June 2014 ~ Mesothelioma Blog

Monday, 30 June 2014

Scott Rosenblum involved in accident, arrested for DWI

Well-known defense attorney Scott Rosenblum was arrested overnight after he was involved in a suspected drunk driving accident.

Brandie Piper, KSDK 6:19 p.m. CDT April 29, 2014

Scott Rosenblum(Photo: Brentwood Police Department)

BRENTWOOD, Mo. – Well-known defense attorney Scott Rosenblum was arrested overnight after he was involved in a suspected drunk driving accident.

Maj. James McIntyre with the Brentwood Police Department says Rosenblum was driving a 2013 Bentley south near the 1800 block of South McKnight around 12:15 a.m. Tuesday when he hit a 2011 Toyota Tundra driving northbound.

McIntyre says the investigation indicates Rosenblum crossed the center line and struck the Tundra head-on. He says both vehicles sustained significant damage.

According to McIntyre, Rosenblum was arrested and taken to the Brentwood Police Department and issued a summons for careless and imprudent driving and driving while intoxicated.

Hours before his arrest, Rosenblum's client, 45-year-old Daniel Hughes, was acquitted of molesting a 9-year-old girl at the Ritz-Carlton in March 2011.

NewsChannel 5 has contacted Rosenblum's office, and received the following statement from his attorney, John P. Rogers:

"My Law Partner Scott Rosenblum was involved in an automobile accident at midnight last night.

"Neither party suffered any injury.

"Scott had just successfully acquitted Mr. Hughes after a jury trial that lasted well over a week. The hours of preparation and exhaustion that followed were certainly the main factors contributing to the accident.

"John P. Rogers, Attorney for Scott Rosenblum"

Health Insurance Companies' Arranged Marriage With The IRS

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With just two weeks to go before the March 31 deadline for applying for health insurance on a government-run exchange, more than 5 million people have signed up for the new plans. When all is said and done, approximately 30 million previously uninsured Americans are expected to have health insurance, either through a government exchange, employer or Medicaid.

So, following that logic, the health insurers behind these plans should be raking in profits from millions of new customers, which, even at reduced rates, should allow them to reap huge rewards.

Not so fast. Along with the influx of new customers, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is bringing health insurance companies new IRS obligations that could have a major impact on their profitability. While not all of these obligations are outright taxes, the ACA has effectively turned the IRS into a monitoring and enforcement mechanism for many of the health law's administrative provisions. The cost of meeting these requirements will act as a tax of sorts.

Insurance Industry Excise Tax

Chief among these is an $8 billion fee, which, effective this past January, is levied on all health insurers based on their total market share of net premiums written for different health risk pools. As the recent Thomson Reuters Checkpoint special report Tax Changes in Health Care Reform Legislation explains, this fee will be allocated based on the risk pools each insurer covers. Those who take on more customers with higher levels of health risk will pay less, while those who take on primarily low-risk new customers will pay more.

This fee is essentially structured as an excise tax on insurance companies. The flat fee for the industry starts at $8 billion this year and will increase to $14.3 billion by 2018. To put that in perspective, the widely derided medical device tax, which imposes a 2.3% excise tax on several medical technologies, is only expected to generate about $2.9 billion in tax revenue per year.

This is a big number that will have a material impact on insurance company cash flows starting this year. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office has said that it expects the tax to result in an overall increase in premiums as the insurance companies pass along the increased costs to their members. Consultancy Oliver Wyman has taken the estimate one step further, suggesting that the tax will result in an increase in insurance premiums of $500 per covered worker by 2020.

New Forms: 1095-B Compliance

Another significant tax hurdle for insurance companies isn't really a tax at all, but rather a new tax form called the 1095-B, which is required for all covered lives, starting in tax year 2015. Essentially, because the Affordable Care Act requires all U.S. citizens to have some form of insurance, the burden of proof of coverage now falls on the insurance providers who must file this new form with the IRS each year to document that each of their members has insurance.

That sounds reasonable enough, until you factor the herculean challenge of having to mail a copy of the IRS tax forms to policyholders, totaling 317 million Americans. As of December 2013, the two largest health insurers in the U.S., United Healthcare and WellPoint, had a combined 106 million members.

Ignore for a moment the filing requirements and organizational challenges of sending a new form with accurate identification information to every customer – and just focus on the postage. At 49 cents per stamp, it will cost approximately $52 million for United Healthcare and WellPoint just to mail the forms to their customers. Even if some consolidation of household forms is allowed, and bulk postage rates are applied, the administrative cost to insurers is still significant.

Now, factor in the implications of getting insurance company data systems ready to comply with IRS requirements that are based on Social Security numbers. In many cases, insurance companies have built their customer data infrastructure around account numbers, which may or may not be linked to underlying Social Security numbers. If that link isn't already built into the system, this could trigger the need for major programming infrastructure changes across the industry.

Many insurers will outsource the 1095 function, ultimately creating a new layer of business opportunity in the service sector. However, when factoring the ultimate impact to health insurers, 1095 compliance will become a real cost that was nonexistent a year ago.

Behavioral Implications

History is littered with examples of industries overcoming challenging tax environments and still succeeding, but one has to wonder if the design of the Affordable Care Act will ultimately help or hinder its intended goal. What we do know is that there will be an increased cost to businesses to comply with the law. In the case of the health insurance industry, it has been made clear by the industry itself that these costs will ultimately trickle down to consumers in the form of higher premiums. We also know from speaking with our customers that there is an increased push for operational readiness to comply with the various reporting requirements that come along with the Affordable Care Act. These things come at a cost – one that will likely trickle down to the policy holder, unfortunately making affordable care even less affordable.

Uber Expands Insurance Coverage For Ridesharing Drivers

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Travis Kalanick, CEO of the popular car sharing app Uber, is seen in an undated handout photo. UberX on March 14, 2014 expanded the insurance coverage it offers to ridesharing drivers, a step towards easing U.S. Regulators and lawmakers' concerns and creating broader acceptance of the services. REUTERS/Courtesy of Uber/Handout

(Reuters) - UberX on Friday expanded the insurance coverage it offers to ridesharing drivers, a step toward easing U.S. regulators' and lawmakers' concerns and creating broader acceptance of the services.

Ridesharing companies such as UberX, part of black-car service Uber, allow members of the public to hail rides at the touch of a smartphone app. Mom-and-pop drivers rather than professionals typically answer their requests, in regular cars rather than commercial vehicles.

Until now, ridesharing companies' policies kick in only when a driver is giving a ride or en route to pick up a fare. That left drivers exposed when they were between rides in what has become known as the ridesharing insurance gap.

UberX's new policy is designed to make drivers more comfortable, along with regulators and lawmakers, many of whom are currently working through rules that would apply to ridesharing companies, Uber Chief Executive Travis Kalanick said on a conference call with reporters.

"That allows them to be thoughtful as they work through the legislat ive options," he said.

Rival ridesharing companies Lyft said it will soon start providing additional protection to drivers when they are between rides, while Sidecar said it also plans to roll out similar coverage.

The issue of the between-rides insurance gap came to public attention after a high-profile accident on New Year's Eve resulting in the death of a young girl. The driver involved, who crashed into her and her family at a San Francisco crosswalk, was between rides for UberX at the time.

Kalanick said the New Year's Eve case did not fall into the gap because the driver's insurance company has offered to pay up to the limits of the driver's policy for that accident. He could not remember what those limits were, he said.

UberX's new policy, which comes into effect only if a driver's personal policy does not cover an accident incurr ed during a gap between rides, provides up to $50,000 in coverage per individual for bodily injury, per incident, capped at $100,000 total for the incident for bodily injury, plus $25,000 per incident for property damage.

Lyft did not provide details of its coverage to fill the insurance gap, but said it would be rolling it out state-by-state in coming days, a spokeswoman said late Thursday. Sidecar's would be coming "soon," a spokeswoman said Friday.

Getting legislators and regulators on board with ridesharing makes a key part of the ridesharing companies' business plans, with many local officials specifically citing insurance as one of their concerns over the companies.

The services are coming under increasing regulatory and legislative scrutiny. On Monday, Seattle's city council plans to vote on ridesharing regulation.

Ultimately, Kalanick said, insurance companies will offer specialized products for ridesharing drivers. For now, most insurance companies say ridesharing is not allowed under personal insurance policies, although in practice, many pay out claims arising from ridesharing accidents.

Covering drivers between rides creates a possibility that some drivers may turn on the UberX app to benefit from the expanded insurance, without intending to accept any rides. Kalanick said UberX is focusing on making sure coverage is broad, and has not yet created any limits on how long a driver may log into the app without accepting rides.

Ridesharing stands apart from app-based car services that use professional drivers. Uber, for instance, relies on limousines for its main black-car service, while ridesharing unit UberX can rope in any driver with time to spare. Paid ridesharing companies operate in various big cities around the United Sta tes, where they typically come under heavy opposition from the taxi industry.

Kalanick blamed taxi lobbying for the roadblocks his company is facing in some areas.

"A lot of times you have particular city council members which are in the pocket of the taxi industry, straight up," Kalanick said, saying they take large campaign donations from the industry. "And guess what? Those folks typically end up being the folks who run the transportation committee."

Taxi companies say ridesharing transportation lacks the safeguards they provide and makes for unfair competition.

(Reporting by Sarah McBride; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Government expands help for buying health insurance

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With just a month left for Americans to select health plans this year through new insurance marketplaces, the Obama administration is bending some rules to prevent people from being stranded without coverage because of state-run exchanges riddled with computer problems.

In states with dysfunctional insurance marketplaces, the government will for the first time help pay for certain health plans that consumers buy on their own. And once people in those states are able to sign up through the exchanges, their insurance can be made retroactive.

These rewritten rules, laid out in a three-page memo, can be used by any state but are aimed primarily at helping people in Maryland and three other states whose exchanges have not been working well. The four states are among 14 that have each created an insurance marketplace under the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

Some state-run exchanges have had the nation's greatest successes in attracting people who need insurance, but others have not. The problem-ridden state marketplaces are in Maryland, Oregon, Hawaii and Massachusetts, which pioneered the nation's first such marketplace but ran into trouble when it suddenly had to interact with a federal computer system to determine people's eligibility for subsidies.

The other 36 states are relying on the federal online marketplace, HealthCare.gov, which has had its own computer problems, particularly during the first two months after the sign-up period for health plans began in the fall. The states using the federal exchange are not intended to be part of the rewritten rules.

While affecting only a few states, the changes are significant, in part because they break with what has been a bedrock principle under the 2010 law intended to reshape the nation's health-care system. Through tax credits to help consumers afford monthly insurance premiums and an annual deductible, the law offers the first federal help the government has given individuals to pay for private health plans. But until now, that help was available only for health plans sold through the new marketplaces — not plans sold outside it.

The rewritten rules were proposed by Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber (D), who worked them out in a meeting last weekend with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, according to a spokeswoman for the governor. "Today's news means that many more Oregonians will be able to access better coverage at a more affordable cost," Kitzhaber said in a statement on Friday.

States must decide whether they want to take advantage of the new federal rules, which were announced in the memo issued Thursday and announced Friday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency within HHS that oversees the exchanges.

In Maryland, officials are considering several alternatives to deal with its broken marketplace. Dori Henry, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, said Friday that officials were trying to digest the implications of the federal offer. "We're pleased that new options are becoming available to help individuals who have experienced problems," she said.

Early this week, Carolyn A. Quattrocki, the exchange's acting executive director, told lawmakers that about 7,000 applications are stuck in Maryland's system, but that does not mean all of those applicants still need health insurance. As of Feb. 22, nearly 36,000 Marylanders had enrolled in a private health plan through the exchange — far below an original goal of at least 150,000 people signing up by March 31, when the first open-enrollment period across the country ends.

Maryland offered retroactive coverage once before to consumers who got stuck in the enrollment process. In January, after the deadline for people to have coverage when it first became available on New Year's Day, the four carriers participating in the state's exchange allowed a one-week window during which people could sign up for insurance retroactive to the first of the year. People from about 300 households signed up.

The rewritten federal rules would allow people to receive federal subsidies for health plans outside exchanges as long as the covered benefits are comparable to those of plans sold through the exchanges.

In order to get retroactive subsidies, people will have to start to pay the full price of their health plan, then get the reduction once their state's exchange is working well enough to determine whether their incomes make them eligible for the help.

Clare Krusing, a spokeswoman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's main trade group, said that "this latest change adds to the operational challenges in processing enrollments." But she added, "Health plans will continue to work with state and federal agencies to help consumers through the enrollment process."

The rewritten rules are the latest shift to accommodate various constituencies. In November, President Obama bowed to pressure from consumers angry to be losing insurance that did not meet new benefits requirements. The president said that such substandard plans, which were to have been taken off the market in January, could be sold for an additional year.

And this month, administration officials, for the second time in a year, gave medium-size and large employers more time before they must offer health insurance to almost all their full-time workers.

How to Accelerate Insurance Claims Processing by Up to 90%

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ROCHESTER, NY--(Marketwired - June 25, 2014) - Acco rding to a 2013 report by Capgemini(i), only 30% of insurance customers worldwide rated their customer experience as positive. Lower barriers to switching insurance providers coupled with higher expectations from policyholders regarding responsiveness to claims put enormous pressure on insurance carriers. Claims, especially in the property & casualty world, can be very complex due to a multitude of inputs from different communication types, such as email, traditional mail, social media, text and online forms. Adding to the complexity is that volumes peak during catastrophes, while policyholder expectations for superior customer service continue to increase.

Kodak Alaris will share insight and offer solutions for overcoming these challenges at the America's Claims Event (ACE 2014) in Washington, DC on June 25-27. A Silver Sponsor of the event, Kodak Alaris will present on the latest trends and best practices as well as host individual discussions in Booth 110, exploring ho w the KODAK Info Insight Platform can solve carrier challenges. Daniel Hughes, Enterprise Solutions Manager for Kodak Alaris' Document Imaging division will present a session entitled "The Intersection of People, Customers, and Technology in the Claims Process" on Thursday, June 26, from 8:00-8:45am. In the session, he will discuss how to overcome issues related to slow, inefficient processes and increased customer expectations to achieve significant savings and increased customer loyalty.

"Using the KODAK Info Insight Platform, many major brands have been able to tackle complex, high-volume applications that are difficult to automate," said Hughes. "Our solution, based on Artificial Intelligence, has proven to be particularly impactful in claims processing where requirements are extremely tough. Policyholders expect carriers to use their preferred communication channels, which often involve several different devices and platforms related to one claim. They want all of their information to be integrated into the claim process in real time, which means claims agents need complete visibility to every aspect of the case. They want answers in hours, not days, and the more manual the processes for handling policyholder information, the greater the gap between customer expectations and the level of service delivered. It's all about capturing and organizing information in a way that lets insurance carriers automate processes, enhance customer experience, and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty."

The Info Insight Platform (kodakalaris.com/go/infoinsightnews) is a comprehensive suite of solutions that provides significant enhancements in process efficiency and customer experience. The platform provides intelligent understanding and management of incoming documents and customer communications, regardless of format and structure. With Info Insight, every piece of incoming, claim-related information -- from different sources (agent, customer), in mult iple formats, and at various times -- is identified and seamlessly routed into a relevant workflow. Info Insight uses self-learning classification, extracts and enriches data through integration with existing systems, and provides agents with suggestive responses, allowing them to select, edit and send a final response with a few mouse clicks. It significantly reduces the need for rekeying and other time-consuming manual activities. Through insightful automation, the platform dramatically decreases processing times from the point of notification to reimbursement -- up to 90% for some insurance carriers.

"The claims handling process is a significant paint point for insurance carriers as it has a large impact on the profitability as well as the ability to retain customers," added Hughes. "We look forward to sharing our insights on the latest technology and best practices with attendees of the ACE conference."

To see a video on the Info Insight platform, please visit kodak alaris.com/go/infoinsightnews. A white paper on achieving more efficient claims processing is also available at www.kodakalaris.com/go/claimswp.

About Kodak Alaris' Document Imaging Division
Kodak Alaris' Document Imaging solutions enable customers to capture and consolidate data from digital and paper sources, understand and extract valuable insight from the contents, and deliver the right information to the right people at the right time. Our offerings include award-winning scanners, capture and information management software, an expanding range of professional services and industry-leading service and support. With customers ranging from small offices to global operations, Kodak Alaris delivers superior systems and solutions to automate business processes, enhance customer interactions and enable better business decisions. The Kodak trademark and trade dress are used under license from Eastman Kodak Company.

For more information, please visit ko dakalaris.com/go/dinews. Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/kodakdi and visit our blog at infooverdrive.com/

(i) World Insurance Report 2013, Capgemini, 2013

Contact:

Media Contacts:

Jonathan Ghent
Kodak Alaris
+1 585-722-4671
Jonathan.Ghent@kodakalaris.com

Keith Hevenor
Eric Mower + Associates
+1 315-413-4225
KodakAlaris@mower.com

Insurance premium growth slowed in 2013, but expected to strenghten

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The growth rate of global non-life and life insurance premiums was slower in 2013, then the rate seen in 2012, but both are expected to strengthen during 2014, according to one of the world's largest reinsurance firms Swiss Re.

Swiss Re's latest sigma report looks at the growth rate of insurance premiums around the globe. Last year the report found premiums rising at a faster rate and the reinsurer said it expected non-life premium growth to expand, but the growth spurt seems to be taking longer to kick in than perhaps expected.

Global insurance industry premiums written in 2013 grew by 1.4% in real terms to USD 4 641 billion in 2013 after a 2.5% increase in 2012. Swiss Re says the slowdown in premium growth is largely due to life insurance market weakness in advanced markets, however non-life premium growth also slowed.

Global life premiums were up just 0.7% in 2013, with weak sales in North America and the advanced Asian markets offsetting a strong performance in Western Europe, Oceania and most emerging markets. Non-life premiums grew by 2.3%, also less than the previous year as growth slowed in the advanced and emerging markets. Overall profitability in both the life and non-life sectors improved, despite the impact of still low-interest rates on investment returns.

Weaker global economic factors are to blame for a slide in non-life premium growth in some developing nations. Swiss Re explains:

Global non-life premium growth slowed to 2.3% in 2013 from 2.7% the year before, with total premiums at USD 2 033 billion. In emerging markets non-life premium growth remained strong at 8.3% in 2013 after 9.3% in 2012, and was solid across all regions with the exception of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The expansion in emerging Asia was supported by sustained strong growth in Southeast Asia and China. In India, however, non-life sales growth slowed to 4.1% from 8.9% in 2012, due to a slower economy and weaker business sentiment.

Non-life premium growth in advanced markets was just 1.1% in 2013, down from 1.5% the previous year. Swiss Re explains that economic factors are also a cause of this slow down in the advanced economies, showing that insurance markets remain depressed worldwide. Swiss Re explains:

This was mainly due to a still-depressed market in Western Europe, with premiums down 0.3% due to the weak economic environment. In advanced Asia, premium growth slowed to 1.7% from 4.7% in 2012, mainly due to a sharp tax-reform induced slump in South Korea. In the US, premiums grew steadily by 1.7% and in Canada by 3.2%. Non-life growth in advanced markets has remained soft since the financial crisis in 2008. Premiums increased by an annual average of 0.7% between 2009 and 2013 compared with 1.9% in the 2003-2007 period.

Swiss Re expects the growth rate of both non-life and life premiums will strengthen as the economic recovery continues in many regions of the world. The firming economy and labour markets in advanced economies will help both non-life and life premiums to grow, while emerging market growth should also hold up, said Swiss Re.

The report is not as bullish as previous ones, published by Swiss Re and others, on the prospects for emerging market premium growth to buoy the insurance and reinsurance industry. Previous reports have suggested that strong growth should persist in emerging economies as insurance penetration grows. The slowdown in 2013 seems to have tempered the outlook a little for Swiss Re, although looking at the data there is still very strong premium growth in emerging markets.

For the traditional reinsurance market, which is looking for new opportunities to replace lost business in core markets where pricing has declined and competition increased, considerable emphasis has been placed on the emerging market reinsurance opportunity. However, reinsurance penetration can only follow insurance penetration, meaning that growth of reinsurance premiums in these emerging regions is likely tied to insurance premium growth and is likely to grow more slowly as a result.

Growth of GDP in most regions of the world remains below average, which drives insurance uptake and penetration to a degree. While the GDP growth rates of the world remain below near-terms averages and interest rates remain low insurers will find they need to consolidate on advanced market opportunities to a degree. With reinsurers under pressure due to competition and pricing many are looking to primary insurance as a new growth avenue. This will up the levels of competition in the primary insurance market which could exacerbate rate softening here as well.

So while premium growth is expected to continue globally and perhaps strengthen over the coming years, the news is not likely to provide any solace for those impacted by declining prices, competition and the growing influence of the capital markets and alternative capital in re/insurance.

However, it should be noted that with the rate of innovation accelerating in insurance and reinsurance and technology advancing rapidly we could see new initiatives which open up markets more broadly, accelerating the rate of premium growth. Also, initiatives which look to new ways to create and support insurance and reinsurance markets through science and technology based pricing rather than subsidisation could also bring with them opportunities for markets to grow and premiums to increase.

Total real premium growth in advanced and emerging markets since 1980 - Source: Swiss Re sigma report

Still, global insurance premium growth will continue to drive a greater requirement for reinsurance capital, as it remains difficult for insurers to provide significant amounts of risk capital without a reinsurers backing.

With insurance penetration increasing followed by reinsurance moving into new regions or perils growth opportunities will also emerge for insurance-linked securities (ILS) and the reinsurance convergence market, as emerging economies continue to mature.

You can download the full report from Swiss Re via its website.

Tagged as: capital markets, catastrophe, catastrophe bond, Collateralized reinsurance, insurance, insurance linked securities, investment, premium, reinsurance

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More law and justice at Gloucester County College

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Posted: Tuesday, June 24, 2014, 7:57 PM

Gloucester County College kicked off another construction project Tuesday, holding a ceremonial groundbreaking for an expansion to its Law and Justice Education Center.

The center houses the school's criminal justice, law enforcement, paralegal and pre-law degree programs, along with the Gloucester County Police Academy. A 6,500-square-foot expansion will include two new forensic labs and a new classroom, along with renovation of existing spaces.

Currently, 500 students and 3,000 police academy cadets use the building each year, the school said. Construction is expected to be complete spring 2015.

"We've got an expansion of a building that's creating jobs — terrific," said Lyman Barnes, the county freeholder who serves as education liaison. "We've got the support of educating the residents of this county in a cost-effective way in a phenomenal institution, and in doing so, we've got the support and the legacy of educating and training the people that are going to protect the residents of this county for decades to come."

The ceremonial groundbreaking was the fourth in recent weeks for the college, which is slated to receive $19 million from the state for construction and renovation projects.

A $750 million bond referendum for education projects will fund 75 percent of the law and justice expansion, paying $1,499,508. The county makes up the difference, or $499,836.

The bond referendum, approved by voters in fall 2012, was combined with other state sources to create a $1.3 billion pot. Colleges and universities across the state submitted wish lists in spring 2013; other Gloucester County College projects include a Nursing and Allied Health Center, Business and Corporate Center, Adult Center for Transition, and Student Services and College Readiness Now Center.

Project	State funding	Description
Nursing and Allied Health Center	$8,573,526	41,418-square-foot center for health programs: smart classrooms, eight simulation and nursing labs, and two computer labs
Business and Corporate Center	$532,575	Renovate existing health center, repurposing for business degree programs
Law and Justice Education Center	$1,499,508	Addition to existing Law and Justice Education Center: convert existing forensics lab into classroom, replacing with two new labs, create a resource room, and add another classroom
Adult Center for Transition	$4,015,800	14,550-square-foot facility "to facilitate in the transition of care for more severely disabled students," featuring assistive technology, computer room, small group classrooms, and vocational workshops
Student Services and College Readiness Now Center	$4,386,906	20,345-square-foot addition of six classrooms, computer lab, three small group classrooms, and large group instructional space. Renovation of existing 16,300-square-foot space

"This college was prepared from the faculty, the staff, the student body, to take a look at the needs and the wants of higher education in the county of Gloucester," said Frederick Keating, the president of the college.

"This is the higher education bond at work. But that bond doesn't work if it doesn't come in to the county and the county accepts their role and relationship and their matching percentage, and this county has done so," Keating said. "So now we are on the verge of putting all four projects in motion at the same time."

Next week, Gloucester County College will transition to a new name, Rowan College at Gloucester County, to reflect the school's new partnership with Rowan University to offer increased transfer opportunities for students.

Speakers at Tuesday's groundbreaking used the occasion to discuss that partnership and the other Gloucester County College construction projects, praising the school in general for progress and expansion.

"Our commitment is here: We offer affordable, outstanding education to the residents of Gloucester County," said Robert Damminger, the county freeholder director, "and even those who from out of county want to come here, we'll take them, too. Their money is just as green as everybody else's, but we think we have the finest school in the State of New Jersey and we couldn't be prouder."

Also in attendance were two state senators: Donald Norcross (D., Camden) and Fred Madden (D., Gloucester). Norcross, described by Damminger as "one of the pushers of the higher education bond act," represents the college as part of his state legislative district. (It is also in the congressional district he would represent if he wins his race this fall for the House of Representatives slot left open by Rob Andrews stepping down.)

"When we talked about the groundbreakings, what does that mean? That means there's growth. And when we're talking about growth with education, that means that our children, our next generation, are learning. And in this case the police officers, law enforcement of the next generation," Norcross said.

"Back in the late '70s, in a community college just a little north of here, Camden County, I actually was a law enforcement public administration major. And we didn't have a special building, we didn't have any of that, and now we look at today, Gloucester County College is now the premier school for law enforcement education," Norcross said.

When not in Trenton, Madden, an alumnus of Rowan (back when it was Glassboro State College), is director of the police academy and dean of law and justice at the college.

State Sen. Fred Madden (D., Gloucester), dean of Law and Justice at Gloucester County College and director of the Gloucester County Police Academy, checks out his police academy students during the groundbreaking.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Madden said, two changes were clear in the police community: More dogs were needed, and better use of technology was needed as well.

"And the world of technology has changed so much since the 9/11 terrorist attacks that the opportunities that need to be provided for our students on a baseline are more critical now than they were then. And the college will provide that," Madden said, citing teaching of crime scene mapping and the new possibilities with the forensic labs that are part of the expansion.

"My money says that when they go to job interviews, these [skills] are going to set these students apart from any students around," he said.

Outstanding criminal justice grad makes most of opportunities

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Posted: June 26, 2014

Katherine Chavez Chavarria and her guide dog Olivia on the way to class.
Photo by: Paul Atkinson

Katherine Chavez Chavarria and Olivia in Great Britain

Katherine Chavez Chavarria and Olivia pose while sightseeing in Great Britain during a semester studying abroad.
Photo by: Katherine Chavez Chavarria

Chavez Chavarria's guide dog Olivia in cap and gown

Katherine Chavez Chavarria had a special cap and gown created for her guide dog Olivia for the College of Public Programs' Convocation.
Photo by: Bryan Mok

Katherine Chavez Chavarria has vision. She just can't see. She lost her eyesight at the age of six as the result of a rare form of eye cancer called retinoblastoma. But Chavez Chavarria never lost sight of what she wants to accomplish in life. She wants to be a lawyer and help those most in need.

She is one step closer to her goal. In May, Chavez Chavarria graduated with a bachelor's degree from the College of Public Program's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. She was named her school's outstanding graduate for the spring 2014 semester.

It wasn't easy. The last year was extremely difficult because her father was battling throat cancer. His voice box was removed in September. A blind daughter. A mute father. The only way they could communicate was through text messages.

"It was that much more difficult and heartbreaking for me because I can't see him and I can't hear him," says Chavez Chavarria, who lived at Taylor Place, the downtown campus dorm. "It was hard being away and every time the phone rings, being tentative of who's calling and who's texting me."

Then, two weeks before graduation, her father died. Finals had just begun.

"I knew I needed to finish, not just for myself, but for my dad," Chavez Chavarria says. "My parents, they both have been encouraging. And I know my dad would have wanted me to finish. He wouldn't want me to be depressed and drop out."

Chavez Chavarria credits her family, friends and faith for getting her through.

"It was very hard going through all of this my senior year, but God has definitely given me supernatural strength because I wouldn't have been able to do it without God."

"This girl is unstoppable," says Karla Arias, who was Chavez Chavarria's academic adviser. "She was very committed to her schooling and to getting the best experience from college that she could have earned."

That meant getting involved in activities on the downtown campus, where she rarely missed a school event. She also started a student organization to help students develop and strengthen their faith.

"She has also been very, very involved with our school, very involved with our college," says Arias. "And she was also president of an organization at our downtown campus – Awake Ministry. She's just amazing."

Here was a blind woman who was unafraid to try new things and seek out new opportunities. That impressed Bob Robson, a professor of practice in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

"She wanted to experience everything that she could possibly experience," says Robson, "and that was quite evident in her travels, but obviously in her educational pursuits."

Robson got to know Chavez Chavarria in class and through their conversations outside the classroom. He wishes more students had her moxie.

"She took every opportunity that was made available to her," Robson says. "If you have plans on going anywhere in life and you have opportunities that are around you, then you should take them. That's how career opportunities come about."

But, what most people didn't know about Chavez Chavarria is that it took her twice as long to do the same class work as students who could see. But she never complained, never used it as an excuse. What really amazed Arias were all the other things that she could do. Such as living in London as part of a study abroad program, or being a member of her high school cheerleading squad. That surprised her initially.

"Because she was a petite girl, she was the one who did the flips," Arias says. "Everything was by counting. She relied on her friends a lot."

She still relies on friends. But for the past five years, Chavez Chavarria has relied on a black Labrador named Olivia. For graduation, she dressed up her guide dog in a maroon cap and gown. Olivia walked beside Chavez Chavarria, who helped carry her school's flag, or gonfalon, on stage at the beginning of the College of Public Programs Convocation held at Wells Fargo Arena. Chavez Chavarria sat in the first row. Olivia lay faithfully in front of her feet.

Chavez Chavarria isn't your typical outstanding graduate. She doesn't have a 4.0 GPA. It's a tad under 3.0. It was higher, but dropped for a number of reasons, including dealing with her father's struggle with cancer. Then there was studying for the LSAT, the exam needed to get into law school. She did her best to balance her studies while preparing for her future.

"Her goal after graduation is to become a lawyer," says Arias. "She has her plan. She has her goal. She already did the LSAT and has applied to a couple Ivy League schools."

Since the 8th grade, Chavez Chavarria says she's wanted to help those who have nobody to turn to. She's not sure how that will materialize after law school, but thinks she may start off working with juveniles.

"I just want to make a difference," Chavez Chavarria says. "I really want to have an impact and make a difference on the whole community."

Her college adviser is confident she'll achieve that.

"She's very passionate, she's very caring for other people," Arias says. "Her goal is to help those people who are in need of a lawyer. That's what she wants to do."

For now, Chavez Chavarria plans to take a break from school and help her family following the death of her father.

Why smart data distribution and recovery is a smart wager for mobile betting apps

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Down by 16 points with 9 minutes left in an NBA playoff game in May, the Los Angeles Clippers faced 57-to-1 odds and a 1.7 percent chance of defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder. The odds were so steep that if you had bet $25 on the Clippers winning, at that exact moment, you would have won $1,425. But is that a bet you would've been willing to take given how much the odds were stacked against you?

These are the kinds of real-time assessments that gamblers make all of the time. They absorb all of the information they can about an event, whether it's the past history of competitors, external factors like weather, or just intangibles and "gut feel," before making a decision.

Now, imagine if you had tried to bet $25 on the Clippers using your mobile betting app, but you couldn't get the request to go through. Whether due to poor bandwidth or the fact that 100,000 other fans may be trying to do the exact same thing at that moment, you would feel cheated out of your $1,425 windfall and would probably never use that app again.

Service interruptions are always frustrating to mobile app users, but particularly to gamblers where a few seconds lag could mean the difference between debt and profit. And, ultimately, for the app provider, it could mean poor user reviews and lost business.

But what if the mobile betting app incorporated intelligent data distribution and data recovery on the backend? It would not only be able to cope with the speed and scale expected of real-time betting, but would allow users to lock in their bets with time to spare. Mobile betting apps equipped with such technology are able to maintain high quality of service so that providers can meet the needs of their customers with more reliable and responsive apps.

A gambler's need for speed

Gamblers rely on speed and relevant information because their money depends on it. They require access to dynamic, real-time odds and the relevant news, scores and statistics they need to keep their competitive edge.

Take horse racing. About 50,000 horse races are run each year, and Derby Jackpot is one online betting provider that gives gamblers an opportunity to place a bet on a race every few minutes. It provides bettors with fluctuating odds and the option to change their bets right up until the start of each race. But if gamblers didn't have instant access to that changing information, their bets could be negatively impacted. For example, a sudden rainstorm could alter track conditions, causing gamblers to want to change their lineup. But, if Derby Jackpot's mobile platform was slow to load or update, users would miss out on that intel — and potentially their winnings, too.

Since 78 percent of all mobile users expect mobile apps to load as fast as, or faster than a mobile website, it's clear that developers need to look at ways to improve the speed of their mobile gambling apps or risk losing customers.

But, what's just as important as speed for improving app performance is scalability. This ensures that when user volume increases, that speedy performance stays intact – even for major events like the Kentucky Derby horse race, or this year's World Cup in Brazil.

Scalability: worth its weight in gold

Billions are expected to be spent by gamblers at the 2014 World Cup, either on favorites like Brazil or this year's underdogs (Belgium, Ivory Coast or Columbia, according to sources). In the U.S. alone, World Cup ratings jumped 41 percent from 2006 to 2010, with more than 24 million American viewers tuning in to watch the final match on ABC and Univision – and the trend is only expected to increase for 2014.

Mobile betting apps need to be able to scale to handle the potentially millions of gambling interactions occurring simultaneously worldwide during the World Cup, without sacrificing speed or performance. And, this is becoming increasingly important with the level of in-play betting that has become possible. No longer are people simply placing wagers on the ultimate outcome of the game. Instead, they can make real-time bets for everything from the next goal or throw in to the next yellow card or corner kick – that is, if their app is able to keep up!

And, for those who are in Rio de Janeiro to watch the games live, this concern is amplified by the unreliability of networks when they experience high traffic. With everyone potentially updating their bets at the same time, users may experience service interruptions and slow loading times, which could prevent World Cup fans from placing their bets altogether, let alone in real time.

Ante up with smarter app development

Given these speed and scalability concerns, it's important for mobile betting app developers to pick up the slack. This means adopting back-end application technology that allows for intelligent data distribution across any network, platform or device. With the latest advancements, apps can send only the deltas, or changed data, so that the messages are smaller and developers can achieve greater throughput.

What's more, with intelligent data recovery, in the event of a connectivity outage, the data sent over the network will only include the most relevant data that was lost during the lapse, combining it into one message.

So, using the World Cup example, if a user was disconnected from their betting app and Brazil scored one goal and then another, as long as the app included intelligent data recovery technology, it could group those updates into one message alerting the user that two goals were scored instead of sending two separate messages for each individual goal. This, combined with the delta data delivery, not only improves performance and throughput over unreliable networks, but also reduces the back-end infrastructure involved to support the app.

Mobile betting apps that respond quickly and perform well at scale, and ultimately deliver returns to gamblers, will quickly become user favorites. An app alone doesn't guarantee the user will remain in the black, of course, but a poorly designed one will sink their chances of a payout and lead to lost customers. This means that intelligent data distribution and recovery are the safest wagers a mobile betting app developer can make.

Sean Bowen is the co-founder and CEO of Push Technology. Stemming from his experience in the highly technological and latency-driven financial services market, Sean saw an opportunity to revolutionize the way businesses use data. He launched Push Technology in 2006 to help organizations realize the full potential of the Internet in achieving fast, scalable and efficient data distribution solutions.

GamesBeat 2014 — VentureBeat's sixth annual event on disruption in the video game market — is coming up on Sept 15-16 in San Francisco. Purchase one of the first 50 tickets and save $400!

Older women bear the brunt of higher insurance costs under Obamacare

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The Department of Health and Human Services released an analysis of the first open enrollment period of the heatlh insurance marketplace, and the subsidies for coverage. (Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)

The Department of Health and Human Services released an analysis of the first open enrollment period of the health insurance marketplace, and the subsidies for coverage. (Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)

It's hard for an ordinary person to figure out whether health insurance will be more expensive under the Affordable Care Act. First of all, figures that look good "on average," often mask extremely wide differences across age groups. Secondly, it's hard to find pre-ACA policies that are comparable to the policies available post-ACA.

These differences are shown by two recent reports with sharply different implications. The government's report shows that federal tax credits make health insurance premiums more affordable for everyone. The academics' report, however, shows that women age 55 to 64 will face a huge spike in cost when they go out to buy individual insurance on the federal exchange. These women bear the brunt of the increased premiums and out of pocket expenses after the Affordable Care Act.

Let's start with the government report. In its first analysis of premium affordability since the Affordable Care Act went into effect, the Department of Health and Human Services reported that federal credits will cut the average health insurance premium for people eligible to receive tax credits by 76 percent.

Without the credits, individuals would pay $4,152 a year, on average, in health insurance premiums; with the credits, they'll pay just $984 a year. Some 87 percent of people who bought insurance on a federal exchange chose a plan with tax credits, according to HHS.

The government report, however, doesn't take into account out of pocket costs and doesn't say anything about how premiums might have changed because of the health care reform. Thus, it doesn't show whether the tax credits are mostly offsetting reform-induced premium increases meaning that individuals aren't really seeing a reduction in their health care costs or whether the credits are reducing the net price of health insurance coverage.

In the years before Obamacare, for example, insurance companies could do something known as medical underwriting that allowed them to figure out how much a person might "cost" them in terms of benefit payouts. Insurance companies could charge people with pre-existing conditions — pregnancy was one of those conditions — more than people who didn't have such conditions. They could exclude certain benefits, like maternity and newborn care, from their policies (ACA-compliant plans must offer ten essential benefits, including maternity and newborn care). They could charge older people a whole lot more than they charged younger people, they could sell policies that excluded coverage for certain health matters, and they could deny some people coverage altogether.

This variation in policies, however, also means that it's difficult to find pre-reform policies that are comparable to those available under the ACA, which have largely been standardized because insurance companies can no longer consider health status, except for smokers, who can be charged more for coverage, when setting their premiums. They also can't discriminate by gender.

Here, a trio of academics from the University of Pennsylvania comes to the rescue.

What Mark Pauly, Scott Harrington, and Adam Leive of the Wharton School have done is to figure out how much non-elderly individuals spent on insurance before the ACA and then compared these figures with what they'll spend after the ACA. They did this by using survey data for 2010 through 2012 from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey that show how much people spent on health care, including premiums and out of pocket payments. By looking at the total spent rather than just on premiums, the data reflect the fact that someone who buys a policy with a low premium can expect to have higher out of pocket costs, and vice versa. They report their findings in a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

For post-ACA prices, they looked at the premiums for the various levels of coverage (these levels are classified according to various metals: bronze, silver, gold and platinum) and estimated out of pocket payments according to data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. The data were tabulated by age and gender for the bronze and the two lowest price silver plans.

After crunching the numbers, they found that people who buy the bronze or silver plans on the federal exchanges will spend a moderate amount more — from $694 to $1,165 a year, or 14 to 24 percent — on premiums and out of pocket expenses than they did before the health reform took effect.

However, that average figure masks a huge redistribution of the costs to older women from nearly everyone else.

Total expected premiums and out of pocket expenses rose by 50 percent for women age 55 to 64 — a much larger increase than for any other group — for policies on the federal exchanges relative to prices that individuals who bought individual insurance before health care reform went into effect.

Women age 55 to 64 will pay from $2,185 to $2,738 more in premiums and out of pocket expenses under the new health insurance environment than they did pre-ACA.

Premiums for the second-lowest silver policy are 67 percent higher for a 55 to 64-year-old woman than they were pre-ACA.

In fact, the redistribution to older women is so great that almost everyone else is "below average" in the change in their total health care expenses for these two plans. For example, men age 45 to 54 will see their premiums fall by about $1,000 a year relative to the average if they buy the bronze plan, while total costs for women in this age group are $300 below average. For older women, they're $1,500 above average.

I asked one of the author's of the study, Mark Pauly, why it seems that older women are bearing the brunt. "It's likely because they are being averaged in with younger women who have much higher expenses associated with childbearing and with older men who didn't take care of themselves. "Community rating redistributes against the relatively healthy," he explained.

He also indicated that he's not aware of others who have looked at this group of individuals. The HHS report provides some details for premiums by age group, showing that a typical 60-year-old individual will pay almost 60 percent more than a typical 27-year-old for the second-lowest cost silver plan. But, again, these figures don't include out of pocket expenses.

Of course, tax credits may offset much of the additional costs that older women face under the Affordable Care Act. Although, as Pauly explained, "most of those who previously bought individual insurance would not be poor enough to get substantial subsidies" so tax credits might not change the situation. Most of the people buying individual insurance on the health exchanges were previously uninsured.

Despite relatively small average increases in premiums and out of pocket expenses post-ACA, it appears that older women should be ready to face a "sticker shock" when they go out to buy their health insurance on a federal exchange.

Is Health Insurance Still Sexy in the Age of Obamacare? eHealth Survey Says: Yes... Sort Of

17:15 No comments

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, Jun 23, 2014 (Marketwired via COMTEX) -- Today eHealth, Inc. /quotes/zigman/100739/delayed/quotes/nls/ehth EHTH +0.24% (eHealthInsurance.com), the nation's first and largest private online health insurance exchange, released results from a survey exploring young adults' attitudes toward health insurance, the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) and the impact that health coverage has on their lifestyle and choices.

The survey was conducted in April and May 2014 and responses were collected from 220 young adults age 18 to 25 who purchased coverage through eHealthInsurance.com during the ACA's first nationwide open enrollment period. eHealth compared the results of this recent survey of eHealth customers with results from eHealth online surveys of recent college graduates conducted by Kelton Research in 2011 and 2012.

eHealth's analysis revealed certain changes in attitude over the past few years.

                                          ----------------------------------------------------------------------------                    Question              2011-2012     2014 Response       Change                                           Response          ----------------------------------------------------------------------------          Would you be more attracted       Yes:            Yes:        -28% decrease           to someone if you knew they       93%             65%           had health insurance?        (2011 survey)          ----------------------------------------------------------------------------          Would you rather be           Live at home:   Live at home:   -30% decrease           uninsured and live on your        74%             44%           own, or move back home and   (2011 survey)           have health insurance?          ----------------------------------------------------------------------------          How would you feel about       Glad for the    Glad for the    +6% increase           taking government subsidies    help: 64%       help: 70%           to help you pay for health   (2012 survey)           insurance?          ----------------------------------------------------------------------------          Would you be less likely to       Yes:            Yes:          No change           participate in dangerous          47%             47%           sporting activities if you   (2011 survey)           were uninsured?          ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional highlights from eHealth's survey of young adult policy holders are provided below.

Young Adult Lifestyle Choices Resulting From Having Health Insurance

Odd, pork-related dishes do not become more attractive if a person has health insurance - When asked which of the "Weirdest Regional Foods in America" (according to Food & Wine magazine) would be more appealing if a person had health insurance, respondents overwhelmingly favored dishes that did not include pork.

Pickled pigs feet, chitlins, geotta and scrapple (all made from pork) polled poorly, below 7%, putting them on par with fried rattlesnake. The Hawaiian favorite, loco moco, was the clear leader earning 28% of the vote; deep fried cheese curds were a distant second, gaining 19% of the vote; Louisiana's own turducken took the third spot with 13% of young adults saying they'd be more likely to try a slice now that they're insured.

1. Loco moco, Hawaii: 28% 2. Deep-fried cheese curds, Upper Midwest: 19% 3. Turducken, Louisiana: 13% 4. Reindeer hot dogs, Alaska: 9% 5. Geoduck, Pacific Northwest: 8% 6. Fried diamondback rattlesnake, Texas: 6% 7. Chitlins, The South: 6% 8. Scrapple, Pennsylvania: 6% 9. Pickled pigs feet, The South: (3%) 10. Goetta, Cincinnati: 3%

Cheaters love deep dish pizza, more than BBQ meats and ice cream - When asked what foods they'd be most tempted to eat if no one was watching, millennials in the survey were overwhelmingly drawn to deep dish pizza (22%), followed closely by barbecued meats (21%) and ice cream (21%). Hamburgers (19%) and sushi (12%) rounded out the top 5, with hummus and baby carrots (6%) coming in a distant sixth, and flax seeds and dehydrated strawberries (0%) failing to garner a single vote.

eHealth Survey Demographics

                                --  Almost half (49%) of survey respondents report that they are currently              working full time, while 18% say that they are working part-time;              one-quarter (25%) indicate that they are currently in school; only 5%              report being unemployed.          --  Nearly two-thirds of respondents (65%) indicate that they are              currently in college or graduated from college within the past two              years.

eHealth Survey Methodology The results and analysis above are based on an eHealth customer survey conducted between April 24, 2014 and May 23, 2014. Participation was purely voluntary and a total of 220 responses were collected from health insurance policy holders between the ages of 18 and 25 who had purchased their health insurance plan through eHealth. Survey results expressed in percentages have been rounded to the nearest full percentage point and may add up to slightly more or less than 100.

About eHealth eHealth, Inc. /quotes/zigman/100739/delayed/quotes/nls/ehth EHTH +0.24% operates eHealthInsurance.com, the Nation's first and largest private health insurance exchange where individuals, families and small businesses can compare health insurance products from leading insurers side by side and purchase and enroll in coverage online. eHealthInsurance offers thousands of individual, family and small business health plans underwritten by more than 200 of the nation's leading health insurance companies. eHealthInsurance is licensed to sell health insurance in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. eHealth, Inc. also provides powerful online and pharmacy-based tools to help Medicare beneficiaries nav igate Medicare health insurance options, choose the right plan and enroll in select plans online through PlanPrescriber.com ( www.planprescriber.com ) and eHealthMedicare.com ( www.eHealthMedicare.com ).

For more health insurance news and information, visit the eHealth consumer blog: Get Smart - Get Covered or visit eHealth's Affordable Care Act Resource Center at www.eHealth.com/affordable-care-act .

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2623047

                                For media inquiries, please contact:                    Sande Drew          eHealth, Inc.          (916) 207-7674          sande.drew@ehealth.com                    Brian Mast          eHealth, Inc.          (650) 210-3149          brian.mast@ehealth.com

SOURCE: eHealth, Inc.

/quotes/zigman/100739/delayed/quotes/nls/ehth

US : U.S.: Nasdaq

$ 37.48

+0.09 +0.24%

Volume: 493,743

June 20, 2014 4:00p

P/E Ratio

N/A

Dividend Yield

N/A

Market Cap

$713.02 million

Rev. per Employee

$192,297

/quotes/zigman/100739/delayed/quotes/nls/ehth

US : U.S.: Nasdaq

$ 37.48

+0.09 +0.24%

Volume: 493,743

June 20, 2014 4:00p

P/E Ratio

N/A

Dividend Yield

N/A

Market Cap

$713.02 million

Rev. per Employee

$192,297

Mac backup and data recovery

05:15 No comments

Mac-in-Business

It's every computer user's worst nightmare – data loss. It can happen in a number of ways. Your Mac, iPhone or iPad could be stolen. Or they could be damaged or you could suffer a disk failure. After all, there are only two types of hard drives: those that have failed and those that will fail.

So, how do you ensure your data is safe and secure?

We're going to suggest that the loss of a piece of hardware, while expensive, will be the least of your worries. It's the data stored on your device that is truly valuable. Computers, tablets and smartphones can easily be replaced, but photos of your family, the presentation you spent all night preparing for the big meeting and the music collection you spent months ripping from your CD collection will cause you much more pain than a trip to your local reseller or Apple store and parting with some money.

The sad truth is that many people don't learn the value of a robust data protection strategy until they've lost some data. At least, that's how we learned the lesson!

Like all business processes – and backup and recovery are business problems, not strictly technical ones – this relies on three key elements. These are people, process and systems. Having the best backup hardware solution will count for nought if people bypass the process or if the backup process is too cumbersome.

While backing up your data is important, don't forget the other side of that coin. Recovery of your data is just as critical.

Create an effective backup and recovery strategy

So, how do you go about putting together an effective backup and recovery plan? Our advice is to not start with the hardware and software that's on the market. The place to begin this is with a plan of what you will back up. The data stored on your Mac or iOS device can be categorised into four main types.

the operating system
the applications
the settings and configuration, and
the data.

Each of these can be, potentially, handled in a different way in the event of a loss or data corruption.

It's also important to think about what you're trying to protect yourself against, as different scenarios will need to be handled in different ways. If you're a sole trader or looking to protect your data at home, then this information can probably exist in your head. For a larger network, it's a good idea to write all this down so that everyone involved in the plan knows what they're responsible for.

Some of the scenarios you may want to consider are:

loss or theft of an entire device
component failure
accidental deletion or overwriting of data, and
corruption by malware or some other incident.

Having identified what needs to be backed up and the scenarios under which your data may become inaccessible, you also need to plan for the recovery. The big question with recovery is: 'How long can I live without my data?'

For example, if you suffer the complete loss of a system through theft, then you'll need to procure a new device. That's likely to only take a few hours, as you get to a local store and buy a new computer. Even though you'll be out of pocket, it's possible that you could recover some or all of the cost through insurance.

Getting the operating system back is covered, as your new Mac, iPhone or iPad will have the latest version of the right operating system installed. The only problem will be if you were still running an older OS. That will mean a forced upgrade.

Recovering your apps will depend on the nature of your backup strategy. You can reinstall everything from scratch, assuming you have access to all the original disks or downloads.

Then you'll need all of your personal customisations, such as templates, wallpapers and specific settings you've applied to the applications you use. Those can be a little trickier to restore depending on how you've backed them up.

Finally, there's your precious data. Of everything on your Mac, iPhone or iPad, this is probably the most valuable thing you're trying to protect. How long can you last without your address book or calendar? What about photos or work files? The amount of time you can live without this data will vary.

Once you go through this exercise, you can start to create a backup and recovery plan that matches your needs. How do you go about creating your plan?

The backup and recovery countdown

The generally accepted best practice for backups is the 3-2-1-0 approach. Here's how it works.

Three – for the number of copies of your critical data you need to retain.

Two – for the number of different storage media you should use.

One – for the minimum number of copies you should keep off-site, away from your main work area.

Zero – for the number of errors your backups should contain.

Here's how you can put that into practice.

THREE COPIES

Three copies of your critical data is reasonably easy to achieve. For a start, there's the master copy of your data on your Mac or mobile device. With your Mac, Time Machine is a very easy way to ensure you have a second copy of all your data. As it's automated, once you have an external drive connected to your Mac, your entire system can be backed up without any intervention on your part.

One of the neat things about Time Machine is that it's now supported on many NAS (network attached storage) devices. This means you can back up your portable Mac without having to tether to an external drive. If you're planning to purchase a NAS, make sure it supports Time Machine backups before laying out your hard earned cash. Most of the NAS units we've seen recently do support Time Machine.

If you're running an OS X server on your network, you can configure the server to be a networked Time Machine backup location. However, your data is being backed up locally even when you're not connected, so you can recover deleted or overwritten files even when you're away from your normal backup location. The amount of data that's locally kept will depend on your available disk space.

Normally, as long as your new external hard drive is formatted correctly, all you have to do is plug it in to get started backing up with Time Machine.

So, that's two copies – your master copy and Time Machine. For copy number three, consider a cloud service like Carbonite or CrashPlan. Although they're not free, they will provide you with an off-site copy of your data. Many of these services even make your data available from other devices. So, if your Mac is lost, stolen or destroyed, you'll be able to access your files from your iPhone or iPad.

Where cloud backup services differ from file sync services like Google Drive and Dropbox is that they are system-wide. Most file-sync services are limited to the data that's stored in a specific folder and its sub-folders.

Backup services will store data from your entire system. So, you can tell them to protect files from your documents, iTunes and iPhoto libraries, videos and other locations.

If you're still using an older version of OS X, then we'd suggest using a disk cloning tool as well as Time Machine. Carbon Copy Cloner and Super Duper are our favourites.

These tools will copy the entire contents of your hard drive to external storage. That's every file and setting completely duplicated.

Cloning your system offers a couple of great benefits. If you apply the right settings when cloning your drive, the external storage you've chosen will be bootable. That means you can connect the drive to another Mac and boot your system. This can be a quick way to get back to normal operations if your Mac is no longer operating or available.

TWO MEDIA AND ONE OFF-SITE LOCATION

If you've followed our advice so far, you'll notice that by using a cloud service we've achieved our 'two different media' rule in the countdown and even have an off-site copy for data.

If you're not keen on putting important business data in the cloud, you can employ a different approach.

Portable hard drives are widely available and inexpensive. If you're using Time Machine, you can use two different drives for your backups. At the end of each workday, simply take one drive off-site. The next morning, bring the second drive and use that for the day.

You can apply the same approach with cloned drives. Close your system to a different drive each night and take the 'spare' to an alternative location.

Another approach is to strike up an accord with a friend. If you both have enough storage capacity and bandwidth, you can back up your files to each other. This can work well with some NAS devices, as they support file synchronisation over the internet.

ZERO ERRORS

All the backups in the world aren't worth a thing if they're broken. One of the often missed steps in backup processes is testing the recovery process.

If you've followed the advice so far, you should have three copies of your main data – the master and two copies or backups. They should be stored on two different media, such as an external or networked drive and a cloud service with one of those copies away from your main workplace.

Each of those copies needs to be tested regularly. An easy way to do this is to simply try to restore a random file each week. Put the task in Calendar or Reminders and don't skip it. Plenty of people have thought they had robust backup and restoration processes in place only to find that a critical file was missed or that something was awry.

If you're cloning your system regularly, make sure that the copy is actually bootable on another Mac.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Like good comedy, the secret to a robust recovery plan is timing.

If you lost your computer, how long would it take for you to get up and running again? If a critical file was deleted or overwritten, could you recover quickly enough to avoid disappointing a customer?

If you're using Time Machine, recovering a few files takes just a few minutes. Launch the Time Machine application, browse through the folders on your screen until you find the file you need and restore it. Our advice when doing this is to recover the file to a new location and not overwrite your existing file, even if that file is damaged.

If you suffer a massive catastrophe and lose access to your office and all your equipment, you'll need to ensure your off-site copies are safe as well. During the Christchurch earthquake in early 2011, many businesses were crippled. Even though they could get access to new computers, their backups were inaccessible because they were kept on-site.

Although the cloud may seem like a risky proposition, it's worth doing a thorough analysis before ruling it out as a backup solution.

BACKUP OPTIONS

Now that you've got the building blocks of your backup and recovery strategy in place, it's time to look at some of the specific solutions that are out there to help you along.

EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES

Lacie Little Big Disk

$649

Lacie has been a favourite of Mac users for many years. Its emphasis on solid materials and elegant styling makes it an attractive companion for your Mac.

The Little Big Disk comes with a 4TB capacity. It connects to your Mac over Thunderbolt and there's no need for an external power supply as it gets its juice from your Mac. This makes it ideal for backups while you're travelling.

Western Digital My Book Studio

$219 for 2TB; $279 for 3TB

The My Book Studio is an elegant drive that resembles a hardcover book with an aluminium cover. It connects to your Mac via USB 3.0 and, as it's a desktop drive, requires mains power as well.

It comes in capacities of 2TB and 3TB. If you want to save a few dollars, the My Book for Mac desktop drive, which is functionally similar, but uses a plastic case rather than aluminium, is about $70 cheaper.

Seagate Expansion Desktop

$98 for 2TB

Seagate has been one of the leaders in storage for many years. The Expansion Desktop is a quick and easy way to plug a backup drive into your Mac. It connects over USB 3.0 and requires an external power supply.

Capacities vary between 1TB and 5TB. Despite the relatively low price, Seagate offers a three-year warranty on the Expansion Desktop, indicating it's made to a solid standard unlike some other, lower cost devices we've seen.

NETWORK BACKUPS

Seagate Central

$249 for 3TB

The Seagate Central is a wireless storage device that hooks up to your network, making it a convenient backup device. It supports Time Machine out of the box, making it handy for MacBook Pro users looking for the convenience of Time Machine without the hassle of connecting an external drive.

Capacities range from 2TB to 4TB and there's an iOS app, so you can access the data stored on the Central remotely.

Apple AirPort Time Capsule

$349 for 2TB; $449 for 3TB

The Time Capsule has been significantly revised since its initial release in early 2008. It integrates a wireless router with three Gigabit Ethernet ports so that it acts as the core of your network as well as a backup device.

It comes in 2TB and 3TB capacities and can be used to back up multiple Macs. Although it's priced at the higher end of the market, by integrating the storage with the router, it does reduce the number of devices you need on your network.

QNAP HS-210 Silent NAS

$370 plus drives

QNAP has been making great improvements to its storage products over recent years. The HS-210 is a NAS device that supports Time Machine and can be even used to stream your media via AirPlay – something we haven't seen other NAS makers achieve.

The HS-210 is fan-less, so it can run far more quietly than other NAS devices. This is handy if you need to keep it on your desk. As it ships without drives, you'll need to add those to the total cost. Figure on adding about $250 for a pair of 2TB WD Red Drives – which are optimised for NAS use.

CLOUD SERVICES

Carbonite

From $60 per year

If you're serious about your backups, then having a backup stored off-site is critical. Carbonite gives you a cloud-based option, so your backup can automatically be shipped to a location that's far from your office, but still easily accessible.

All data that is sent to Carbonite's servers is encrypted. Pricing plans are based on the number of computers you back up. For example, the entry-level plan for individuals allows you to back up an unlimited amount of data. Carbonite backs up all of your files – operating system and application files need to be managed with a different tool.

Carbonite's plans also offer local backup solutions that complement its cloud-based services.

CrashPlan

From $70 per month

CrashPlan's offer of unlimited storage for backups looks pretty good, particularly as it's complemented with a local backup solution, so that you have three copies of your data. Its pricing plans also include a family option that can cover up to 10 systems for $165. This includes Windows and Linux systems as well as Macs.

All backups are encrypted, both as they travel to CrashPlan's servers and when stored. If the initial backup will take too long over the internet, there is also the ability to send a hard drive for the first backup for a one-time charge of $165. Backups can also be shipped to you the same way. This offers some flexibility if your bandwidth is constrained and you need to either back up or restore a large amount of data.

With CrashPlan, you can configure multiple destinations for your backups. For example, you may set it up to put one copy on a local hard drive and another on CrashPlan's servers or a friend's Mac.

Backblaze

$5 per month

Backblaze is a great way to provide you with a 'belts and braces' backup solution. As well as backing up the data on your Mac's hard drive, it can be used, at no extra charge, to back up data from externally connected drives using USB, Thunderbolt and Firewire. All of this is managed through a small application you install to your Mac.

The restore process is straightforward and can be carried out from a Mac or iPhone. They will also ship your data to you using a flash drive or external hard drive for an extra fee. Your data is encrypted both when stored and while in transit.

BACKUP AND CLONING SOFTWARE

Super Duper

Free; $27.95 for extra features

Super Duper creates a bootable copy of your entire drive. It sounds simple, but it can be an absolute lifesaver if you suffer a complete loss of your entire system. Super Duper not only copies all your data to an external drive or disk image, but also allows you to boot from it. That means if your Mac is lost, you can connect the drive to another Mac and resume working from your last backup.

If you choose to pay for extra features, you can schedule this to happen automatically. Among the extra features is also the capability for subsequent backups to be incremental rather than complete. That means only changes are copied to the backup rather than repeating the entire process. This can save time, making it possible to back up more frequently.

Carbon Copy Cloner

Free for 30 days, then $44.95

Carbon Copy Cloner has been one of the 'go to' backup and disk cloning apps for Mac users for many years. It can create a bootable duplicate of your entire Mac, either to an external drive or to another device on your network.

Backup tasks can be scheduled and even wake your Mac from sleep and shut it down again once the job is done. As well as being a great backup tool, Carbon Copy Cloner is useful for migrating to a new Mac or when you upgrade to a new hard drive. And, for peace of mind, your backups can be encrypted so that they're kept away from prying eyes.

Carbon Copy Cloner lets you copy your startup disk to an external drive, so that you can boot your Mac from the duplicate.

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