Your insurance company wants to give you $60 off your premium. Simply install a Nest thermostat or a ring doorbell. Sounds like a no-brainer until you understand what you're actually trading. Okay, these programs give insurers access to your smart home data, and they can use it against you when you file a claim. It's called lifestyle underwriting. Say a pipe bursts while you're away. Your insurer pulls up your Nest history, sees that you set the heat to 45 degrees, and calls it negligence. Claim denied. So before you sign up, one, read the terms, specifically what data do they collect, how long do they keep it, and who can they share it with. Next, ask your insurer in writing how your data could affect a future claim. That $60 discount could cost you thousands when it matters most. Get TechSmarts every day for free at GetKim.com. Next up, a call from my weekend show, The Kim Commando Show. Enjoy. Janie in Phoenix, Arizona. Hello there, Janie. Welcome to the show. What's going on? Hello, Kim. Thank you so much for taking my call. And I want to tell you, too, that I did read your newsletter this morning. And I am learning so much by reading that newsletter because I am probably the ultimate un-techie person. I really don't understand a lot, actually, of even some of the things you say, so then I'll Google it. Oh, okay. You have to do research to read the newsletter? Well, you know what? There was one newsletter I read that was talking about VPN, and I couldn't find a definition of it in the newsletter. So afterwards, I Googled it, and now I know. Virtual Private Network. Private Network. There you go. Yes, yes. All righty. So what's going on? And thanks for your kind words. Yes. Well, you know, I wanted to ask you about home security. And to be honest, I've never really been concerned before about home security. You know, I grew up in a small town in England. It was never an issue. And honestly, I always thought that people's concern with security was a bit exaggerated, you know, maybe ginned up by the ads that they saw on TV and those companies who sort of, you know, made you feel the fear and therefore you would buy the product. But then that horrible crime, which is still, of course, ongoing against Nancy Guthrie, really made me open my eyes about how vulnerable we are. We are very vulnerable. Yeah. And, you know, I too live on a street where there's no streetlights. Our homes are on acre lots. I don't know what my neighbor's doing. My neighbor would never be able to hear me or anything like that. So I started thinking about it and I thought well what do I have for security And all I believe I really have is DoorBird And that was put in when we put a gate in But I don think DoorBird really is activated unless someone presses the button. That's correct. Yeah. And of course, that guy, you know, who they've managed to see on camera now, didn't press any buttons. He was there to break in. So I've been thinking about all of this and wondering what kind of electronic security should I install? You know, I don't have a dog, which is probably the best, right? Because a dog would have heard that guy at the door and woken her up, right? But I mean, can you imagine the horror when you're fast asleep in the dead of night and you and you see an intruder like that i mean it's absolutely your worst nightmare isn't it well yeah and you bring up some really valid points i mean just to put things into perspective um when this all happened it took me about 15 seconds to find nancy guthrie's home her cell phone number uh her voip number floor plans of her house pictures of the inside uh Savannah Guthrie actually did a home tour for the Today Show. We're going to talk more about the security that you need to have in place now. And, Jamie, you bring up a great point. You know, nothing sounds like fear, but unfortunately, this is today's reality. So you have absolutely no security at your house? None? You know, probably not. I must say, again, I do have a gate that, you know, I have a doorbird, which will ring me if someone presses the button. But I don't know if that records anything. I don't think so, does it? So let's talk about what you really do need. And keep in mind that in my personal relationship, my glass is always half full, or full rather, with unicorns and ponies and flowers and everything's great. Barry, my husband, how would you describe that? him paranoid and puts up signs oh my god with signs we have signs everywhere to scare people away like he'll have a sign this is no trespassers and the next to that will be a sign says hey read this sign he's paranoid he has more security in your guys's home than i've ever seen in anyone's home okay but i'm glad we do sure i mean it's a nice comfort blanket well and because and because because our house was hit by the Chilean gangs. And which is, you can go ahead and see the video on YouTube, but we were not taken down because of his paranoia with security and things like that. Because they shut down the wifi and it's a $200 gadget you can buy online. You hit a button and it just wipes it turns off all the wifi in your house your security cameras for 16 minutes Now let me ask you a question What about a system that has wireless contacts Would they be on Wi-Fi and would those go out as well if something like that were to happen? It depends. Some of them are working on cellular. Okay. So that jammer that I was just talking about, it's got two buttons. Button number one does Wi-Fi. Button number two does cell. So regardless of what you have. Done. Done. And so everything in my house is hardwired, which was easy to do as you were building a house. And we also have license plate readers outside. We have perimeter sensors. So if somebody goes around a sensor, it sets off the alarm. We have AI detection cameras so we can see if it's a person versus a coyote or a dog or something like that. Now, I hope this is not too personal, but that sounds like super expensive. It is stupid expensive. Okay. So for someone like us, realistically, who's not going to be able to afford that level of security, what are we looking at? It's going to cost you. I mean, so, so Jane, you have a couple of options. Okay. Yeah. Okay. You have the DIY option is that you put a whole bunch of Nest Cams around the whole, but you said you have an acre. That's a lot of land. It's a lot of land. Yes. And there's a lot of places for somebody to jump a fence if they wanted to. Okay. Right. And there's no lights on the street, which makes it even more attractive. Okay. Correct. Okay. So what you really need is a professional outfit. And you're in Phoenix. I'm going to share with you who I used, not on the air. Okay. And where they will come out and do a whole assessment and tell you exactly what you do need. And with an acre, you're probably looking at at least eight wired cameras, maybe more, that are recording to a local storage and then also uploading to the cloud continuously. And you'll have a TV in your house, is what we have, that shows you all the cameras. I think we have 32 cameras, just to let you know. But you can turn on the TV and you can see what every camera sees all throughout the property. 32 cameras? Barry always has something to watch. I know. Tell me about it. That thing's on all the time. I'm like, can we just watch something else other than the cameras and Fox news? Just one thing. Let me ask you a question though. If someone has a company, I have Simply Sape. I love Simply Sape. I think it's a great product. It's easy to install, but it is all wireless. It's a problem. It is. Is there a workaround? Not if somebody has a jammer. Okay. I mean, I wish I could tell you that there was. Sure. But there is not. I mean, Unless it's hardwired because of the jammers that are now in place. But you would have to have every single element of that system hardwired. And then you also need battery backups. Okay To make sure that it works You have to pay the monthly fee which I don understand why the Guthrie family did not pay the monthly fee Which is crazy yes It to a month When you have a profile like that, even if it was $25 a month. But if you don't live in Phoenix, and this is all sounding familiar, is that you want to find a local licensed security installer, somebody who can walk around your property with you, Janie, and say these are the vulnerable points. This is where somebody could get in. And it goes even a step further. As I mentioned briefly, I wanted to see how long it would take me to find Nancy Guthrie's house. I wrote about this in the newsletter. It did. It took me about 15 seconds. I just typed in Nancy Guthrie Tucson. You could try to do that right now. Jane, you could type your name in into a website and a people search site And they probably will find out where you live too. And that's where, you know, I hate to talk about a sponsor, but this is, it's Incogni. Right. I mean, this is what Incogni does. They take you out of these databases, the people search sites, which I was so surprised that Nancy Guthrie was in there. And it's not just her. It was her aunt. Annie was in there. I think what's the brother's name is Cameron or something like that. Oh, where were, and how much the house is worth. Do you go on to Zillow? other places you can figure out where the room placements, how many bedrooms it is. And then that whole video tour I was talking about, it's, it's, it's, so it's, it's our lives and it's the data that's out there that we have to be careful of. And I don't know how, I, I like going to bed, turning on the alarm. I do. Cause it makes me feel safe. Sure. It does. Makes me feel secure. And I know that that if somebody were to cross a line, you know, even just get over a fence that I know that that alarm is going to go off. And and it's and you know that the cameras are recording and saving. And if you have a security system in place right now, you need to test it. You need to make sure that you can log in and see those files and see the recordings and to know exactly what's going on. Because, you know, listen, I'm guilty of it too. I have a few Nest cameras, not at this location, at another location. And I signed on the other day and it was like, oh, well, the garage camera's not on. Well, how come the garage camera's not on? Because some Yahoo who was working in the garage cleaning it out unplugged it. But if I hadn't checked, I wouldn't know. And so that's why you need to, you really, truly, truly need to check. Janie, thank you so much for your call today. Offline, I will give you the name of a local Phoenix company.
