Should I have Food & Water Insurance? What is it?

The majority of Americans have some form of insurance. Car insurance is probably the most common. There's insurance for your pets , home, health, jewelry, boats, motorcycles, renters, and so on.

In this piece we are going to examine Food and Water Insurance. What is it? Who needs it? How much does it cost? Where do I get it? What are the risks of not having it?

Unless you live in a cave, you are aware of the recent super storm called Hurricane Sandy that recently devastated much of the northeast. Several years ago, there was a huge storm that devastated New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast region. In both of these disasters, government assistance has been less than stellar if not outright negligible.

Let's not lose our perspective on super storms and hurricanes. There are any number of disasters that may occur, both natural and man made. Disasters can happen anywhere, so no one is immune to their effects regardless of status, class, or standing in the community.

FEMA traditionally recommends that everyone have three days of food and water at all times as well as a quick way to grab your important and necessary papers. The latter is based on the premise that you may have to suddenly vacate your home. The former is predicated on you being self sufficient until help can arrive.

What happens if help doesn't arrive? We have seen in the cases of both Sandy and Katrina that many people have suffered or died because help was not available soon enough. I could write an entire other article on government response, and I may do so later, but I want to focus on helping you devise a better plan.

Welcome to Air Source One

When you hit the air waves, looking for news and opinions, where do you start?...your television networks and cable news channels?...your internet homepage?...your newspaper? If this is typical of how you regularly gather information about the world around you, it would be an understatement to say you are missing the mark.

News travels fast. If it is happening, it is on the internet, but not necessarily on the homepage of your favorite search engine. Technology has turned the average persons into citizen journalists. Nearly everyone has a cellphone with a camera and video capability. The quality has increased dramatically in the past couple of years. Couple that with social media and sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Ustream, and the world of technology is ablaze with everything current and relevant,...and the not so relevant.

With so much information traveling so fast, it is difficult to determine what is accurate from what is exaggerated or right out false. When you share a link to a story of interest on Facebook, it will sometimes be met with the Doubting Thomas's of the world who stand ready to debunk the information because it isn't from a 'credible' news source. Just as often, someone will post a link to Snopes or Wikipedia just to rub in your face that you are spreading lies.