Here are some methods which the companies can deploy for cost cutting.

• Employees should pay for the tea, coffee they drink.
• Collect Company Relief fund from employees salary.
• Employees should pay some amount to the company for accommodation the company provide for 15 hours/day.
• Ask employees to bring water from home, so that water filters can be sold back or something like Rs.5/glass of water.
• Collect employee ID card maintenance fee every month.
• Collect employee cubicle, chair, PC maintenance fee.
• Internet usage charges, Rs.100/day or Rs.3000/month.
• Collect employee maintenance fee.
• Collect quarterly, annual relief funds from the employees.
• Collect Washroom maintenance fee.
• Clean your own cubicles.
• Pay and use toilets.
• Free poison if the employee wants to commit suicide (Conditions Apply).

Conditions – Suicide to be committed in employee house during unpaid leave period. Company cannot afford to do medical re embursments.

Hello Friends here we come up with the Latest News round up from Indian Economy and various industrial Sectors of the country.

NEWS ROUND UP

Economy

·India’s industrial output rose at a faster-than-expected 9.1 percent in September from a year earlier. Manufacturing production rose 9.3 percent in September from a year earlier.

· The green shoots visible in the economy failed to enhance government revenue with indirect tax collections — comprising customs, excise and service tax — falling almost 22 per cent to Rs 1,26,903 crore in the April- October period this year.

It stood at Rs 1,61,954 crore in the corresponding seven months of 2008-09. The overall decline was led by a 32 per cent fall in customs revenue.

Oil & Gas

·Reliance Industries Ltd. found oil in a block in the western state of Gujarat and is assessing the commercial viability of the discovery, which may help increase domestic fuel supplies.

Five wells were drilled in the 635 square kilometer area located in the Cambay basin, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) from Ahmedabad

·Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has decided to merge its energy trading joint venture with steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal with their exploration tie-up.

Metals

·Tata Steel has approved an exchange offer for an existing $875 million of securities into foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs), in a move to reduce costs and ease repayment.  The move gives an option to extend the repayment schedule by two years.

·Hindalco Industries plans to raise about Rs 2,900 crore in the next three to four weeks.
In July, it had announced plans to raise Rs 2,400 crore through Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP).

The issue could not take place due to the volatility in the stock markets.

Capital Goods

· Larsen & Toubro Limited (L&T) has secured a contract worth Rs 1,635 crore to build a coal-fired plant for Madhya Pradesh Power Generation Co. Ltd.

The project will be executed on turnkey basis and L&T’s scope includes design, engineering, manufacture, supply, erection and commissioning of balance of Plant Package (BoP) systems.

·L&T one of the failed suitors for scam-hit Satyam Computer, sold 2.32 per cent stake in the IT company (now Mahindra Satyam) for over Rs 306 crore, exactly a month after the lock-in perid on sale of its holding ended.

Refineries

· MRPL is planning to invest Rs 6,000-8,000 crore starting from early 2011.

The company is looking at raising around Rs 5,000 crore to support its expansion plan, for setting up a polypropylene plant and installing a single buoy mooring (SBM) at the Mangalore port.

FMCG

· Emami is diversifying into the cement business and will invest Rs 1,750 crore to set up production units in the next three years.

As part of the new plan, group company Emami Cement will set up a fully integrated cement plant in Chhattisgarh with an installed capacity to produce 3.1 million tonnes.

Finance

· Power Finance Corporation has decided to lend Rs 50,000 crore, over two third of its total asset base, to fund various proposed power projects in the country.

Note : For More Latest Industry, Stock Market and Economy News and Updates, please click here

Christmas is a time for Christians to remember the birth of Christ.  The time of the year that Christians celebrate Christmas has also turned into a time the non-Christians use for celebration.  For the non-Christian, Christmas is a time for gift exchanges, family gatherings and alcohol dominated parties.

Every year there seems to be a company or two that decides to remove the word Christmas from their advertising.  Instead, they try to be politically correct by using a term like “holidays” because there are other religious groups that have special days near the same time of year.  For instance, the Jewish people celebrate Chanukah near Christmas.  Depending upon the company, so what?  Unfortunately, the AFA organization has a yearly tradition of attempting a boycott of these companies.  They are attempting to force religion down the throats of the non-religious. 

Why should the non-Christians celebrate Christmas?  Christ isn’t their Lord and Savior so why should they be forced to celebrate his birth?  We don’t get upset when someone refuses to celebrate Columbus Day.  The fact of the matter is that the end of the year has been taken over by the non-Christians.  They want an excuse to take off from work, travel to be with family and friends, and to get drunk.  They decided, since Christmas is at the end of the year and it is already a time of family gathering, why not expand it to include wild drunkenness?

For most of this country’s history, Christmas had real meaning to everyone in this nation.  Even the atheists would wish others a Merry Christmas.  They understood that this holiday and the Christian religion were important to the overall health and well-being of this nation.  The peace, goodwill and joy that the Christmas season produced were contagious.  But now, the current non-Christians have decided that it is more important to undermine the Christian values that are the foundation of this nation than the peace, goodwill and joy that the season used to bring.

I understand the AFA trying to keep the non-Christians from forcing Christ out of the public arena.  Let’s face it, Christ is the enemy of every non-Christian.  It has been 2000 years since He ascended into Heaven and He is still intimidating the non-believers.  Those that love sin cannot stand to be around those that won’t condone that sin.  The true Christian will not get drunk while celebrating the birth of Christ.  Almost everyone else is looking for any excuse to get drunk.  Why not upset their creator by celebrating the birth of His son by performing a rebellious and sinful act against Him?

Christmas is now about excess.  Excessive amounts of money are spent on gifts that most people don’t need or want.  Excessive amounts of time are spent trying to make one’s self feel good by volunteering during the holidays.  But what about the rest of the year?  Excessive amounts of alcohol are consumed in an attempt to drown the problems of the past year.  Finally, because of the excessive amounts of alcohol, there is an excessive amount of sex.

The boycott is not worth the effort.  The companies are not Christian companies and they are not catering to the Christian consumer.  Christians should always try to shop at Christian companies first.  But, when that is not feasible, don’t worry about a silly boycott over the elimination of Christ from the season.  The non-Christians are currently dishonoring the name of Christ with their excesses.  Eliminating Christ from the name of the season is probably the most honoring thing that the true Christians can do for their Lord during this time of the year.  Remember, we instructed to spread God’s Word to everyone.  We are not commanded to force them into anything.  Especially, honoring a God that they hate.

We’re excited to start rolling in the holiday season with new developments at ACG. We’re still hard at work internally, but here’s a few developing points going on with us:

1) New website to be released for the Mountain Shadow Pub. ACG is preparing to launch a new website for the favorite North Burnaby pub. The website will be a mix of flash and AJAX navigation, and will also feature a simple mobile site for cell phone users.

2) Announcing our social media flagship project dubbed “Justin”. Justin (shortened from “Just-In”) will be a social media management tool, allowing users to monitor social media and have a central social communication platform. Justin has been quietly discussed with a few candidate Alpha testers in the last two months, and we are hoping to soon have a test version ready for our testers. We currently do not have a set schedule, but we are 80% to Alpha. Justin will be replacing our test app, Dustin.

3) Working with Crush Marketing! ACG is happy to be working with Frank Leffelaar from Crush. Frank has ten years of internet marketing experience with large European corporations, and we are happy to be working with his expertise.

As a California Wrongful Death Attorney and Personal Injury Lawyer with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar plus settlements from over thirty years of experience I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves to save the cost of an attorney.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how to do it but I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a greater amount in your pocket, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the maximum amount possible, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of the medical records and bills relating to the wrongful death as well as all of the funeral expenses. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much the medical bills come to and what the medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain the medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for the bills and another fee for the medical records.

Just obtaining all of the medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with the medical providers. When you have all of the medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if there is any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the police report. This is a much simpler process. Some police departments charge between $10 to $40 for a copy, while other departments provide them to you for free. You can pick it up at the police or CHP office yourself or request one by mail with an authorization form and a check for the proper fee.

You’ll need to obtain documentation to show what the loss of the wrongful death victim as a wage earner means to the heirs.

You should obtain witness statements if there is any issue as to the liability of the other driver for the accident.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of the car damage, copies of the vehicle repair bills and estimates and receipts for any items damaged in any vehicle involved.

Here’s a secret. In California you are entitled to the cost of a replacement child seat if one was in the accident. It’s automatic. Just tell the insurance company the make and model or find out the cost for the make and model child seat and the insurance company will send you a check for a new one, even if the old one wasn’t broken. Why? It’s in the California insurance code. The insurance companies, however, don’t volunteer this information. Why? They’re in business to make money, not pay it out.

Finally, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the accident and the negligence of the other driver that made him or her at fault, a summary of the injuries and any medical treatment (from the medical records), an itemization of any medical or hospital bills, a discussion of how the loss has impacted the lives of the children, spouse or closest relatives who constitute the heirs under California law, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of the medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, wage earning documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from any health insurance company involved and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay the medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement, but that will have to be reserved for another article.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state and internationally. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

We invite you to visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com and call us if you’ve been seriously injured in a personal injury auto, pedestrian, bicycle, truck or motorcycle accident or if you’ve lost a loved one in a wrongful death.

As a California Dog Bite and Animal Attack Insurance Attorney with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar plus settlements from over thirty years of experience I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves to save the cost of an attorney.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how to do it but I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a greater amount in your pocket, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the maximum amount possible, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the animal control report. This is a much simpler process. Just call your local animal control department and learn if they charge a fee and send them your request for a copy along with any fee.

You’ll need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your injuries or the injuries to your child if your child was the one bitten by the dog.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the incident, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement, but that will have to be reserved for another article. We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

We invite you to visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com and call us if you’ve been seriously injured in a personal injury auto, pedestrian, bicycle or motorcycle accident or if you’ve lost a loved one in a wrongful death.

As a California Dog Bite Insurance Attorney with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar plus settlements from over thirty years of experience I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves to save the cost of an attorney.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how to do it but I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a greater amount in your pocket, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the maximum amount possible, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the animal control report. This is a much simpler process. Just call your local animal control department and learn if they charge a fee and send them your request for a copy along with any fee.

You’ll need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your injuries or the injuries to your child if your child was the one bitten by the dog.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the incident, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement, but that will have to be reserved for another article. We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

We invite you to visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com and call us if you’ve been seriously injured in a personal injury auto, pedestrian, bicycle or motorcycle accident or if you’ve lost a loved one in a wrongful death.

As a California Pedestrian Accident Insurance Attorney with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar plus settlements from over thirty years of experience I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves to save the cost of an attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how to do it but I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a greater amount in your pocket, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the maximum amount possible, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the police report. This is a much simpler process. Some police departments charge between $10 to $40 for a copy, while other departments provide them to you for free. You can pick it up at the police or CHP office yourself or request one by mail with an authorization form and a check for the proper fee.

You’ll need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses.

You should obtain witness statements if there is any issue as to the liability of the other driver for the accident.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your car damage, copies of the vehicle repair bills and estimates and receipts for any items damaged in your vehicle.

Here’s a secret. In California you are entitled to the cost of a replacement child seat if one was in the accident. It’s automatic. Just tell the insurance company the make and model or find out the cost for the make and model child seat and the insurance company will send you a check for a new one, even if the old one wasn’t broken. Why? It’s in the California insurance code. The insurance companies, however, don’t volunteer this information. Why? They’re in business to make money, not pay it out.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the accident and the negligence of the other driver that made him or her at fault, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement, but that will have to be reserved for another article. We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

We invite you to visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com and call us if you’ve been seriously injured in a personal injury auto, pedestrian, bicycle or motorcycle accident or if you’ve lost a loved one in a wrongful death.

In the course of your path thru the working world you will meet all types of people- smart and no-so-smart, know-it-alls, politicians, people who work across functions effectively and those who stay within their field, those who are not afraid to give their perspective and those who you need to put in a dentist chair to get it out of them, those who can speak with crystal clarity and those who have great difficult finding the right works to communicate even simple information.

As a scientist/manager I have always valued those who are smart, bold, understand the big picture and voice their perspective with great clarity. The story is told of a self-righteous technical manager who was a peer with an unimaginative, not-so-smart yes man who was over operations. In spite of this operations manager’s lack of skill and knowledge, he never bucked our boss and when the boss said jump he jumped until the boss said stop.  Where I had already been with the business for 10 years, he was new to the business, hired when our division was sold. His experience was really inadequate and when I talked to him as part of the interview process I recommended that he not be hired due to his lack of knowledge and experience. They hired him anyway.

While I never undermined him and was fully supportive of any of the project he was in-charge of, I also never missed an opportunity to point out his poor thought processes and conclusions. Luckily for him, he has a very competent group of managers below him and I generally work with them when I needed to get something done or needed operations support.

After 7 more years we were sold again. By this time he had grown into his job to some degree, but realistically, its was the high quality of the people who reported to him that made operations successful, not him. By this point I was resigned to the fact that he would be there for the long run and we settled into arms length relationship. 

 I worked with his people and we validated several big in-sourcing projects that delivered very nice cost savings with acceptable capital outlays. We had a list of other similar projects yet to be fully validated but looked promising.

The company who bought us valued acquisitions more than bold cost savings projects requiring capital and new product development programs. They were very good at buying small companies on the cheap, slimming them down and/or bolting them on other successful businesses and increasing their profits significantly. The profits from these companies funded the next acquisition.  Well, the operations manager was the first one us to find and acquire a good bolt-on opportunity. When it was time for our boss to move up, the operations manager became my boss. Needless to say he let me go, with a group of other when the downturn hit. It wasn’t a performance issue, it was a oportunity to lose some high salaries, and potential competition.

My lesson is simple- no matter how little respect you may have for anyone at any level in the company, never be condescending and always be nurturing. Teach people and allow them to teach you. Develop functional relationships without negativity. The company will be better for it and that can only improve you prospects at the company.

Never burn a bridge, even if you think you will never need to cross it for someday, it may cross you.

As a California Bicycle Accident Insurance Attorney with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar plus settlements from over thirty years of experience I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves to save the cost of an attorney.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how to do it but I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a greater amount in your pocket, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the maximum amount possible, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the police report. This is a much simpler process. Some police departments charge between $10 to $40 for a copy, while other departments provide them to you for free. You can pick it up at the police or CHP office yourself or request one by mail with an authorization form and a check for the proper fee.

You’ll need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses.

You should obtain witness statements if there is any issue as to the liability of the other driver for the accident.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your car damage, copies of the vehicle repair bills and estimates and receipts for any items damaged in your vehicle.

Here’s a secret. In California you are entitled to the cost of a replacement child seat if one was in the accident. It’s automatic. Just tell the insurance company the make and model or find out the cost for the make and model child seat and the insurance company will send you a check for a new one, even if the old one wasn’t broken. Why? It’s in the California insurance code. The insurance companies, however, don’t volunteer this information. Why? They’re in business to make money, not pay it out.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the accident and the negligence of the other driver that made him or her at fault, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement, but that will have to be reserved for another article. We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

As an experienced California Truck Accident Insurance Attorney with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar plus settlements from over thirty years of experience I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves to save the cost of an attorney.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how to do it but I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a greater amount in your pocket, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the maximum amount possible, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the police report. This is a much simpler process. Some police departments charge between $10 to $40 for a copy, while other departments provide them to you for free. You can pick it up at the police or CHP office yourself or request one by mail with an authorization form and a check for the proper fee.

You’ll need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses.

You should obtain witness statements if there is any issue as to the liability of the other driver for the accident.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your car damage, copies of the vehicle repair bills and estimates and receipts for any items damaged in your vehicle.

Here’s a secret. In California you are entitled to the cost of a replacement child seat if one was in the accident. It’s automatic. Just tell the insurance company the make and model or find out the cost for the make and model child seat and the insurance company will send you a check for a new one, even if the old one wasn’t broken. Why? It’s in the California insurance code. The insurance companies, however, don’t volunteer this information. Why? They’re in business to make money, not pay it out.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the accident and the negligence of the other driver that made him or her at fault, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement, but that will have to be reserved for another article. We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

As an experienced California Motorcycle Accident Insurance Attorney with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar plus settlements from over thirty years of experience I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves to save the cost of an attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how to do it but I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a greater amount in your pocket, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the maximum amount possible, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the police report. This is a much simpler process. Some police departments charge between $10 to $40 for a copy, while other departments provide them to you for free. You can pick it up at the police or CHP office yourself or request one by mail with an authorization form and a check for the proper fee.

You’ll need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses.

You should obtain witness statements if there is any issue as to the liability of the other driver for the accident.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your car damage, copies of the vehicle repair bills and estimates and receipts for any items damaged in your vehicle.

Here’s a secret. In California you are entitled to the cost of a replacement child seat if one was in the accident. It’s automatic. Just tell the insurance company the make and model or find out the cost for the make and model child seat and the insurance company will send you a check for a new one, even if the old one wasn’t broken. Why? It’s in the California insurance code. The insurance companies, however, don’t volunteer this information. Why? They’re in business to make money, not pay it out.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the accident and the negligence of the other driver that made him or her at fault, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement, but that will have to be reserved for another article. We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

As an experienced California Auto Accident Insurance Attorney with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar plus settlements from over thirty years of experience I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves to save the cost of an attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how to do it but I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a greater amount in your pocket, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the maximum amount possible, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the police report. This is a much simpler process. Some police departments charge between $10 to $40 for a copy, while other departments provide them to you for free. You can pick it up at the police or CHP office yourself or request one by mail with an authorization form and a check for the proper fee.

You’ll need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses.

You should obtain witness statements if there is any issue as to the liability of the other driver for the accident.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your car damage, copies of the vehicle repair bills and estimates and receipts for any items damaged in your vehicle.

Here’s a secret. In California you are entitled to the cost of a replacement child seat if one was in the accident. It’s automatic. Just tell the insurance company the make and model or find out the cost for the make and model child seat and the insurance company will send you a check for a new one, even if the old one wasn’t broken. Why? It’s in the California insurance code. The insurance companies, however, don’t volunteer this information. Why? They’re in business to make money, not pay it out.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the accident and the negligence of the other driver that made him or her at fault, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement, but that will have to be reserved for another article. We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

As an experienced California Auto Accident Insurance Attorney with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar plus settlements from over thirty years of experience I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves to save the cost of an attorney.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how to do it but I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a greater amount in your pocket, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the maximum amount possible, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the police report. This is a much simpler process. Some police departments charge between $10 to $40 for a copy, while other departments provide them to you for free. You can pick it up at the police or CHP office yourself or request one by mail with an authorization form and a check for the proper fee.

You’ll need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses.

You should obtain witness statements if there is any issue as to the liability of the other driver for the accident.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your car damage, copies of the vehicle repair bills and estimates and receipts for any items damaged in your vehicle.

Here’s a secret. In California you are entitled to the cost of a replacement child seat if one was in the accident. It’s automatic. Just tell the insurance company the make and model or find out the cost for the make and model child seat and the insurance company will send you a check for a new one, even if the old one wasn’t broken. Why? It’s in the California insurance code. The insurance companies, however, don’t volunteer this information. Why? They’re in business to make money, not pay it out.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the accident and the negligence of the other driver that made him or her at fault, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement, but that will have to be reserved for another article. We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

As an experienced California Personal Injury Attorney with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar plus settlements from over thirty years of experience I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves to save the cost of an attorney.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how to do it but I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a greater amount in your pocket, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the maximum amount possible, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the police report. This is a much simpler process. Some police departments charge between $10 to $40 for a copy, while other departments provide them to you for free. You can pick it up at the police or CHP office yourself or request one by mail with an authorization form and a check for the proper fee.

You’ll need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses.

You should obtain witness statements if there is any issue as to the liability of the other driver for the accident.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your car damage, copies of the vehicle repair bills and estimates and receipts for any items damaged in your vehicle.

Here’s a secret. In California you are entitled to the cost of a replacement child seat if one was in the accident. It’s automatic. Just tell the insurance company the make and model or find out the cost for the make and model child seat and the insurance company will send you a check for a new one, even if the old one wasn’t broken. Why? It’s in the California insurance code. The insurance companies, however, don’t volunteer this information. Why? They’re in business to make money, not pay it out.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the accident and the negligence of the other driver that made him or her at fault, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement, but that will have to be reserved for another article. We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

Sign of Hope says tests show drinking water in villages chemically matches contaminated water coming from oil field’s central processing facility… From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: ocean water temp. The blog is also related to: gulf of mexico ocean.

Sign of Hope says tests show drinking water in villages chemically matches contaminated water coming from oil field’s central processing facility… From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: tidal ocean. The blog is also related to: ocean surface.

Diane makes the place cards

The almost-perfect turkey, the almost-perfect pumpkin pie, and the imperfect people with us – for these we give thanks!

Every Thanksgiving is different. We grow up and grow older; we gain and, unfortunately sometimes lose, family members. Each year we are a little different bunch of people, even if the guest list is the same. In our case, we have Alex’s family living in town, and our sons, and most of our daughter-in-law’s family, so that we are blessed with lots of relatives at our table for Thanksgiving. Some years we travel to Topeka to see my brother and sister-in-law, but usually we’re here. I’ve learned that also inviting a few friends keeps the conversation fresh. Besides, it’s fun to find people who are away from family and would enjoy a place at a Thanksgiving table.

I enjoy setting the table, and try to do it a day or so ahead because inevitably I’m missing something that I need to borrow or buy. If I use fresh flowers in a centerpiece, I choose sunflowers, because they remind me of my growing-up Thanksgivings in Kansas (the Kansas state flower). Many years my niece Diane spends the night on Wednesday night to help me, and it’s great to have a right-hand person like this. I’m hoping she and her boyfriend can come early on Thanksgiving to help me this year.

One thing Diane has helped me with since she’s been old enough to write are place cards. She writes the names and decorates them, and writes a table talk question inside each one. When the conversation lulls (or gets stagnant), we’ll ask people to read their question and then we go around the table and answer them. These are questions for which there is no right or wrong answer, and everyone will have an answer. They help us get to know one another like we wouldn’t otherwise. If someone doesn’t like their question, they can choose to answer someone else’s question that they do like.

Sample Thanksgiving Table Talk Questions:

• What difficulty have you faced in the past year that you are thankful for?
• Where is one place you’ve gone this year that you were thankful to be?
• What is a good memory from this year?
• What is one way you’re thankful for your family?
• Who is a person who has great impact on your life and how?
• What was a book or article you read this year that really made you think?
• What is your favorite food on a Thanksgiving plate? What favorite food are you looking forward to at Christmas?

After Thanksgiving dinner, we like to have options of things to do. One, of course, is to be able to sprawl on a sofa and nap. Others are walking in the neighborhood, playing cards or a board game, and working a jigsaw puzzle. Usually a football game or movie is on the TV, but I like to have more interactive options too.

My favorite close-of-Thanksgiving-dinner activity is to take the tablecloth outside (by myself), give it a shake to release the crumbs, and stare at the stars. Something about a skyfull of stars gives me perspective. I give thanks for the gathering, for this collection of people, and for the many, many blessings that are ours.

Social Marketing: the deployment of marketing and communications techniques for the betterment of the audience or a social cause. Essentially, behavioral change for good.

Social Media Marketing: Social marketing utilizing web-based networking such as twitter, facebook, blogging, etc.

Totally different fields, totally confusing terms. Social Marketing and Social Media Marketing are too often confused, as the buzz of Social Media Marketing has forced Social Marketing to the back burner of modern marketing techniques. Albeit older, Social Marketing is still considered a young field of marketing, having origins in the 70’s, when Phil Kotler and Gerald Zaltman published “Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change.”

Social Marketing is the modern solution for public health campaigns encouraging a change in behavior for an improvement in life for the key audience or their stakeholders. Anti-smoking campaigns are the most well-known Social Marketing campaigns, however anti-obesity campaigns, hand-washing, child abuse and protection, policy formation – the list goes on. Social Marketing has the propensity to encourage change through a unique set of needs-evaluations, sometimes yielding a prescription beyond the boundaries of traditional marketing. For instance, a social marketing expert might find through research that a certain group of women failed to take advantage of a community service for cancer screenings not because of the screenings themselves, but because the women had a negative association with the building the screenings were held in. A Social Marketing solution, then, would address the entire problem, such as changing the building, in order to help solve the social problem.

Holistic, yes. Foolproof, no. Although Social Marketing has documented changes of great social significance, recent opinions suggest that overall, some of these tactics are largely unsuccessful. Just today, the CDC announced that they have not seen a decline in smoking behaviors from 2004 to 2008, and that if anything, the statistics suggest an increase. The other side of the fence will argue that the campaigns have not been implemented across the statistical area, resulting in higher numbers where social marketing campaigns have not reached, and lower numbers where they have.

I tend to believe that when implemented professionally, Social Marketing campaigns can have a profound impact on their audience. When thrown together, however, like many agencies are inclined to do, the affects are unpredictable, not measurable, and uncontrolled. A poorly executed campaign causes retaliation and rejection, disgust and ignorance from the target audience, sometimes pushing them further from the social cause and its message and increasing the undesired behavior. Bottom line; leave it to the pros. If amateur campaigns become the primary voice of Social Marketing to the public, its credibility as a social science will decline. Next post: Social Media Marketing.

No More Consultants is the new business book by Geoff Parcell and Chris Collison, (best-selling authors of “Learning to Fly“), published by Wiley, September 2009.

No More Consultants provides readers with everything they needed to tap into those capabilities. Using the tools and techniques in this book, readers will be able to drill deep inside their organizations to realize the value of their existing knowledge. Employees will feel valued and listened-to, and investment on consultants can be reduced or redirected to the places where there is a genuine need to build new capability.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Reading Tony Byrne’s “Trends: Enterprise 2.0 Conference (SF 11/2009) wrap up” (fredzimny.wordpress.com)
• Helping Your Customers Through Consultative Selling (insights-group.com)
• Oliver Marks on McKinsey’s ‘Business and Web 2.0′ Report and the new Consulting Landscape (fredzimny.wordpress.com)
• Engage Employee Heart-Power – Not Just Brain-Power (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
• Why Design Thinking Matters – BusinessWeek reviews Roger Martin’s book (fredzimny.wordpress.com)
• Bringing Trust Agents and Six Pixels to You (chrisbrogan.com)
• IT Versus the Consultants. And You’re the Judge. (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
• Will Social Media Consultants Practice What They Preach? (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
• Book review: What’s wrong with software development (computerworld.com)
• Why a video will help sell your book (alanrinzler.com)

His career in bollywood had a glimpse of height -  certainly would have walked another few miles – before a conflict with Bollywood’s biggy Salman Khan wrecked his pleasurable journey.

For Vivek Oberoi that was just the beginning of his struggle  in bollywood after a hit debut ­– Company – and another successful project ‘Saathiya’ that astounded with his affair with Aishwarya Rai whose relationship and break-up with Salman needs no mention here.

Since then the duo have been on a cold war – Vivek although apologized many a times but Salman kept a deaf ear – but come January 22, 2010, their love and hatred will get a boost, as they are slated to clash, this time on ticket window.

Salman’s magnum opus ‘Veer’ and Vivek’s ‘Prince – It’s Show Time’ will be releasing on the same day.

Earlier ‘Prince’ was lined up for a december 11 release, but due to pre-production work it was delayed to a month and if the buzz to be believed, the makers of ‘Prince’ delibrately want it to clash to garner publicity out of Salman and Vivek’s earlier conflict.

However, ‘Prince’ makers Kumar Taurani denies it, “ Why would we want to clash with ‘Veer’? Salman is a bigger star.”

Let’s wait and see the outcome of the conflict but onething is for sure, Vivek would not like such a story do the rounds. After all who wishes to be forgotten!!

There’s more wrangling on the BBC about the possibility of High Speed Two, an actual, real, cross-country service to improve on the fact that we have a piddling 68 miles of track reserved largely for Eurostar in the whole country. Even if it does go pretty much from my house in Ashford.

The service, which would go roughly from London to Edinburgh/Glasgow through Leeds/Manchester – unless its creators were totally stupid and only took it to Birmingham, as has been suggested – would cost a huge amount of money. Since it’s estimated the Birmingham section alone would take until 2025, I’m not inclined to trust figures. An article only a few months ago says the line would be open by 2023. Heard of inflation at all?

But I think it needs to be done. And why? Because, like with any special commuter time-saving investment, like a bridge (hooray for the £5.40 Severn crossing!) the government makes the money back not just through taxes, but tolls.

Not many outside Kent know Southeastern charges a whopping £8.10 supplement on a ticket that costs around £14 for a young person if you want to ‘upgrade’ to a high speed return – not only have fares in Kent risen more than the rest of the country on average, but you pay on top of them to get what they’re actually paying for, too.

So what’s the problem with investing the money? Just like with the banks (who by the way have received far more than High Speed Two will) it’s an “investment”. They’re not handing money out on a platter – they’re going to get it back.

And besides, if we have a new fares algorithm to get us up to Scotland, then perhaps it’ll spare us things like this. See below. I think I’d rather buy my own train.

Britain's first £1000+ rail fare

BSE and NSE all Set to Improve Arbitration and Appeal Mechanism

Both the BSE and NSE will soon be adopting the best practices in the other to improve the investor grievance redressal mechanism where the NSE is considering putting in place an appeal mechanism similar to the one at BSE.

However, BSE is looking at scrapping the arbitration fees to be paid by the investor for claims below Rs 10 lakh while efforts are on to provide investors with help from a representative of Investor Associations (IA).

Meanwhile, at present, there is a two-level arbitration process in BSE whereas, in NSE, there is a single-level arbitration meaning if you lose your case in arbitration in NSE you shall have to appeal in the High Court.

Further, in BSE, you can appeal against an unsatisfactory verdict to an appellate panel of 5 arbitrators before taking the matter to court while if the arbitration claim amount is less than Rs 25 lakh on the NSE and less than Rs 10 lakh in case of the BSE, a single arbitrator hears the case.

But, if the arbitration claims are higher than this amount then a panel of 3 arbitrators will decide the case while NSE agreed to the appeal mechanism subject to the Arbitration Act.

In addition, on the BSE, an investor seeking redressal has to file an application with the exchange at Investors’ Grievance Redressal Committee (IGRC) comprising of a former justice of high court and a broker member trying to resolve the dispute at the IGRC level itself.

However, if no mutually agreeable settlement is reached, the parties are advised to go in for arbitration while another proposal, when executed, will be beneficial to investors like the BSE levies arbitration fees of approximately Rs 4,000 whereas on the NSE, for claims of up to Rs 10 lakh, only the brokers have to pay the arbitration fees.

Hello Friends here we come up with the Latest Agri Commodities updates from various parts of the globe.

Centre may raise coffee package to Rs 802 cr

Centre may raise coffee package to Rs 802 cr:

The Centre is likely to increase the debt relief package for coffee growers to Rs 802 crore, 58 per cent more than the recommendations of Coffee Board, Union minister of law and justice, M Veerappa Moily said.

There are discussions at different stages to work out the package.

The figures of the total loan owed by the coffee industry to banks are Rs 1,700 crore.

The coffee board recommended a scheme for Rs 504 crore.

The coffee growers are in need of an urgent relief package, so as to give them a one-time life line to come out of the crisis.

The coffee industry is continuously facing low productivity due to drought of 2003 and 2004, which have had a domino effect on productivity.

In Other major Commodities Updates we can see how Corn, Soybeans advanced on the Speculation of excess rains which can delay the harvesting of crops”.

Corn, Soybeans Rally on Speculation Rains to Delay U.S. Harvest:

Corn and soyabeans advanced on the concern that higher-than-normal rainfall in parts of the U.S. may raise the risk of yield losses in the world’s biggest exporter of both crops.

Above average rainfall was forecast in producing states, including Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Indiana between Nov. 21 and Nov. 25, according to a U.S. Climate Prediction Center report dated Nov. 15.

The four states are among the biggest corn and soybean growing areas in the U.S. Corn for March delivery added as much as 0.9 percent to $4.0925 a bushel in after-hours electronic trading on the Chicago Board of Trade, and was at $4.09 as of 9:58 a.m. Singapore time.

Soybeans for January delivery climbed as much as 1.4 percent to $10.0125 a bushel in Chicago and last traded at $9.9475.

Note : For More Latest Industry, Stock Market and Economy News and Updates, please click here