Influenza virus particle

If your travels are affected by a disease outbreak like swine flu, what does your travel insurance cover? We don't have any trips to Mexico now (thank goodness). However, this recent information release from Travelex (our partner for travel insurance) is great information on what would happen if YOUR trip were to be affected by something like this!

Here's a rundown on possible situations and coverage options from Travelex.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If a traveler gets sick with the Swine Flu:

• Current insured travelers who become ill would be eligible for coverage under the trip interruption, medical expense and evacuation benefits of their plan up to the limits of the policy and subject to its general terms and conditions.
• If you are aware of any insured passenger in Mexico with flu-like symptoms or who has been admitted to the hospital, please make sure to contact the applicable assistance company -- contact information is also stated on the traveler's Confirmation of Coverage.

If a traveler is contemplating cancellation:

• Insured customers that are considering cancellation or have canceled arrangements due to travel restrictions, warnings or general fear of traveling, whether to Mexico or elsewhere, are not eligible for cash reimbursement under the provisions of the plan.
• Insureds who purchased the Cancel for Any Reason upgrade will be eligible for Trip Cancellation coverage under the provision of the plan.
• Specific to the Travel Select and Travel Max plans: Should the destination airport close and insured customers are unable to reach their destination, the cancellation benefit for losing 50% or more of their covered trip may apply, assuming all terms and conditions of the benefit are met.

If a traveler is being quarantined:

• Quarantine coverage is included under Trip Cancellation/Interruption and Trip Delay benefits in the event a physician quarantines the traveler/insured for any illness which prevents traveling.
• Quarantine means that the person is restricted to their home or a medical facility - not restricted from one country or destination.

If a traveler transfers travel dates:

• If the insured is allowed to transfer their travel payments (trip deposits or full payments) without charge, they can also elect to transfer the protection plan monies on the booking to the new travel dates as well. Typically the protection plan monies are non-refundable inside the penalty period but Travelex is making an exception for this specific case.
• Any expenses for change fees to move airfares to the new trips would not be covered, unless such move was predicated by the travel supplier's cancellation of the original trip.
• Transfers would only apply to trips that are booked within 12 months from the original departure date.
• If the trip cost increases as a result of the transfer, then the insured will have to make an additional insurance payment to cover the full trip cost in order to best protect themselves. Note: they would need to make the purchase within the required time to continue to receive cancel for any reason, pre-existing condition waiver and any other benefit with an advanced date purchase requirement.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We always recommend the purchase of trip insurance, especially for trips out of the country. I sincerely hope that none of you are being affected right now, but this is a great real-life example of how it would work. Personally, that "cancel for any reason" upgrade is looking pretty good right now!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An oh-so-critical hard disk

Yes, I love my mac, but I was disappointed that the hard disk failed after less than a year, and I was worried about lost time and productivity.  Heck, I was worried about whether I could survive Labor Day Weekend without it!!

After an earlier unbacked-up-laptop-crash fiasco, I now had 2 complete backups:

..a) Mac Time Machine hourly backup to external drive.  Effortless, automatic, and quick.
..b) Mozy.com daily backup to their servers.  Effortless and automatic, but slower.  Files are uploaded to their server, and it can take quite awhile if you've got photos or videos. But a HUGE advantage is it's all off-site so in case this building burned down, I'd still have backups. Another advantage is that you can backup your latest work of brilliance from a hotel room!

Results of this year's crash?

..a) Time machine backup was wonderful. After new disk install & Time machine restore, almost everything looked just like it did before the crash. Same desktop, same toolbar, same preferences. Great!  BUT, it failed to get Aperture working again. I got the software working again, and restored most of my work, but was still missing a few hundred treasured photos!
..b) Mozy.com saved the day. I was able to find the missing files, and re-import into Aperture. It took some time finagling to get everything back again, but I *think* I've got it all set now!

Lessons?

I strongly recommend mozy.com backups for everybody (works on mac or PC). At $4.95/month for unlimited storage, it runs automatically on a schedule you set, and gives you the peace of mind of knowing you always have an off-site backup. Now tell me that's not worth $5/month!

If you've got a mac, definitely set up Time Machine! External drives are cheap, compared to the time & angst of restoring a system from scratch. Even if you've got the data files on Mozy, restoring after a crash will be easier, faster, and more thorough using Time Machine.

As I discovered, having one backup isn't always enough. 2 can't hurt!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The photos I lost (and recovered) were all my Argentina pictures from our last Patagonia women's tour.  I'd really hate to lose those...  It's a long way to go back and get new ones, and I doubt I'd ever get the armadillo to pose so nicely again!

Related posts:

1. Are you sharing files with everyone in the airport?
2. PCs, Macs and the change slider
3. It's three o'clock... and what have you done?

Digging for ideas

.
I just ran across a cool tool -- the "Big Dig" over at Idea Sandbox. They describe this as a set of thought starters and problem solving techniques, collected from great thinkers and writers.

If you're feeling stuck on a particular problem -- whether a business issue, personal matter, or writer's block -- you can dig in their sandbox, and it comes up with a suggestion. A couple of tries netted me the following, both of which had a kernel I could make use of:

Consider looking up. You may be trying to solve something that is really a small part of a much bigger problem."

It's not enough to be good when you dream of being great."

Great stuff indeed, and I'm glad I tried it! You can start solving some of your own problems at

Idea Sandbox: Big Dig problem solver
.

And more concerning, were other people able to see (and poke around in) my files? I have my files set up to easily share between computers in the office. But that doesn't mean I want everyone in the airport to see them!

I found the answer in Ask Dave Taylor, who explained that a change in the most recent Mac operating system (Leopard, or Mac OS X vers 10.5) , leaves the Guest account enabled for file sharing by default. If you don't turn it off, you could be sharing more than you expected!

If you're a Mac user and haven't done anything about this yet, check out this post for simple instructions on how to close this security loophole.

Ask Dave Taylor: How do I completely disable the Guest account on Leopard?

No need for all those other travelers to see your business strategy or love letters, right?

Related posts:

1. PCs, Macs and the change slider
2. Atlanta diet & exercise plan
3. Glad I have a time machine!