commercial insurance

What Are REITs and How to Invest in Them

What is a REIT and How to Invest in Them

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From what a REIT is to how it invests, here’s how to make money from these real estate vehicles.

US News.com | By Paulina Likos and Coryanne Hicks | May 18, 2021, at 4:17 p.m. | REITs

The Ultimate Guide to REITs

A real estate investment trust, or REIT, is a company that owns, operates or finances income-producing real estate.

This is often done by pooling investors’ money to buy and possibly manage commercial or residential buildings. The company then collects rent from its tenants and passes that income onto investors in the form of high dividends.

“REITs are publicly traded companies that exist purely to own real estate or real estate-related assets and allow investors exposure to real estate,” says Jeff Saul, co-CEO and co-founder at Nativ based in New York City. “You can think of a REIT as analogous to an (exchange-traded fund) in the stock world – this is a basket of diversified real estate assets (could be loans or direct equity investments) that is actively managed by qualified real estate investment managers.”

As REIT shareholders, investors get exposure to real estate without the headaches of owning, operating or directly financing properties.

Types of REIT

There are two broad categories of real estate investment trusts: equity REITs and mortgage REITs, or mREITs. Most REITs are equity REITs, which own or operate income-producing real estate such as apartment buildings, offices or shopping centers.

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Equity REITs typically invest in a particular type of property. For example, retail REITs invest in shopping centers, while residential REITs invest in apartment complexes, single-family homes and even student housing. There are other types of equity REITs, too, such as:

  • Lodging and resort REITs, which invest in hotels and resorts.
  • Self-storage REITs, which invest in storage facilities.
  • Data center REITs, which invest in data storage centers.
  • Infrastructure REITs, which invest in infrastructures such as pipelines and cellular towers.
  • Industrial REITs, which invest in facilities such as distribution centers and warehouses.
  • Timberland REITs, which specialize in harvesting and selling timber.

If a REIT invests in a mix of property types, it’s called a diversified REIT. If the properties it owns and manages don’t fit into any other category, it’s called a specialty REIT. Examples of specialty REITs include Lamar Advertising Co. (ticker: LAMR), an advertising real estate provider, and Gladstone Land Corp. (LAND), a REIT investing in the agricultural market, leasing land to farmers.

Mortgage REITs finance commercial and residential properties by investing in mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. These can be agency mortgages secured by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Ginnie Mae, nonagency mortgages or commercial mortgages. Mortgage REITs typically specialize in either commercial or residential mortgages but some invest in both.

These REITs borrow money to buy mortgages paying a higher interest rate. The difference between the rate the REIT pays lenders and the one it receives from investments, called the interest rate spread, is how it generates income and ultimately pays dividends for investors.

How a REIT Works

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Survey highlights issues workers have with PPE

Issues workers have with PPE

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Business Insurance.com | Louise Esola | October 20, 2022 | PPE | Business Insurance

A study released Thursday exploring the availability of personal protective equipment ( PPE ) in workplaces found 72% of workers who forgo protocols do so because they “just didn’t want to wear it.”

J.J. Keller Center for Market Insights, the research arm of safety supplies provider J.J. Keller and Associates Inc., surveyed 172 people from more than 10 industries, with transportation, manufacturing and construction making up 70% of respondents. The study examined such gear as vests, hard hats, and protective eyewear.

What is personal protective equipment?

Personal protective equipment, commonly referred to as “PPE”, is equipment worn to minimize exposure to hazards that cause serious workplace injuries and illnesses. These injuries and illnesses may result from contact with chemical, radiological, physical, electrical, mechanical, or other workplace hazards. Personal protective equipment may include items such as gloves, safety glasses and shoes, earplugs or muffs, hard hats, respirators, or coveralls, vests and full body suits.

PPE

A study released Thursday exploring the availability of personal protective equipment in workplaces found 72% of workers who forgo protocols do so because they “just didn’t want to wear it.”

J.J. Keller Center for Market Insights, the research arm of safety supplies provider J.J. Keller and Associates Inc., surveyed 172 people from more than 10 industries, with transportation, manufacturing and construction making up 70% of respondents. The study examined such gear as vests, hard hats, and protective eyewear.

The survey found that 50% of companies said their workers didn’t think the protective gear was necessary, another 50% said the gear “make the job more difficult,” and 21% said workers forgo safety gear because they “didn’t know it was required,” according to results that allowed respondents to provide more than one answer.

The survey also found the top three barriers to providing gear. The first issue is sizing, as 55% of workers needed larger sizes while 41% said they needed a smaller size, and 35% of companies said they struggled to find gear for female workers.

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A Bond is a safe investment when you compare them with stocks

What is a Bond?

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Acorns.com | Stacy Rapacon | Aug 18, 2022 | Bond

An investing novice might know just one thing about bonds: They’re boring. Which is precisely why you need them in your portfolio, and should get to know them better.

“Bonds are safe investments when you compare them with stocks,” says Tim Kim, a Certified Financial Planner and analyst with Francis Financial in New York City. “The main role [they play] is to further diversify your investments and act as a safety net for your portfolio when the market isn’t doing too well.”

They can also provide a steady stream of cash payments. But don’t confuse safety with simplicity; bonds can actually be pretty complicated. “They are a different breed [of investment],” says Certified Financial Planner Vid Ponnapalli, founder of Holmdel, N.J.-based Unique Financial Advisors. “Bonds are a little more loaded when compared with stocks.”

So we’ve pulled together a primer of all you need to know about bonds—starting with the most basic question of all.

What is a bond?

Basically, a bond is an IOU, or a loan that you give to the issuer. When you buy bonds, you do so with the expectation of getting paid back—with interest—in a certain amount of time.

They are also securities that can be traded, similarly to stocks, on exchanges or over-the-counter (directly with dealers, such as investment banks).

Who issues bonds?

Companies issue corporate bonds. The U.S. government issues Treasuries. States and municipalities (cities or towns with a local government) issue municipal bonds, adorably nicknamed “munis.”

These three main types of bonds each come with different levels of risk and expected returns, based on the general stability of the issuer. Overall, we think of Uncle Sam as pretty reliable (since he can print his own money), so the risks of Treasuries are minimal—as are the returns. On the other hand, companies can come and there’s a risk they can go, so corporate bonds typically offer greater returns with greater risk. Munis fall in the middle.

How do you buy bonds?

You can buy Treasuries at www.treasurydirect.gov.

For other types of individual bonds, you can make your purchase through a brokerage firm, but understand that you’re buying secondhand. The investment banks that deal bonds get them new, then pass them on to you on what’s called the secondary market.

The difference between how much the dealer pays for the bond and how much you pay is called the “spread.” You typically won’t know what that is because dealers don’t have to disclose it. What you can and should know when buying a bond is its coupon rate (how much interest it pays) and when it matures.

What does it mean when a bond matures?

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Why private equity firms should seek political risk insurance in today’s geopolitical environment

Why private equity firms should seek political risk insurance in today’s geopolitical environment

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Liberty Mutual | Published 09/30/2022 | political risk insurance

It’s news to no one that our world is in a state of turbulence, from the political climate to the actual climate. One of the numerous effects of political change is that organizations operating in international emerging markets face potentially significant business risks, from elections and coups to wars and sudden nationalizations.

Global economies are still rebounding from the social unrest and supply-chain issues of the COVID-19 pandemic, a crisis that led investors to consider adding inequality measures (such as the Gini coefficient/index) to country-risk profiles that traditionally relied on political stability measures. More recently, the Russia-Ukraine war has been producing global ripple effects, including reduced agricultural output to regions like Turkey, the Middle East & North Africa, and Bangladesh; a worsening of the continued energy crisis; and sustained and elevated inflation.

In fact, in a recent annual survey of PE and VC practitioners conducted by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 26% of respondents highlighted political upheaval as one of the top five risk factors of most concern.   

There is, however, a solution. Learn more about a well-established but underutilized tool that can help mitigate the risks private equity firms face investing in today’s shifting geopolitical environment: political risk insurance (PRI).

How political risk insurance can reduce the risk of geopolitical turbulence

First, let’s examine some of the specific risks a company funded by a PE firm faces in a volatile political climate. These risks include, but are not limited to:

  • Lost investment without compensation because the government seizes control of company assets. History is rife with examples of newly elected regimes forcibly taking ownership of privately controlled resources.
  • Forced abandonment of projects or equipment because the potential for politically motivated violence escalates to the degree that the business must leave quickly to ensure the safety of its team.
  • Management of breached contracts that occur when a supplier or vendor runs into the above or related problems.

“Foreign direct investment is crucial for developing countries,” says Amy Gross of Liberty Mutual’s Global Private Equity Practice. “For example, many countries where these emerging markets exist have a significant need for clean and sustainable energy sources. This need has driven a number of those initiatives—solar energy, wind projects, etc.—all requiring a capital investment of anywhere from $10 million to $2 billion. However, to attract that kind of capital, investors need to know that their political risk is mitigated.”

Based on the very real risks listed above, it’s no surprise that PE firms have been cautious about expanding their international portfolios. However, avoidance of overseas assets means firms are missing out on substantial business opportunities—investments that could be less risky if more firms leveraged political risk insurance.

Just as traditional insurance is leveraged by PE firms to reduce risk to businesses in a domestic portfolio, political risk insurance helps firms manage the unknown liabilities associated with investing in emerging markets across the globe. A risk management strategy that includes PRI gives private equity companies more dependable access to opportunities in the developing world and more confidence in valuation and pricing when it’s time to exit.

The challenges of PRI for private equity

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How to Use Google Privacy Settings

How to Use Google Privacy Settings

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These controls and techniques will help you limit the personal data Google collects for advertising and other purposes

Consumer Report | By Thomas Germain | Published October 11, 2022

Google is a company that runs on consumer data. It uses details about your activity to target ads, build new services, develop algorithms, and perform other business functions. Completely avoiding the company’s data collection machinery is extremely difficult, but it’s not hard to place some limits on how Google gathers and uses your data.

The first step is to take advantage of Google’s own privacy settings, and you can fine-tune them with a bit more precision thanks to some recent updates. There are also several outside tools you can use to take more control.

Most of the instructions below are for a computer browser, but the steps are similar if you’re working on your phone. And one of these settings is specific to Android, Google’s smartphone platform.

Turn Off the Master Privacy Control

If you’ve been feeling guilty about neglecting your diary, you can rest easy: If a setting called Web & App Activity is turned on, Google keeps one for you.

You can see this data for yourself, with granular details about your activity on Google products such as Search, Chrome, Android, and Google Assistant. This includes your whereabouts, websites you’ve gone to, the apps you’ve used on your phone, and your search history, along with exact time stamps for all this behavior.

The Web & App Activity control is the company’s most powerful privacy setting, and it does a lot more than you might think. Leave it on, and the company considers that consent to harness everything from your YouTube history to credit card purchases in the physical world for advertising and other data-driven business efforts.

But if you switch it off, Google warns that its services may be less “personalized,” and certain features will be disabled in Maps and Google Assistant.

“That makes for a terrible user experience,” says Justin Brookman, director of privacy and technology policy for Consumer Reports. “It’s bad practice for them to lump all these settings together and disincentivize protecting your privacy.”

But Brookman thinks the privacy boost is still worth the trade-off, and you can always switch the setting back on if you need to.

Google has introduced a few new controls for Web & App activity. You can tell it to exclude browsing data and other information from Google Chrome, and exclude any voice data the company collects if you use Google Assistant.

To turn it off: From any Google website,click the icon in the top right (you’ll need to sign in first) > Manage your Google Account > Privacy & personalization > If Web & App Activity is on, click on it > On the next screen, click “Turn off.” If you’d rather leave the global Web & App activity setting on, you can also adjust the settings for Chrome and voice data.

Turn Off Google Location History—for Real This Time

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When the buyer-supplier relationship begins to sour for whatever reason, it may be best for your business to cut ties and move on.

11 Clear Signs It’s Time to Cut Ties with a Vendor

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Maintaining good relationships with your vendors helps ensure that you consistently receive the goods and services you need and achieve mutually beneficial goals. But when the buyer-supplier relationship begins to sour for whatever reason, it may be best for your business to cut ties and move on.

Published: Oct 9, 2022 by The Young Entrepreneur Council In Small Business Operations1

To help you determine whether it’s time to seek out a new vendor partnership, 11 Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members shared their insights on the following question:

“What’s one warning sign that it might be time to cut ties with a particular vendor, and why?”

Here’s what YEC community members had to say.

1. They Won’t Renegotiate Redlined Clauses. Cut Ties

“Sometimes it’s hard to know which side people are on or if they will even change sides. If you redline a harmful clause in your contract and send it back to a vendor, they will react. There’s no problem if the reaction is a compromise. If it’s not, and things escalate, end the relationship. Compromise strengthens aligned relationships and breaks misalignment.” ~ Sean Adler, GZI

2. They Can’t Deliver Within an Expected Timeline

“Our saying is, ‘You are only as strong as your weakest partner.’ If our vendors can’t deliver consistent products or within the timelines our customers expect, we move on quickly. There is always another great vendor out there who wants to work as hard and as thoughtfully as we do.” ~ Michael Barnhill, Specialist ID

3. They Affect the Quality of Business Operations

“A big red flag is when vendors begin to affect the quality of your business operations and offerings. This might look like failure to deliver supplies on time, quality going down or failure to communicate. Of course, mistakes can happen. But if the situation becomes a pattern, it’s a sign to move on before their lack of discipline disrupts your business operations and dampens quality.” ~ Blair Thomas, eMerchantBroker

4. They Stop Providing Product Support

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The job market is still red hot despite fears of a recession, and job seekers continue to display confidence in their ability to take up better jobs. 

Interviewing for your next job? Avoid this common mistake

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CNBC.com | Published Thu, Aug 4 2022 9:44 PM EDT | Updated Thu, Aug 4 20229:46 PM EDT |Goh Chiew Tong@CHIEWTONG_G | Job

The job market is still red hot despite fears of a recession, and job seekers continue to display confidence in their ability to take up better jobs. 

“I quite often get this question from my students … how do they choose from the many offers that they get?” said Olivier Sibony, a professor of strategy at HEC Paris. 

But as candidates find themselves in power, the “most likely mistake” they would make is allowing their decision-making to be influenced by one interaction, he told CNBC Make It. 

That’s also known the “halo effect,” which is the tendency for a positive overall impression of someone or a company to positively influence one’s opinion in other areas.

Quite often, when people are mismatched to a job, it’s because they didn’t do their homework properly … they didn’t ask the right questions.

Oliver Sibony

PROFESSOR, HEC PARIS

For example, if a job candidate’s first interaction with a company representative — which is typically a recruiter — is a positive one, the questions he or she will ask during the interview “will support that initial judgment, Sibony said. 

“To all the questions that you ask, you will find the answers satisfying and you will only ask questions that confirm your initial positive impression,” he added. 

“You will not ask the tough questions … that would actually get the answers that would make you think, ‘Maybe it’s not such a good company after all.’” 

How can you avoid picking a job that you might regret? CNBC Make It finds out.  

1. Ask the same questions

To overcome the halo effect, you should “force yourself to ask” every company the same set of questions, said Sibony, who is also an associate fellow at the University of Oxford. 

“Whether you actually ask those questions in the interview or get the information from another reliable source is a separate issue,” he added. 

“It might be much better to get the answers to your questions from Glassdoor or from people who work in the company — rather than ask the interviewer — who is very unlikely to give you a truthful answer, if you are realistic about it.”

2. Do your job research 

It’s “good practice” for everyone to have a checklist of questions or criteria they would like their job to fulfill, said Sibony. 

“Quite often, when people are mismatched to a job, it’s because they didn’t do their homework properly … they didn’t ask the right questions.”

The author of “You’re About to Make a Terrible Mistake!” recommended this process for creating a checklist: Talk to five friends who have left their jobs within months or “tell you how much they hate their job every time you meet them.” 

“Ask yourself, what could that person have done before taking the job that would have given them the information they needed to make the correct decision? What is the red flag they should have seen but didn’t look for?” 

3. Are your potential colleagues happy? 

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22 Kid-Friendly Pasta Recipes to Tempt Even the Pickiest Eaters

22 Kid-Friendly Pasta Recipes to Tempt Even the Pickiest Eaters

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22 Kid-Friendly Pasta Recipes to Tempt Even the Pickiest Eaters

MarthaStewart.com | By Kelly Vaughan | Updated August 20, 2020

If you have little kids, getting them to expand their horizons at dinnertime can be a challenge. It may seem like they won’t ever want to eat anything that isn’t macaroni and cheese or chicken nuggets, but give these kid-friendly pasta recipes a try and they’re sure to be asking for more. From hearty meat sauces to plenty of colorful, seasonal vegetables served with pasta and a cheesy, creamy sauce, these recipes are sure to please.

Start with Pasta with Zucchini, Mint, and Pecorino, pictured here. It’s a delicious dish for summer and a great way to encourage eating zucchini. One of our favorite ways to convince kids to try new vegetables is by serving them with something familiar that they know and love. Take our recipe for Cheesy Asparagus Pasta, for example. The base of the dish resembles a perfect bowl of macaroni and cheese. Short pasta such as penne is tossed in a rich sauce made from whole milk, cream cheese, sharp cheddar, and grated Gruyere. But we managed to sneak in an entire bunch of asparagus, making this the perfect kid-friendly vegetable-heavy pasta dish.

Another healthy green sneaks its way into our rich Prosciutto Carbonara—spinach! Five ounces of baby spinach is mixed with warm, cooked pasta and a silky sauce until it wilts slightly. Plenty of grated Pecorino Romano cheese and salty strips of prosciutto will surely give kids good reason to dig in.

Of course, we’re also serving up classics that everyone loves like Lasagna with Meat Sauce and our Test Kitchen’s Favorite Spaghetti and Meatballs. Next time you’re wondering what to make for dinner, consider one of these kid-friendly pasta recipes.

Pasta Recipes

Prosciutto Carbonara with Spinach

2 of 22

Prosciutto Carbonara with Spinach

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Enjoy this easy, cream-free version of pasta carbonara—your little ones will love it, too. Instead of spaghetti, we’re using hearty rigatoni pasta, which is the perfect vessel for holding the creamy sauce made from Pecorino Romano, eggs, and pasta water.

Baked Rigatoni with Mini Meatballs

3 of 22

Baked Rigatoni with Mini Meatballs

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Here’s a genius take on pasta with meatballs that’s sure to entice your kids. Turn the meat of spicy Italian sausage into mini meatballs. Toss them with cooked rigatoni and cubed mozzarella, then bake until bubbling and golden brown.

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Shield Insurance Blog The real reasons why your ideas at work are rejected

The real reasons why your ideas at work are rejected

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Ideas at Work

Worklife News | September 23, 2022 | by Steve Hemsley

There is a saying in business that ideas at work can come from anywhere.

That is certainly true, but in reality not everyone’s ideas at work are listened to.

According to Dr. Megan Seibel, a leadership development professional at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia, ideas can be rejected because of different cognitive styles within a team. Seibel is a global instructor in Kirton’s Adaption-Innovation Theory which is used to measure problem-solving, teamwork and creativity.

Some people are “adaptors,” who want to do things better at work and are happy operating within rules and routines. “Innovators” meanwhile seek to do things differently and feel constrained by corporate structures and procedures.

“Often a brilliant idea will not resonate with the rest of your team, or you may think you have the perfect solution but others do not agree,” said Seibel. “The way we generate ideas, utilize structure to implement our ideas and respond to rules and group norms is innate to each of us as individuals.”

Here are Seibel’s five reasons why someone’s ideas may be rejected because a team comprises adaptors and innovators.

The “style” of the idea at work 

Others find it hard to see the value of an idea if they have a different approach and style to problem-solving.

The “fit” of the idea at work compared to the norm:

The idea that has been suggested may not fit the current norm. 

Misunderstanding of what needs to change:

We may be working with others and think we understand the issue, only to realize at some point we were not all on the same page. 

The status of the idea at work originator:

Is the status of the person affecting others’ attitudes? Maybe an idea is coming from a junior employee.

An idea is from the “in-group” or “out-group”: 

In every organization there are groups of individuals with similar cognitive styles when it comes to solving problems. This consensus group may have an easier time building energy and agreement around certain ideas. It can be harder for individuals who fall outside of these groups to have their ideas understood and championed.

“In the workplace people behave in a certain way, and every idea either comes from an adaptive or an innovative person,” said Seibel. “It is important to know your own type and the chemistry of your team so you approach the right people at the right time to get good ideas to solve specific problems.”

According to research by cloud-based design software company Figma (whose product is used by employees at companies such as Spotify, Deliveroo and WorkLife parent company Digiday Media) how and when people suggest ideas at work can vary by demographic.

Some 33% of men and 47% of women have been too shy to voice an idea at work, and then somebody else suggests it. Some 60% of 25-34 year olds worry that their idea will be considered ‘terrible’ by colleagues. The company’s findings also reveal that 35% of people have their best ideas at home and 28% when talking to somebody else. Apparently people feel most creative on a Friday morning.

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Shield Insurance Blog - 100th Anniversary of Fire Prevention Week

100th Anniversary of Fire Prevention Week

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NFPA.org | 2022 Campaign | Fire Prevention Week

Join NFPA® in celebrating the 100th anniversary of Fire Prevention Week™ (FPW). This year’s FPW campaign, “Fire won’t wait. Plan your escape™”, works to educate everyone about simple but important actions they can take to keep themselves and those around them safe from home fires.

Today’s homes burn faster than ever. You may have as little as two minutes (or even less time) to safely escape a home fire from the time the smoke alarm sounds. Your ability to get out of a home during a fire depends on early warning from smoke alarms and advance planning.

Home fire escape planning and practicing

It is important for everyone to plan and practice a home fire escape. Everyone needs to be prepared in advance, so that they know what to do when the smoke alarm sounds. Given that every home is different, every home fire escape plan will also be different.

Have a plan for everyone in the home. Children, older adults, and people with disabilities may need assistance to wake up and get out. Make sure that someone will help them!

Smoke alarms

Smoke alarms sense smoke well before you can, alerting you to danger. Smoke alarms need to be in every bedroom, outside of the sleeping areas (like a hallway), and on each level (including the basement) of your home. Do not put smoke alarms in your kitchen or bathrooms.

Choose an alarm that is listed with a testing laboratory, meaning it has met certain standards for protection.

For the best protection, use combination smoke and carbon monoxide alarms that are interconnected throughout the home. These can be installed by a qualified electrician, so that when one sounds, they all sound. This ensures you can hear the alarm no matter where in your home the alarm originates.

Importance of fire prevention

In a fire, mere seconds can mean the difference between a safe escape and a tragedy. Fire safety education isn’t just for school children. Teenagers, adults, and the elderly are also at risk in fires, making it important for every member of the community to take some time every October during Fire Prevention Week to make sure they understand how to stay safe in case of a fire.

On this site, you’ll find loads of educational resources to make sure that every person knows what to do in case of a fire. We have everything from apps to videos to printables and much more, to make sure you have the resources you need to keep your family, your community, and your city safe.

Learn more about Fire Prevention at this great website!

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