Hamilton Insurance Group - Q4 2020

Hamilton Insurance Group - Q4 2020

THE SILVER LINING To Your Life & Health

770-744-1855

MY WIFE’S FAMILY’S SUPER SECRET GUMBO RECIPE

October might be National Cookbook

Mignon’s mom was cooking, it would be “unique.” I hadn’t known gumbo to smell like that. I hadn’t ever known gumbo to look like it did when my future mother-in-law prepared it either. The crab legs were still in their shells, just sticking out of the dish! At the time it was just too weird for me to eat, so I packed it up, put it in my refrigerator and left it there till it molded. When my wife, who was in college at the time, came back to town to visit me a short while later, she found the moldy gumbo in my fridge. She asked me why I didn’t eat it, and I told her I thought it looked weird, and that I hadn’t wanted to eat it. That night, we went to her mom’s house. When Minon’s mom asked me if I’d liked her gumbo, my wife quickly outed me, saying I’d let it mold in the fridge. I tried to explain myself, saying that it just didn’t look like any gumbo I’d ever eaten, and that it especially didn’t look like the gumbo they served at Piccadilly. Mignon’s mother looked at me and said, “Oh, that’s not real gumbo. I’ll make you some real gumbo.” Long story short, she fed me some of that same gumbo that I had let rot in my fridge. Since that first taste, it’s been my favorite winter meal.

Month, but you won’t find my favorite recipe in any cookbook. It’s a secret recipe, handed down through my wife’s family for generations. Even though I’m capable of cooking for myself, my wife does most of the cooking around our house. And for good reason — she’s an incredible cook. She gets it from her mother, whom I credit with introducing me to what for years has been my favorite winter dish — her homemade gumbo. Back when I was in high school, my family used to always go to Piccadilly after church on Sundays. It was where we would go to get “home cooking” that wasn’t actually home cooking, and for years, I ate their gumbo, thinking it was the greatest gumbo in the world. I was completely unaware that I was about to have my world rocked by gumbo that was far superior to anything I had had before. Shortly after my wife and I started dating, I went over to her parents’ house one night when her mom was making gumbo. If I had to describe in one word how I thought the house smelled while

There are plenty of ways to prepare gumbo. My wife’s family is from the New Orleans area originally, and they’ve had generations to perfect their recipe, which they rightly keep closely guarded. I’ve since learned it, but I’m not allowed to share it with anyone. Whether I learned the recipe or not, however, that gumbo recipe story is special to me because it reminds me to try new things, even if I’m hesitant or afraid. Whether it’s a potential new chapter in life, or an unfamiliar gumbo recipe, you’ll never know how good change can be if you never try it.

–Duane Hamilton 1 770-744-1855

Does Vitamin D Help Our Bones and Our Muscles?

As the weather cools and the days get shorter, we can’t rely as much on the sun for our daily dose of vitamin D. The primary function of vitamin D is regulating the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body. These nutrients are necessary for strengthening our bones and teeth, which becomes increasingly important as we age and our bones naturally become more brittle. While these benefits of vitamin D are well documented, did you know that getting your daily dose of vitamin D can also contribute to healthier muscles? A few years ago, researchers published a study that seemed to show that vitamin D could potentially help people gain muscle mass. While the research team said their results weren’t

How can I tell if I have WFH burnout? There are several signs that you might be struggling with WFH burnout. If you’re missing deadlines more than you used to, you feel like you’re working around the clock, or you procrastinate more, there’s a good chance you’re experiencing burnout. Carried on for too long, burnout can lead to a loss of sleep, anxiety, and sometimes even depression, so it’s important to combat burnout when the symptoms arise. Use strategies to keep WFH burnout at bay. Luckily, there are several strategies for preventing and alleviating WFH burnout. One of the best things you can do is find ways to maintain boundaries between your work and home life in your living space. Keeping regular work hours, or designating a conclusive, their findings were certainly interesting. Vitamin D enters the body in an inactive form. It doesn’t become active until it comes in contact with the right enzymes in either the liver or the kidneys. To learn more about what factors affect this vitamin’s rate of absorption and activation in the body, researchers observed the levels of inactive vitamin D in 116 women ages 20–74. What they found was that women with higher muscle mass had lower levels of inactive vitamin D, while women with lower muscle mass had higher levels of inactive vitamin D. The conclusion researchers drew was that active vitamin D might help optimize muscle strength.

While that conclusion is not ironclad, vitamin D’s other well- known benefits still make it worth getting your daily dose. It can aid weight loss, enhance mood, support cardiovascular health, boost the immune system, and strengthen bones, among many other benefits. So, its potential muscle-boosting properties are just another reason to get more vitamin D. To get more of this important vitamin in your diet, try adding salmon, mushrooms, and even canned tuna to your menu. Also, as winter approaches, it might be time to start taking a vitamin D supplement. Whether you’re 20 or 74 years old, it’s never too late to find ways to strengthen your muscles.

What Is Work-From-Home Burnout?

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck the United States, countless offices closed down, and workers were forced to work from home. Now, over six months after the start of the pandemic, many workers still haven’t gone back to the office — and many never will. Working from home has become more normal than ever, and that change has come with some consequences — namely those resulting from work- from-home (WFH) burnout. What causes WFH burnout? When you work in an office, you have a natural, physical boundary between your work life and your home life. But when your work computer is in your kitchen, or in your bedroom, that boundary gets a little blurry. When your workspace is always in front of you, it’s more challenging to completely rest from your work. Over time, this leads to burnout.

room or space as your “office,” only to be used for working, are good ways to do this. Other methods for fighting burnout include going for walks during work hours, setting goals and rewards for big tasks, and finding ways to stay connected with coworkers throughout the day. The new workspace is a brave new world, but it doesn’t have to be the death of our sanity. By remaining diligent in our tasks and remembering to rest, American workers can avoid WFH burnout.

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Insurance, in all its various forms, is an indispensable part of everyday life in the United States. We see ads on billboards, on TV, on the internet, and many of us pay premiums for a few different types of insurance every month. However, there was a time in America’s history when insurance didn’t exist. It wasn’t until one of the Founding Fathers of the U.S. introduced the concept to his city that Americans began to see the benefits of insurance policies — namely in how they mitigated risks. Insurance wasn’t invented in the United States. Lloyd’s of London was founded in 1688 (and it continues to operate today). However, once parts of America became prosperous and complex enough to warrant the existence of insurance policies, they quickly adopted them. The first insurer in the United States was founded by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, and it was called The Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire. In early colonial cities, buildings were built entirely out of wood and very close together. Builders originally built them that way for security reasons, but soon they did so to maximize the number of homes on a certain lot. If one F rom P hiladelphia F ires to the F irst I nsured A utomobile

building caught fire, that could mean entire city blocks burned down. Fire insurance was a way that builders

could mitigate that risk. Like modern insurers, Franklin’s insurance company sent inspectors to properties to see if they met their qualification standards for insurance. The concept of insurance stuck. Seven years later, Franklin also helped start the first life insurance company in the United States called the Presbyterian Ministers’ Fund. At first, religious figures balked at the idea that an insurance company would dare assign a dollar value to a person’s life, but their qualms abated when they realized how life insurance could protect widows and orphans. Over time, various other forms of insurance gained prominence. The Industrial Revolution birthed business insurance and disability insurance. The first auto insurance policy came about soon after the first automobile was invented. Every time a new risk popped up, so did a form of insurance to mitigate it. Today, with so many insurance policies to choose from, we often don’t know which one we want or need. It’s a far cry from that first insurance company nearly 270 years ago.

WE ARE MAKING CHANGES

Logo: If you read our last newsletter, you may have realized that we updated our logo:

Website: Our new website

is still under construction.

However, we would appreciate it if you would take a look at what we have so far and let us know what you think!

Address: We have moved across the street to Colony Square. Our new address is: 1201 Peachtree Street NE Building 400, Suite 100 Atlanta, GA 30361 Phone number: We will be using the office number to make and return calls. That number is 770-744-1855. Please program it in your phone so if we call you, you’ll know it’s important.

HamiltonInsuranceUSA.com

Newsletter: We will be sending the newsletter out on a quarterly basis instead of a monthly basis since our vendor has decreased production hours in the midst of the pandemic. The changes to our logo will also be reflected in our newsletter.

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1201 Peachtree Street NE Building 400, Suite 100 Atlanta, GA 30361

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770-744-1855

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Lessons on Change From a Secret Gumbo Recipe A Previously Unknown Benefit of Vitamin D Do You Have Work-From-Home Burnout? From Philadelphia Fires to the First Insured Automobile We Are Making Changes

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Weird and Wacky Halloween Laws

SPOOKY CITY REGULATIONS

Halloween can be a mischievous holiday. The most innocent of us reserve it for backyard parties and trick-or- treating, but some like to get a little rowdier than others. That’s exactly why various city councils across the U.S. have passed some seemingly unusual laws to regulate spooky festivities. Rehoboth Beach, Delaware: No Sunday Trick-or-Treating If Halloween falls on a Sunday, children in Rehoboth Beach are required to trick-or-treat the night before. The explanation in the city code is simple, but ambiguous: to prevent children and their guardians from going door to door on Sunday evenings. Rehoboth Beach law also forbids children from roaming the streets on Halloween “with the intent to cause trouble,” but what exactly that means is ambiguous as well. Hollywood, California: No Silly String The Los Angeles City Council has banned Silly String and all other brands of aerosol string from use on Halloween in the Hollywood area. From midnight on Oct. 31 until noon on Nov. 1, no one is allowed to spray, sell, or distribute Silly String in public locations. Use of Silly String got so popular in the city on Halloween that the mess left behind

became a strain on sanitation workers, and the city sympathized with them. Belleville, Illinois: No 8th Graders Trick-or-treating is most often viewed as an activity reserved for younger generations, but how do you determine what age is “too old” for this type of generally good-natured fun? Well, the city of Belleville settled the ambiguity by passing a law restricting teenagers who are past the eighth grade — generally older than 13 — from going door to door on Halloween. Walnut, California: No Masks Without Permits In a simpler time, there was no paperwork required to celebrate Halloween to the fullest. But in the city of Walnut, no one can wear a mask or other disguise on public streets without a permit from the sheriff. The law doesn’t specify any exceptions, so residents are left to assume that everyone from age 5 to 100 must abide. Whatever your Halloween celebrations might look like this year, it’s important to have fun, but remember to abide by any rules or laws your city might have in place in an effort to keep its citizens safe.

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