, Illinois, rose 34 cents to $27.60 at 4:01 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Travelers rose 4 cents to $48.99.

Insurers may be able to charge more for coverage if a storm depletes industry capital after a quiet season in 2009 pressured prices, Malone said.

Insurance Rates

“The industry is positioned to respond quickly,” she said. “If it is a year with meaningful catastrophe losses, the industry will respond with rate increases.”

Allstate’s share of the residential insurance market in North Carolina coastal areas is less than the 8 percent to 9 percent that the company has statewide, said Christina Loznicka, a spokeswoman for the insurer.

The second half of the year is typically riskier for U.S. insurers because of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June through November, with the coming weeks usually the most active. The U.S. Climate Prediction Center cut its forecast on Aug. 5 for the hurricane period to a range of 14 to 20 named storms, down from 14 to 23 on slower-than-expected activity in the first two months of the season.

Katrina, Rita

Twenty storms this year would make it the third-most-active season on record. The most-active season saw 28 storms in 2005, when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf of Mexico.

In 2003, Hurricane Isabel struck the Outer Banks as a Category 2 storm, killing at least 16 people and causing about $3.4 billion of damage, half of it to insured property, according to the center.

Hurricane Fran was a major hurricane when it hit North Carolina in 1996, causing $1.6 billion of damage to insured property, the bulk of it there and in Virginia, according to National Hurricane Center records. Katrina caused more than $40 billion in insured losses, according to inflation adjusted figures from the Insurance Information Institute.

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While on weight loss program, soup is a supplement and vegetables can be substituted according to taste. Vegetables like asparagus, peas, corn, turnips, cauliflower etc. can be added but beans should be avoided because they are high in calories.

Food containing low calories and low saturated fats should be taken. This makes the body healthier and wards off diseases. Proteins, carbohydrates and vitamins should be taken in regular quantity. Carbohydrates should be less in quantity. Dairy products rich in fat should be avoided. All these measures help people live longer.

A balanced weight loss diet is the diet that gives all the necessary nutrients. Weight loss diet does not ask you to starve. We should take food to gain energy and keep ourselves active. Weight loss diet replaces damaged tissues and cells through proteins, vitamins and minerals that we take in. The more active we are the more energy we need. So it is essential to eat a well balanced diet. A right combination of cereals, vegetables, fruits, milk, yogurt etc should be taken. Enough food provides energy for the body but more food stores it as fat to put on weight.

DAY1: Lots of melons is recommended the first day. Chances are that you lose 3lbs.
DAY 2: Stuff yourselves with all vegetables-unlimited amount or type.
DAY3: Mix fruits and vegetables-except bananas and potatoes.
DAY4: Eat as much as eight bananas and three glasses of milk.
DAY5: Eat 10 oz of lean beef and six tomatoes. Increase water intake to clean the body of uric acid.
DAY6: Eat unlimited amount of beef and vegetables.
DAY7: Take brown rice, all vegetables and fruit juice.

High protein and low carbohydrates food should be taken. Dairy products and fat products should be avoided. Cholesterol leads to heart problems and carbohydrates change into fats. Vegetables, chicken, grains, fish and nuts, which are protein rich and low in calcium, add to diet plans. Regular exercises and walking is a must. This helps in burning excess fat. A balanced weight loss diet provides the nutrients necessary for your body.

Quality as well as quantity of food should be taken close care of. Some tips are:- Milk can be used in place of cream in coffee and eat vegetable salads and drink fruit flavored water.

Advantages of weight loss diet foods:

A diet full of fresh fruits and vegetables not only gives vitamins, nutrition and minerals but also acts as a good antioxidant which wipes out free radicals and plays an imperative role in making us healthy and younger thus enabling us to lose weight in a natural way.

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