response 25 of 53:

May 23 10:13 UTC 2002

Yes, but not worth the difference in premium.

response 27 of 53:

May 24 13:24 UTC 2002

At the board meeting last night there was some interest in going 
with a slightly upgraded policy that would include loss coverage
for business property and staff injury coverage.  It turns out
the injury coverage would only be for clients (we have none) not
staff or volunteers.  For that we'd need to buy a policy with workman's
compensation coverage.  It's available but at a much higher premium.

So, what we'd gain by paying $250 rather than $165 is loss coverage for
our equipment.  The agent would have to check into the exact amount of
loss coverage we'd get but she thinks it's somewhere in the $10,000 range
if the pumpkin was a total loss and we could document our contents were
worth that much. 

I'm inclined to not go the difference but I'd like to get some 
feeback from others before proceeding.  But time is short here.

response 29 of 53:

May 24 18:16 UTC 2002

We can certainly document what's in the Pumpkin and what it's worth (about
$5000).  I don't feel strongly one way or the other, I guess.

response 31 of 53:

May 24 22:06 UTC 2002

Yes, $5,000 is the approximate value of the equipment in the Pumpkin.  We
have all that documented in the inventory database we use to compute our
personal property tax.

At Mary's request, I stopped by the State Farm office and dropped off a
check for $165.  They will mail us the policy and a receipt.

response 33 of 53:

May 25 05:28 UTC 2002

Thanks go to Mary for doing the legwork, and to Sindi for the good tip on
who to call.

response 35 of 53:

May 25 15:41 UTC 2002

Go for less, cheaper coverage.  Think about more, expensive coverage for
next round.

response 37 of 53:

May 26 05:16 UTC 2002

Great work.  Thank you!

response 39 of 53:

May 27 02:47 UTC 2002

I will tell Barb you are happy with her.  She has been extremely nice to us
for several years and I kept telling her I would try to compensate her by
telling all my friends about her.  We gave up on two insurance agencies before
finding her (they kept making stupid errors which cost us money).  State Farm
also had the lowest auto insurance rates for our purposes (the basic, no
collision, policy).  Mary, thanks for acting so quickly on this.

response 41 of 53:

May 29 01:01 UTC 2002

was there a reason not renew? Other than the poor return, that is.

response 43 of 53:

May 29 15:54 UTC 2002

Last fall I briefly thought it would be a good idea for us to have a lot
of small CDs.  After thinking it over and discussing it with the board, it
seemed clear that such strategy was too complicated for us, since TCF has
what appears to me to be a scam, where they have a few periods which give
much better interest than others. 

The scam, I think, is that unless you take an active role, CDs
automatically renew for the same period they were for before.  For
example, when I opened our current CD, 8 months earned 3% interest, and
most other time periods (including all shorter ones) were 2% or below.  So
we bought an 8-month CD.

Our 8-month CD would have automatically renewed for another 8 months if I
hadn't done anything within a week of the maturity date.  But, 8 months
might no longer have been one of the "special" periods that gets good
interest.  Which periods are good changes irregularly.  So the system
allows TCF to get people into one time period with an initially good rate,
then change the rate on them later.

So in order to have a good CD strategy at TCF, one needs to either put a
lot of money away for a long time, or visit the bank every time a CD comes
due, and move the money around.  I could do that, but I tend to dig in my
heels every time we talk about making the treasurer's job more
complicated, because someday we'll need a volunteer to take it over.

I'll wager this response is going to generate a new wave of helpful advice
from Sindi about how we could put a lot of money in a 5-year CD and just
break into it if we need to, paying the penalty.  As I said before, I'm
not comfortable with that, because I don't have enough experience with
banking to know that they couldn't make it a real pain in the butt for us
to break money out.  Also, I'm afraid they might change the rules over the
course of a long CD, so the penalty increased.  So while I agree that we
could make more interest that way than we do with our savings account, I
don't think the excess is worth the trouble.  If enough people agreed with
Sindi on this point, though, I'd go along.

response 45 of 53:

May 29 17:48 UTC 2002

$10 total, for $500 at 3% annual interest for 8 months.  Our savings account
is currently paying about 1.30% interest.

response 47 of 53:

May 29 22:10 UTC 2002

Maybe $6, but still, I tend to agree.

response 49 of 53:

Jun 2 16:23 UTC 2002

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if the 5-year CD still pays 5%?
They did assure me they could not change the rules on a legal document that
both parties had signed.