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How To Pick The Best Insurance Company

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

By Jason Markum

Owning insurance is one of the most important things you’ll ever do for yourself and your family. The problem is, there are so many different kinds of insurance for so many different things. There’s health insurance to cover medical problems, there’s car insurance, there is life-insurance, there’s home insurance in case your house burns down… the list goes on and on and on.

In America we live in a society based on risk. That’s what freedom means… risk. The government leaves us alone to make our own choices, for the most part, and that is what our capitalist system is built on.

The problem is, when people make their own decisions they very often make the wrong ones. This can have catastrophic effects on every aspect of our lives. The way our system has evolved to cope with these problems is through insurance.

It’s a happy middle ground… the government leaves us alone to make her own choices, which means they leave us alone to make stupid choices, but then we can mediate some of the stupider choices by buying insurance to cover us in case something goes wrong. Everybody is happy… freedom is maintained, but our stupidity that’s inherent in every human person, doesn’t run wild.

So to say “I’m not going to buy insurance” is probably not the best mindset to have, you can be sure! The government actually mandates that you legally are required to own certain types of insurance such as car insurance. If you borrow money to buy a home, the bank will require that you have homeowners insurance to cover their loss in case the house burns down. And I don’t think anybody needs to be convinced of the importance of health insurance.

All of this leads up to the main problem… which is, how to pick the best insurance company. With so many insurance options you have got to pick the right insurance company who will honestly work with you to give you just the coverage that you need and nothing more. If you let certain insurance agents walk all over you, they’ll sell you everything under the sun. Before you know it you’ll be insuring your dog against the flu!

The first rule of thumb is to pick a major insurance company that has the financial resources available to backstop their insurance claims. Many people purchased insurance from AIG over the last few years thinking that their claims would be paid. But when the financial crisis of 2008 hit and AIG for all intents and purposes went under; those insurance policies were no longer guaranteed. Luckily the government stepped in, but you can’t always be sure that will happen.

Next pick an agent that you are comfortable with, make sure they understand your financial situation and your insurance needs and make sure that they know that you will not tolerate being hard sold additional insurance that you don’t need.

Finally ask around… ask the people around you who they turn to for insurance help. In no time at all you’ll probably find a consensus on who the best people in your area are. Many times personal references go a long way in the insurance industry.

Tags: car insurance, health insurance, homeowners insurance, Insurance, life insurance
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How To Avoid Unnecessary Insurance

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

By Jason Markum

Insurance is just a fact of life in American society (and probably most other places too). Some studies show that Americans spend almost 15% of their disposable income on insurance alone. Sometimes they are certain insurances you just can’t get out of buying, for instance you are required by law to carry it; such as car insurance.

But there is some insurance that you just shouldn’t buy no matter what, and that’s what I am going to talk about in this article today.

Sure, we all need insurance. If you’ve got a house mortgage, you need homeowners insurance. If you own a car, you need auto insurance. If you have a family that depends on your income, then you need life insurance to look after them if anything catastrophic happens to you like death. And everybody should have health insurance of some kind.

But there are many kinds of insurances being marketed today that you just don’t need, and many times these specific insurances are the ones that really get pushed on people because they don’t really know enough about it to make an informed decision; and salesmen can be pushy.

One type of insurance that you should not usually buy is automobile medical insurance. If you have regular health insurance, it will usually cover any health expenses that arise out of automobile accidents so you don’t need additional special medical car insurance in most cases.

Another type of insurance that you don’t need is mortgage insurance. I’m not talking about homeowners insurance, you need that… I’m talking about mortgage insurance; that is insurance to protect your family against the consequences of not being able to pay the mortgage should you die. Your regular life insurance should cover this adequately on its own, which is the main reason why you have life-insurance to begin with.

Air travel insurance is another type of insurance that you really shouldn’t purchase. Yes, it’s usually very cheap sometimes as little as $10 per flight. But again, if you die in an airplane crash your regular life insurance should cover your family’s immediate needs.

Cancer insurance is another insurance that you may not need. Again, your regular health insurance should cover this and you don’t need any kind of special addition in most cases..

Vacation rain insurance is another type of insurance that you probably don’t need. Insurance companies make these policies based on incredibly accurate meteorological data, and they’re not in the business of throwing their money away which means that they’re not going to insure you unless they’ve got a pretty good idea that it’s not going to rain; which means you probably won’t collect. But again, these aren’t very expensive policies so suit yourself.

These are just a few of the types of insurance policies that you should not waste your money on. Of course, as a disclaimer, everybody is different, and everybody’s circumstances are different so don’t take my advice, make up your own mind.

Tags: Insurance
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How To Find Your Lost Life Insurance Policy!

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

By Jason Markum

Imagine you’ve been responsible all your life. You bought life insurance like you were supposed to and you paid your premiums every single quarter or year so that when you died, your family would be protected and have the money that they needed to go on living the same lifestyle they had grown accustomed to while you are alive to provide for them.

But how do they know that? Sure, you may have mentioned the life insurance policy once years ago… but people forget, and paperwork gets lost, and people tend to be a little more sloppy than they should when it comes to wills, and life insurance policies, and things of this nature.

The fact of the matter is that your beneficiaries may not know that they are entitled to collect your life insurance policy! And many times the life insurance company is not going to go out of their way to tell them!

So what do you do if you think you may be the beneficiary of a life insurance policy? Well the first thing you’re gonna want to do is search in the obvious places. Look through boxes of old tax records. And look through boxes of old financial records. And also if you have a file or box with insurance papers, obviously start looking there first!

Next extend your search out of the home. The best place to start is your family safe deposit box if you have one. If not I suggest talking with your family lawyer if you have one. Maybe they know something about the life insurance policy. If your family has an insurance agent locally that you worked with for years, contact them.

Several tricky places to look are old mortgage applications that you may have because sometimes these things require that you list any life insurance policies that you may have. Also check with the funeral home that your spouse used. Sometimes they have information on life-insurance because they need it to pay the funeral bills.

You might also check through old bank statements as far back as possible for any checks that were written to an insurance company. Many people keep old bank statements on file and in storage, but if you don’t… check with the bank itself. Many times banks will allow you to order old bank statements for a nominal fee, anywhere from $1-$5 per statement. Keep in mind you may have to go back 20 or 30 years or more, making this a very tedious approach but one that often yields results.

If all else fails and you have failed to discover a life insurance policy then contact the American Council of life insurance located in Washington DC. This is a trade group that will forward your inquiry to over 100 life insurance member companies.

Tags: death benefits, Insurance, life insurance
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Which Insurance Should You Buy?

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

By Jason Markum

Insurance… it’s a tricky business. It’s a subtle balance between what you need, what you can afford, and what you can get away with not having!

Nobody wants to pay for insurance, at least not until you need it… and then everybody wants it! The trick, it seems, is to pay as little as you can but at the same time make sure you have the coverage that you need. There are lots of different tricks and secrets to do just that, but I’m not going to get into them in this article. No, in this article I’m going to talk about which basic insurance policies you should look into buying depending on your current living situations.

People need different types of insurance at different stages of their lives. Somebody who’s just out of high school, or even just finished with college, probably doesn’t need a large umbrella life insurance policy. You typically need these kinds of policies when you have a family with lots of children and a spouse that depend on you for their livelihood. This becomes more important if you are the main breadwinner of the family because what happens to the rest of your family if something happens to you? For that exact reason it’s not importantly to have this type of life insurance if you’re young and don’t yet have a family.

Likewise Medical insurance… different people in different stages of their lives require different levels of health insurance. Somebody who’s younger perhaps can get away with a policy with a higher deductible because the chance that they are going to need major life-saving surgery, that is- major expensive surgery, is probabilistically lower than for an older adult.

If you own a home you probably need homeowners insurance… on the other hand if you don’t own a home, you obviously don’t need homeowners insurance. But if that’s the case, you may need renters insurance!

The point I’m trying to make is that everybody’s situation is different and therefore everybody’s insurance needs are different… sometimes wildly different. Because of that, it’s very difficult to suggest what exactly you need in the form of insurance because let’s face it, I don’t know you from the next guy or gal.

So what I suggest is that you ask around to other people who are your peers. I’m talking about people in your same age group, your same work group, your same income level, your same health level generally speaking and talk to them. Ask them what they’ve got as far as insurance goes. Don’t ask them how much they pay, just ask them what kind of coverage they have. And also ask who their insurance agent is. Finding the right insurance agent is very important because the right agent will steer you towards the insurance that you need and nothing more.

A bad insurance agent will try and sell you more than you need. A good insurance agent will realize that if they do right by you now, they have a client for decades and that is far more important than a quick upsell today.

Tags: Insurance, Insurance agents
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What Types Of Life Insurance Are Available Today?

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Insurance is just a fact of life. Everybody needs some sort insurance almost universally. The problem is, that insurance is incredibly difficult to understand and very confusing to almost everybody.

In this article today I’m going to spend a few minutes explaining the different types of basic life insurance that are available to you today. You may need some of these types of insurance, and you may not need them all, or at all; but it’s still a good idea to understand what is out there no matter what. If you understand what options you have when it comes to insurance, even if you don’t need them today, you may need them later on so it’s a good idea to know what your options are.

I’m going to skip the most obvious types of insurance and focus on life-insurance because I find that many people don’t understand what life-insurance is or why you should have it. The fact of the matter is, nearly every adult needs life-insurance of some sort, especially if they have a family that depends on them for support.

There are basically two types of life insurance. In the first type, you pay a certain amount every month and the policy acts very much like a savings account. Then if something happens to you, say if you die, your family gets that money back but no more. So if over the years you have paid in $7,000 into your life insurance policy, then you get back $7,000 plus interest upon your death. This kind of a policy is usually called a whole life policy.

The other type of life insurance policy is called a term life policy. In a term life policy you basically buy a certain benefit… say $1 million. Then every month, or every quarter you pay a certain premium. If you stop paying the premium, you lose your life insurance policy and you no longer get the million dollars if you die. On the other hand, if you open up a million-dollar term life insurance policy tomorrow, pay your first month’s premium, and then die the next day; your family will usually receive the full $1 million.

Most people are going to want to go with a term life insurance policy as opposed to whole life insurance policy because they are generally cheaper and the benefit is potentially larger. Whole life insurance policies are more like investments for wealthy people, and unless you have a considerable net worth you’re much better off going with the term life insurance policy.

Why do you need a life insurance policy? Quite simply, to take care of your family after you’re gone. These days more and more we are seeing families where both parents work, both the male and female spouse in their own full-time profession. Because of this many people think that they can get away without life insurance. After all, if one of the spouses dies the other one still has their job and can still support the family.

The problem with this logic is that families get used to a certain lifestyle and all of sudden half of their income has disappeared. Their lifestyle is going to be dramatically altered forever. Maybe with both spouses working you are able to save enough for your children’s college funds, but maybe now with only one spouse left you might not be able to maintain the same savings level and your children therefore may not be able to attend college.

It’s these sort of things that you have to think about and then come to realize that just about everybody really does need life insurance. And heaven forbid that both spouses die together in a car crash or something. Then life-insurance is essential to take care of your remaining children.

Tags: Insurance, life insurance, term insurance, whole insurance
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How To Avoid Getting Ripped Off By Your Insurance Company

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

By Jason Markum

Insurance is a fact of life for everybody in America, and probably everywhere else to! We pay and we pay and we pay on insurance policies all our lives and we expect them to pay out in the event that something happens to us.

If we paid for health insurance, we expect our medical bills to get paid when we need them to be. If we paid for auto insurance, we expect them to pay if we are in a car wreck. And if we buy homeowners insurance, then we expect them to pay if something happens to our house.

But if you’ve ever dealt with an insurance company, then you know this isn’t usually the case! Insurance companies love to take your monthly payments, but they hate to pay out a single penny. Think about it, every dollar they pay out is a dollar they don’t have anymore! And nobody, and no company, likes to give away money.

You see, when insurance companies sit on the float (which is what they call the big pool of money that people have paid in via insurance premiums over the years) they start to look at that big pool of money as their own even though it’s not technically theirs… it’s yours!

So for instance if you have a car accident, the insurance company is going to pull out all kinds of tricks in order to get you to accept as little money as possible. The first thing you must understand is that you hold all the cards. If they offer to give you $1,000 and you take it then you have decided to take that money. It doesn’t necessarily mean that that is all you were entitled to…

If you have full coverage on your car, and your car was destroyed by somebody else crashing into you, then you’re entitled to your car. They must give you what is necessary for you to purchase an exact copy of your car.

They may tell you that the blue book value is a certain amount. Tell them you don’t care what the blue book value is! There’s no rule that says you have to use the blue book value. If you see a car in a car dealer’s lot that is the exact car that you owned, and the dealer is selling it for $10,000… then it doesn’t matter if the blue book value of your car is only $7,000. It’s gonna take you $10,000 to buy that car and that’s what the insurance company should pay you.

But that’s not all you’ll also have to pay title, taxes, closing fees, and many other weird little fees when buying a new car. You’re insurance agency must pay for that stuff too! And those figures are never calculated in a blue book value.

But I’m getting off track here. The main thing to remember is that you hold all the cards, and what you say goes - not the other way around. If you simply refuse to accept what the insurance company is offering and hold out for what you know you deserve, at the end of the day there’s not much the insurance company can do but to do what you’ve told them to do.

They’ll try everything, remember that. All you have to do is nothing. Don’t sign anything, don’t agree to anything, just tell them that you require X dollars and then just keep repeating that over and over whenever they say anything just repeat that you require X dollars. That’s it!

And if all else fails, trot yourself up to a local attorney and tell them to take care of it… and make sure the insurance company pays your attorneys fees as well!

Tags: Insurance, insurance scams
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Do You Own This Insurance Without Even Knowing It?

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

By Jason Markum

Insurance! It’s a real pain in the backside! Nobody wants to pay for it, but when you don’t have it and you need it things can get ugly. Seems like there’s nothing good about insurance… the premiums keep going up year after year, and it seems like you hardly ever use it, but you always have to keep paying. And then when you actually do need it, you have to jump through so many incredibly difficult hoops to get it to pay out that it’s enough to make your head spin!

There is a little bit of a gold lining though. You may have some insurance that you don’t even know about! And that is exactly what I am going to talk about in this article today.

Did you know that a lot of the times your homeowners policy will cover other things besides the house itself? It’s true. For instance if somebody gets their purse stolen, or their wallet stolen, or their car broken into while it sits at your house… your homeowners policy may cover it!

Also, many credit cards offer several different kinds of insurance that you may not know about. For instance, many times if you buy your plane ticket or your cruise ticket with your credit card, your credit card will provide you with up to $25,000 or sometimes even $30,000 in travel life-insurance. I guess that means that if you die while on the trip, your dependents will receive $30,000! Which I guess doesn’t matter so much because you’ll be dead but it’s still nice for the people you leave behind I suppose.

Many Triple A car club members receive death benefits as well as hospital benefits if they are in a car accident, which many people don’t know about I have found over the years. This sort of thing comes in handy, especially the hospital benefits, because a lot of times your health insurance has strict limits on what it will cover and what it won’t cover. Any additional insurance in this area is a huge boon in troubled times.

Many clubs that you join such as the Moose Lodge or fraternal orders such as the Masons provide life-insurance for their members, and in some cases they provide health insurance as well though this is becoming a less and less current event as time goes on and health insurance becomes prohibitively more expensive.

If you own a family health insurance policy, it may cover your grown children who are away at college. Check your specific policy to be sure. If it doesn’t, many colleges include a basic health insurance policy in your tuition payment. And often times going to the school’s medical center is cheaper than running to the doctor’s office even if your school doesn’t offer free health insurance to its students.

The point is keep your eyes open. More and more we’re seeing companies use free insurance as nice little benefits and a lot of the time they don’t do a very good job of promoting the fact that they offer these benefits. So with a little research, you can usually uncover a few gems.

Tags: Insurance
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How To Make Sure Your Insurance Policy Pays Out What It Should

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

By Jason Markum

Insurance companies are notorious for trying to undercut policyholders when it’s time to pay out. Sometimes they will flat-out refuse to pay, and sometimes will offer a wildly low settlement. The problem is, most people just take it. They figure that there is no way to fight the billion-dollar insurance industry.

It’s really too bad, because people have very very strong rights when it comes to insurance policy payouts and in most cases you hold all the cards. You’ve entered into an agreement with the insurance company and you’ve held your end of the bargain; they are required by law to hold their end.

Sure, they’re gonna try everything under the sun to pay out as little money as possible… but don’t let them get away with it. In this article I’m going to explain a few tips that you can use to make sure you get paid what you deserve by the insurance companies.

The first thing that I have to be absolutely clear about is very important. You should never, under any circumstances, inflate your claim in any way. If you do, you open yourself up to criminal fraud charges in a worst-case scenario… and in the best case scenario the insurance company can use this as an excuse to simply not pay your claim. So be honest from the very start, and only ask for what you are entitled to.

If your claim is denied then ask them for a written explanation. If you get them to put something down on paper then they will be very careful about not paying what they should. The reason why is, they know that they owe you money and if they put it down on paper that they have refused to pay that money, then they open themselves up to easier legal action on your part.

The law is on your side in this case because the law requires that they put any denial on paper in most states.

Don’t fall for the trick that many insurance companies use of stating that your claim is being denied because too much time has passed. That is usually not a valid reason to deny a claim.

Also don’t fall into the fine print trap. Most insurance companies will trot out a long list of fine print details as an excuse for denying the claim. In most cases this is hogwash because even if it is in print, if that print was unclear and you didn’t understand it when you signed your policy, you may not be held to that fine print. Many courts have found that if the fine print is not clearly stated in such a way that a normal person can understand it, it’s not valid.

If you just can’t get anywhere, contact somebody higher up in the insurance company like a vice president. Send them a letter explaining your case and describing in plain language why you think the claim should be paid. If that doesn’t work send another letter.

If two letters don’t work send a third letter saying that you will commence legal action in one month’s time if the matter isn’t cleared up to your satisfaction within that time frame. Sometimes there’s nothing left for you to do but drop the matter off into the hands of local attorney and let them deal with it.

Tags: Insurance
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How To Avoid The Most Common Mistakes When Buying Life Insurance

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

By Jason Markum

Life insurance is one of the most important things you’ll ever do in your life and picking the right kind of life insurance is absolutely essential… always. Why? Because if you die, it’s incredibly important for your family to have the financial support they need in order to continue living. Sure we’d like them to continue living in the same manner that they have come to expect… but if you don’t play your cards right, they might not even have enough money to pay for food!

So picking the right life-insurance is critical. The problem is, life-insurance is complicated and there are several different kinds of life insurance and several different ways to buy life insurance and most people get confused and buy the wrong kind or don’t buy enough, or by too much. In this article I’m going to discuss the common mistakes and how to avoid them when it comes to life insurance.

The first most common mistake that people make is buying life insurance when they don’t have any dependents. If you are single, then you don’t need life insurance. Even if you’re planning on getting married sometime in the future and having a family, you don’t need to buy life insurance today. Wait until you start your family because there’s no reason to pay between now and then… and besides anything can happen and you may not even ever start a family.

The next most common mistake is to buy life insurance for your children. There’s no reason to do this, your children will be covered in YOUR life insurance policy if you die. If they die however, there’s no reason for you to collect money… and also no reason for you to have paid money for their policy for all those years.

The next most common mistake is to buy insurance through the mail, or over the Internet, or over the phone from a commercial you saw on TV. You want to sit down with an insurance agent and discuss your exact needs and discuss your family so that you are sure to get the exact policy to fit your exact situation. Everybody is different, everybody’s needs are different, some mail-order insurance policy is not going to cut it.

The next mistake people make is to buy life insurance without disability insurance. Yes it’s a good idea to make sure your family is taken care of in the case of your death… but what happens if you are merely disabled in such a way that you lose your job and can no longer support your family? Not only that, your disability may be incredibly expensive by way of ongoing medical bills forever that you may not have considered and that may not be covered under your regular health insurance policy. So look into disability insurance whenever you purchase life insurance.

There are many other mistakes that you can make when buying life insurance, but these are the most common and if you take care of them then you’re going to be 95% ahead of the game. Just remember to do as much research as possible, and ask as many questions of your insurance agent as you can. This is no time to try to look smarter than you actually are. Play dumb! Ask lots of questions and make sure you understand what you’re getting yourself into and you’ll be just fine.

Tags: Disability Insurance, Insurance, life insurance
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How To Determine How Much Life Insurance You Really Need

Friday, January 29th, 2010

By Jason Markum

Oh insurance! It’s such a pain in the behind! I don’t know about you, but I hate making insurance premium payments. I mean I really hate it! Health insurance, auto insurance, homeowners insurance, life insurance… the list goes on and on; it seems like we’re always paying some sort of insurance.

There is one type of insurance, though, that I don’t mind paying so much, as long as I’m not overpaying! And that kind of insurance is life-insurance… and let me tell you why…

If I get in a car wreck and a total my car; I’m out a car if I don’t have good insurance. I can live with that. If I get sick and need an expensive surgery and my health insurance doesn’t cover it, or I don’t have health insurance, I can live with that too. I’ll just borrow some money, or dip into my savings which isn’t fun but at least it’s doable. And if my house burns down and I don’t have homeowners insurance, well that would really stink, but I’d just go rent something until I got back on my feet again.

Life insurance, on the other hand is something else entirely. If something happens to me and I die, then there’s no one left to take care of my family. My children and my spouse are on their own, out in the cold, without a steady source of income.

How will they eat, will they sleep, how will they pay for school and clothes and everything else? These questions will not stand! But there’s something I can do about it today, and that is to take out a life insurance policy that will cover all their expenses if something happens to me.

So I don’t mind paying the life insurance premium. It’s peace of mind is well worth it. At the same time, I don’t want to overpay and since this is such an important thing, and so complicated in many cases, it’s easy to get turned around.

So how much is enough when it comes to life insurance? Keep in mind that the purpose of life insurance is to replace the value of a family member, the economic value of a family member and at the same time provide cash or liquidity to meet the needs of the remaining family members.

If you die but your spouse doesn’t, will they be able to go out and get a job? If so, you may need less life-insurance. If not, or if their job would not pay out as much as you’re making now, you may need more life insurance.

The most important thing to do is sit down with an insurance agent that you can trust, somebody that has been recommended to you by friends and family, or somebody whom you have worked with for many years and you know well. Explain to that person that you want your life insurance policy to replace the income you would make had you not died. Make it very clear to this person that you don’t want your family’s quality of life to change at all if you were to pass away. And then simply work it out with them, I’m sure they’ll have worksheets that you can use to determine the exact amount of life insurance that you will need; and sometimes it’s just best to follow the professional advice that they give you.

Tags: auto insurance, health insurance, homeowners insurance, Insurance, life insurance
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Don’t Let Inflation Kill Your Life Insurance Policy!

Friday, January 29th, 2010

By Jason Markum

I’m a planner. I plan out everything, I can’t help it! One of the most important things that I’ve ever planned is my life insurance policy. Why is it so important? Well, if anything happens to me… if I were to die for instance, I need to know that my family will be taken care of financially. I need to know, that their quality of life will not decrease at all. I need to go that my kids will be able to afford to go to college.

And the only way to make sure that all happens is through a responsible life insurance policy.

But there’s one thing that almost nobody plans for, and it’s something that can absolutely devastate all your life insurance policy planning. That thing is… inflation.

Most people don’t even understand what inflation is, so I’ll spend a minute or two discussing it in as much detail as I can. Inflation is basically a term that is used to describe the cost of everything increasing. Last year it cost $100 to buy the cool new basketball shoes. This year it cost $110 to buy the same cool new basketball shoes. That’s inflation.

As time goes on things cost more, and the same amount of money won’t buy you as much stuff. If, for instance, $70,000 is enough to pay for all of your family’s expenses this year; including housing and food and insurance and gas and clothes and everything else, then you can bet that next year you’re going to need more than $70,000 to pay for all that same stuff because prices increase.

But usually, we get raises in salary and we don’t tend to notice all that much unless inflation is running wild.

But it becomes essential to calculate inflation when you’re determining how much life insurance to purchase for your family. Because the point of life insurance is to provide your family with the same level of income that you would provide yourself if you are alive to do it.

So if you spend $70,000 a year taking care of your family, you may be tempted to tell your life insurance agent to create a policy for you to make sure your family will have $70,000 a year in perpetuity.

The problem is, even if you die tomorrow, $70,000 a year for the next 20 years is not gonna be enough to cover your families expenses because the prices of everything will keep going up year after year after year. 10 or 15 years from now $70,000 is gonna be more like $30,000 is today. But your mortgage payment is not going to go down is it? No it’s not.

Unless you studied economics in college it’s going to be difficult for you to calculate inflation into your life insurance planning. But your insurance agent should be able to do this for you. Just make sure you tell them to! Not all agents will understand it right off the bat, therefore not all will suggest it to you. You may be the one that has to say “what about inflation?” to your agent, and if they don’t know what you’re talking about… get another agent!

Tags: inflation, Insurance, life insurance
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Understanding Term Insurance Policies

Friday, January 29th, 2010

By Jason Markum

Insurance can be tricky at the best of times, and sometimes it can be downright confusing. One area that I find confuses people more than any other is the difference between term and whole life insurance.

Choosing between term life insurance and whole life insurance is an incredibly important decision to make and it is incredibly important that you fully understand the difference between the two because if you choose the wrong policy, your family may not receive the coverage you think that they’re going to get if you die unexpectedly.

One of the main reasons why this issue is so confusing is price. Term life insurance is usually much cheaper than whole life insurance and people mistake the cheapness for the worth of it. The fact of the matter is, even though it’s cheaper, term life insurance is usually the kind of insurance that you’re going to want to purchase and I’ll tell you why.

Whole life insurance is more like an investment and less like actual insurance. In a whole life insurance policy you pay in money, and that money is yours. Think of a whole life insurance policy as a little savings account. You keep track of what you paid in, and that money earns interest at a certain rate, and then sometime in the future you take that money back out. But you only get back what you put in plus interest.

There are many benefits for such a policy including investment reasons, and others. For instance, you can often borrow money against your whole life insurance policy, and use it as collateral for loans from the bank and other institutions. So as far as cash flow and money management goes, the whole life insurance policy may be a good bet for you.

But if insuring your family in the case of your untimely death is your primary concern, so that they have the same quality of life and income level that they have come to expect… then a whole life insurance policy is not for you.

What you want is a term life insurance policy. In a term life insurance policy you pay a set premium every quarter, or month, or year depending on how you set it up. In return, the insurance company agrees to pay out a certain set amount of money upon your death. For instance, you might buy a million-dollar policy in which case the insurance company will pay your family $1 million if you die.

Unlike the whole life insurance policy, if you stop making your insurance payment the policy ends and you get nothing back. All the money you’ve paid in so far is gone. And also unlike a whole life insurance policy, your insurance premiums will likely increase year after year.

So now you know the difference between term life insurance and whole life insurance. Hopefully you’ll take my recommendation and go with a good term life insurance policy in order to provide for your family and the case of your untimely death.

Tags: Insurance, life insurance, term, term life insurance, whole, whole life insurance
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How To Collect Claims From An Insurance Company

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

By Jason Markum

Nobody likes insurance… or I should say, nobody likes to PAY for insurance! But there’s nothing worse in the world than paying for insurance year after year after year only to be denied a claim when it’s finally time to collect!

I’ve been there so let me tell you. I was once in a car accident that had absolutely nothing to do with me. I didn’t do anything wrong and I had nothing to do with causing it. That’s to say, the other person was completely at fault. When it came time to pay, the other persons insurance refused to give me enough money to replace my totalled car.

What do you do? That’s what I’m going to talk about in this article today.

The first question people usually ask is, do I need to hire an attorney? Luckily you can negotiate with an insurance company without an attorney and stand a fairly good chance of succeeding as long as you play your cards right.

The first thing you’re going to want to do is talk to your insurance agent. Now be careful here, because you want to make sure your insurance agent is an independent agent and doesn’t work for the insurance company itself. If your agent works for the insurance company, he’s going to do what they tell him to do. But if he (or she) is an independent agent, then they should be your first line of defense. They know that if they want to keep your business in the future, they better go to bat for you today.

In many cases your independent agent will negotiate with the insurance company completely and you won’t have to do much of anything… Unless, they are unable to get as much money as you deserve and then you may have to go to work yourself or hire an attorney.

The problem with hiring an attorney is that they are expensive, and not all attorneys have experience dealing with insurance companies. If you do eventually have to hire an attorney, make sure that you hire one that has experience settling disputes with insurance companies. Most disputes settle out of court when it comes to insurance claims, so an attorney that has experience with that sort of thing is essential. You can’t just walk down to your local attorney and hire them.

If you hire an attorney, there are several different ways you can pay them. An experienced insurance attorney may work on a contingent basis. That means that they will take a cut of any money they recover from the insurance company; it also means that if they don’t succeed they usually don’t get paid anything.

Another payment option is a flat fee that you have to pay no matter if you win or lose. I highly suggest you stay away from such a bargain if at all possible. If your attorney is not confident enough in their own abilities, they may try and get a flat fee out of you right off the bat knowing well that there is little chance of winning. You want to stay away from the sort of attorney.

Tags: collect insurance claim, Insurance
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How To Collect Insurance Claims Without An Attorney

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

By Jason Markum

Nobody likes paying insurance premiums month after month, but what’s even worse than that is finding out that you have a valid claim but your insurance company has refused to pay you!

What do you do when your insurance company refuses to pay out a valid claim? Can you resolve the issue without hiring an attorney? That’s exactly what I’m going to discuss in this article today.

If you hire an attorney, be sure to hire one that has experience settling insurance claims. Also make sure that your attorney will work on a contingent fee basis, this means that they will only get paid if you win and then the lawyer will only receive a cut of what you receive from the insurance company. Stay away from flat rate fee seeking attorneys in every circumstance.

But if you’re like me, you don’t want to run out and hire an attorney because you don’t want to pay for them and you also don’t want the added hassle. So can you settle with the insurance company yourself without hiring an attorney?

The answer is yes, probably. Here are some tips to help you out in your quest. Understanding these things will help you win your case against your insurance company.

The first thing you want to consider is whether or not you live in an at-fault or no-fault state. You’re better off negotiating yourself if you live in a no-fault state because in these places the insurance company is bound by law to reimburse you for any losses.

Next, be sure to understand all the language in your insurance policy. Spend as much time as you can learning what every section means specifically. If you don’t understand a certain word in the documents, look it up. The more you understand and the more familiar you are with your own insurance policy, the harder will be for your insurance company to use that policy against you and try to muddle you with fine print. Not only that, you may be well off looking up the applicable law as well.

Next, you want to be sure and document absolutely everything completely. Every time you pick up the phone and call the insurance company, make a note of who you talk to, make a note of the date, make a note of the time, get their employee number, write down exactly what you said and exactly what they said, keep a running dialogue written down. If you write a letter to the insurance company, keep a copy of it. If they write you back, keep a copy of that, keep a copy of every thing that has anything to do with your case including police reports, or medical reports, or any other kind of reports that you come across.

Finally, be persistent. If somebody tells you “no”, then go around them and talk to somebody higher up at the insurance company. Just keep pushing until you reach vice presidents, or even presidents. The more people you can talk to and the higher up the food chain the better off you’re gonna be because sometimes the people at the bottom don’t have the authority to make decisions and are there simply to tell you “no” in the hope that you will go away.

Tags: How To Collect Insurance Claims Without An Attorney, Insurance, insurance attorneys, insurance claims
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How To Avoid Common Insurance Traps

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

By Jason Markum

I don’t know anybody that likes to pay for insurance. Sure we like to have insurance when something goes wrong, but we don’t like to pay for it in the meantime! The problem with insurances is that it’s incredibly complicated and hard to understand most of the time. We are never really sure exactly what kind of insurance we should have, how much we should pay, and how much is too much or not enough.

In this article I want to discuss several of the more common insurance traps that people tend to fall into and how you can avoid them.

The first trap is buying life insurance from a television commercial or through a mail-order advertisement or e-mail advertisement. These companies will hire celebrity spokesman and spokeswomen for their fancy commercials in order to get you to lower your guard and trust them, but it’s almost always a bad idea to do so.

Why is it such a bad idea? Because many of these companies will accept just about anybody as a customer, no matter the persons risk. The only way they can do that is by overcharging everybody in order to cover the bad customers that they accept. Sometimes these companies charge as much as twice as much in monthly fees that a regular life insurance company would charge. They also kill you with fine print; sometimes stating that your policy won’t pay out at all until you’ve made at least two or three years worth of payments!

Now there is one sort of life insurance that you may read about in a mail-order advertisement or via e-mail advertisement, or even maybe through a television advertisement that is legitimate; and that is University alumni group insurance. If you went to a certain college and graduated and are now a member of the alumni group for that school, you may get solicited for life insurance through them. Many times this is okay; but like anything, read all the fine print to make sure.

The next most common insurance trap to avoid is the automatic rejection of a claim. Many times insurance companies will automatically reject every claim you make because they know that a large percentage of people will let the matter drop even though they deserve to have their claim paid.

If you are in a situation where you have an insurance claim that your insurance company has denied,don’t just go quietly away. Begin negotiating with your insurance company immediately after you receive their first notification of the denial.

Keep records of absolutely everything, all correspondence, all telephone calls, everything from medical reports to police reports to anything else that has to do with your claim including pictures and journal entries describing the exact accident.

The rule of thumb when it comes to this sort of thing is persistence. If you simply refuse to go away and keep pushing, most of the time the insurance companies will eventually yield. If not, contact an insurance attorney… that is, an attorney that has experience settling insurance claims.

Tags: Insurance, insurance claims, insurance traps
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How To Get The Best Health Insurance Coverage

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

By Jason Markum

These days the health insurance debate is raging in the halls of Congress. It is becoming harder and harder for ordinary Americans to get health coverage of any kind at an affordable rate, or any rate at all. Health care costs are skyrocketing, and insurance premiums are shooting through the roof for almost everybody.

Today I want to talk about the three major types of health care coverage to help you decide the best course in choosing the right insurance for your specific needs.

Like I said, there are three main types or coverages of health insurance. Realize also that you’re not just looking at health care costs here, but also at loss of income in case you’re incapacitated for a long period of time.

The first main type of health care coverage is basic hospital coverage that includes surgical as well as regular medical expenses. This pays for a good part of your hospital expenses as well as some nonsurgical doctor fees. This kind of coverage usually has a low deductible and will cover most of your routine hospital expenses. This coverage usually has a cap of around $30,000 or so. When you have reached that limit though, you’re usually on your own.

The second main type of health care coverage is what I call major medical coverage. This is catastrophic insurance coverage and not meant to cover every little doctor visit when you get the flu or stub your toe. This isn’t even supposed to cover minor surgeries that you may need from time to time.

The purpose of this coverage is to cover massive major surgeries from a life-threatening illness or major accident. Because of this, the deductibles for these sorts of policies are usually quite a bit higher; sometimes as high as $2,500 or even $5,000. These kinds of policies usually have caps of around $500,000 to $1 million depending on the policy; which is enough to cover all major medical bills.

The third and final type of main health care coverage is disability insurance. The purpose of disability insurance is to cover you for loss of pay, or loss of income as it were. Most people don’t realize that if you have a major life-threatening illness or major medical accident of some sort, you’re not going to be in any shape to work for quite some time and therefore you won’t have any money coming in! Disability insurance covers that possibility. It becomes especially important if you have a long-term disability.

So there you have it; those are the three main types of health care coverage that you can expect to find today. Of course I don’t know how the health care debate in Congress is going to play out in the future, so these options may change in the near future; so keep an eye out for late breaking news on this front.

Whether Congress passes major healthcare reform or not, you should make it a special point to learn as much about these three main types of health care coverages as soon as possible. Talk to your insurance agent for more specifics.

Tags: health coverage, health insurance
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How To Collect More On Your Company’s Health Insurance Policy

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

By Jason Markum

Times are pretty tough right now. The recession that started towards the end of 2008 has stretched on into 2010 with out many signs of ending any time soon. Unemployment has increased dramatically, the cost of just about everything is shooting up, and health care costs are running out of control.

If you’re lucky enough to still have a job, congratulations! If your job offers health insurance, then you are way ahead of the pack already. But that doesn’t mean you can’t squeeze a little more out of it, and that’s what I’m going to talk about today in this article.

Many companies offer health insurance to their employees, but many times those employees don’t know how to get the most out of that health insurance. In this article today I’m going to discuss several ways to squeeze every penny you can out of your health insurance and let you know several ways you may not have ever heard of to collect more out of that policy.

First off it’s important for you to know your insurance contract and every one of its provisions. That means going over all the paperwork you’ve ever been given with a fine toothed comb, and really understanding what’s in there.

Realize that not everything is set in stone, you can negotiate some things in certain circumstances. Not in all circumstances, but in some.

Sometimes the person in charge of setting up your health insurance policy within the company you work for (or own), doesn’t really know what they’re doing… or maybe they just got busy, or maybe they just don’t care. This can make discussing the issue with them difficult because you don’t want to rock the boat and make waves within the company.

Sometimes, therefore, you need to talk to the insurance broker who set up the policy outside of your company. The insurance broker will negotiate with the insurer itself, they’re the ones who usually make money from selling your company the policy so they have a vested interest in keeping you happy so that your company will continue to use them into the future. If your broker isn’t willing to sit down and talk with you, let it be known inside your company and maybe your company will find itself a new broker in the future.

Finally set up a specific person inside of your company whose job it is to liaison with the insurance company itself. You need somebody that can discuss things with the insurance company, negotiate higher payouts, and generally be on good speaking terms with them so you can get things done and get changes made when they are necessary.

Remember, insurance isn’t set in stone… everything is negotiable and how effective your insurance is sometimes just comes down to how hard you’re willing to push. In the meantime, remember… it’s your health we’re talking about, it’s very important that you have the coverage that you need at the price you can afford and at the end of the day if your insurance company can’t tailor to your needs, find a different insurance company.

Tags: health insurance, Insurance
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How to Get Health Insurance If You’re Not In a Group Plan

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

By Jason Markum

Insurance is a tricky thing. It can be complicated in the best of circumstances and in the worst of circumstances it can be almost indescribably difficult to figure out. The cost of everything in this country is skyrocketing daily it seems. And health care costs in particular are shooting right through the roof and don’t show any signs of coming down anytime soon.

When you factor in the fact that he health insurance bill that was winding through Congress seems to be completely dead as of February 2010, it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any end in sight to the high costs of health care and especially health insurance.

That might not bother you if you have a good job that offers health insurance. These sorts of group plans are less expensive because they cover so many people in your company. What happens if you don’t work for a large company that offers health insurance, or you own your own business, or are some sort of independent contractor of some kind? How do you get health insurance? How can you even afford health insurance?

The fact of the matter is, health insurance is prohibitively expensive for individuals not covered by a group plan. There are some ways around that, and I’m going to discuss them in this article today.

If you have to get health insurance as an individual, or for your family consider an HMO. HMO stands for health maintenance organization. Information on HMOs can be found online as well as through the health Association of America which is located in Washington DC.

If you choose not to use an HMO for your insurance needs, then your next best bet is probably Blue Cross/Blue Shield. In my experience Blue Cross Blue Shield is a fairly decent insurance to use and is available widely throughout the country. For instance if you live in Illinois, you will probably go with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, and so on.

If you can’t afford either of these two options then you may look into Medicaid. Finding information on Medicaid can be difficult sometimes. The best way I’ve found to get the information you need is simply to contact your local social services agency in the state that you live. They can usually point you in the right direction give you all the information you need and sometimes even help signing you up.

If you are 65 years old or older, parts A and B of Medicare is something you’re gonna want to look into. Again, your local social security office can give you more information and point you in the right direction.

One final suggestion, if you currently work for a company that offers group health insurance and you’re thinking of leaving the company for any number of reasons, contact your plan administrator and ask them about conversion into an individual policy. Sometimes group plans will allow you to convert your plan into an individual policy and sometimes this can be a viable option for many people.

However you go about it, getting insurance is one of the most important aspects of our lives and something you should put considerable effort into solving.

Tags: group health insurance, health insurance, individual health insurance, Insurance
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What Is Medicare And What Doesn’t It Cover?!

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

By Jason Markum

Health insurance is mind numbingly confusing in the best of circumstances. Under the worst circumstances it’s impossible to understand and extremely frustrating, even downright impossible to deal with.

Many people believe that when they get older, that is to say, when they become senior citizens; they will no longer have to worry about health insurance problems because Medicare will take care of them… at least that’s what they think!

The problem is, most people know as much about Medicare as they do about their regular health insurance… which is to say, they don’t know much of anything! In this article today I’m going to discuss in a little detail what Medicare is and shed a light on some of the things that it does not cover that you need to know about as soon as possible.

First off what is Medicare? It’s different than Medicaid which is a federal program that gives medical coverage for poor people of all ages. Time and time again we see older people forced into Medicaid when they’ve used up all of their money and sold all their worldly possessions paying for the things that Medicare doesn’t provide. It’s truly a tragedy in this country, but I digress.

Medicare is an insurance program that was set up for people who are over 65 years old. The federal government pays for it through the Social Security Administration, which is something many people don’t know. What you do is pay insurance premiums every month to regular insurance companies like Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Those insurance companies act as a sort of intermediary between you and the government.

One of the main problems with this setup is that private insurance companies will always and have always acted on their own best interest. What this means is many times they will deny claims for Medicare. Now there is a watchdog agency that’s supposed to look out for things like that called the professional standards review organization.

The problem with that is that it’s a government agency and they don’t want to spend any more money than they have to either! So there’s a sort of wink and nod system some people might say between this agency and private insurance companies. Neither of them want to pay more than they have to!

So what does Medicare not cover… these things change from year to year but generally speaking it won’t cover custodial care. It also has hospital cutoffs which is a pretty big problem. Many times elderly people need longer care in hospitals and Medicare will not pay for it.

I’d like to end this article with a list of solutions for you to get around this problem; the problem is, I don’t have any solutions… and I don’t know anybody else who does either. I suppose the only solution is to become obscenely wealthy when you are young so that you can pay for the medical care that you need when you get older. Of course this is hardly feasible for 98% of the population who aren’t multimillionaires and for you guys, unfortunately, I don’t know what the solution is.

Tags: Insurance, medicaid, medicare
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Should You Buy Supplemental Health Insurance When On Medicare?

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

By Jason Markum

Health insurance! Will there ever be a time when we don’t have to worry about health insurance?! I sure hope so because in my mind there are not many things that are more complicated and hard to understand and harder to deal with than health insurance.

It’s hard enough when you work for a company that provides you with health insurance at group plan discount rates. It’s almost impossible if you’re an individual who owns their own business or is an independent contractor, or someone who tends to hop from job to job.

And it doesn’t get any easier as you get older! Many people think that after they hit 65 years old they can kick back and not worry about health insurance anymore because they will be eligible for Medicare. The problem is, most people don’t understand Medicare any better than they understood their old health insurance.

Before we get further along in this article, I want to make one suggestion very clear. I suggest that you do not cancel your current health insurance or least your major medical insurance when you turn 65 just because you will be eligible for Medicare. The reason for this is that Medicare doesn’t cover a whole lot of things that you are likely to need in the very near future depending on your health and health history.

But enough about that, in this article I want to talk about supplemental health insurance and whether or not you should buy it if you are on Medicare. The reason why people typically consider this is because, like I said above, Medicare doesn’t cover many essential items that you will need an it is correctly thought that supplemental health insurance will help cover those gaps.

The problem here, and it’s the main problem as far as I can tell… is that Medicare changes yearly. That means the gaps, or the things that it doesn’t cover, also change yearly. This makes it very difficult to purchase supplemental insurance to cover those gaps when you don’t know what those gaps are going to be year after year. The whole purpose of insurance is to plan ahead and it becomes nearly impossible to do that when things keep changing.

I suggest you check with the American Association of Retired Persons because they will keep current on all of these issues and let you know possibly the different gaps that are currently extended in Medicare and also probably what they expect the gaps to be in the future and so therefore will help you to plan to buy supplemental insurance adequately.

One thing to note however is that supplemental policies for Medicare usually won’t cover nursing homes or extended care issues. Some insurers may start doing this and maybe have already. Also you should note that purchasing several different supplemental policies may not be helpful because in many cases those policies will only pay out in a coordinated fashion with your other insurances that you already have. So if one supplemental package covers one thing, another won’t pay for that same thing… or they will both pay out half.

The bottom line is, if you are going to depend solely on Medicare for your health insurance needs in the future it is fairly important for you to purchase supplemental insurance to go along with it. Check with a professional insurance agent that you trust for more information.

Tags: Insurance, medicare, supplemental insurance
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What You Need To Know About Disability Insurance

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

By Jason Markum

Insurance is a fact of life that not many of us are happy with. I don’t know about you but I can’t stand paying insurance premiums month after month after month, year after year, and hardly ever taking advantage of them by having a claim paid out except for the odd doctors visit now and then.

The problem is, we are inundated with insurance. We are an insurance nation; it’s part of the core of what makes us American. The reason why is tied up closely with our Constitution. You see, we’re a free country and in a free country you are free to make your own choices. The problem with that is that most of the time we make incredibly stupid choices!

Insurance helps cover the stupid choices we make yet at the same time allowing us the freedom to make those stupid choices which is what it means to be an American! But I’m getting off the point here…

It seems like there’s insurance for just about everything. There’s automobile insurance to cover us in case we have car accidents, there’s health insurance to cover us in case we get sick or need major surgery. There’s homeowners insurance in case our house is burned down or gets flooded (though check your policy carefully, it probably doesn’t contain flood damage insurance!). There’s even life insurance that will pay out large sums of money to your family in case you ever die so that their quality of life doesn’t diminish simply because your paycheck has disappeared with you.

But in all that confusion of insurance, there’s one kind of insurance that often gets ignored and it is just about the most important insurance you will ever need. I’m talking of course about disability insurance.

Sure if we wreck our car, our auto insurance will cover the damages. If we get sick or health insurance will cover the hospital bills. And if we die our life insurance will make sure that our family is provided for financially. What happens in each of those instances if we are disabled?

Sure, your car insurance will pay for your car but what about YOU if you can’t go to work after that accident? And sure your health insurance will pay the medical bills while you’re in the hospital when you’re sick, but what if your illness keep you from work for the next six months; who pays then? And sure if you die your life insurance will provide for your family… but what if you don’t die and are merely disabled but can’t work any longer? Who pays then…

The answer is disability insurance. Disability insurance covers all of those things in the case that you are no longer able to perform your work function. If your paycheck disappears because you can’t go to work, your disability insurance will kick in and save the day.

When choosing a disability insurance policy make sure that it accounts for inflation, maintains your family’s standard of living at your current income level, and is set up to grow your net worth over time (this goes back to the inflation thing).

You’ve made all the right choices so far with health, auto, homeowners, and life insurance. Don’t screw it up by forgetting the most important insurance of them all… get yourself a good solid disability insurance right away.

Tags: automobile insurance, Disability Insurance, health insurance, Insurance, liability insurance
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How To Pick The Right Disability Insurance

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

By Jason Markum

Insurance insurance insurance that’s all anybody ever talks about these days! But there’s a reason why people talk about insurance so much, and it’s because it is so important to so many different parts of all of our lives. I wish it wasn’t so important because it bores me to tears to think about it, let alone talk about it but here I am writing an article all about insurance for you today anyway!

Why? Well hopefully I can explain it in a way that doesn’t bore you to tears and is helpful to you.

Disability insurance is incredibly important and it’s something that most people don’t give a second thought to let alone purchase. “I will never get disabled – not me!”, that’s what everybody thinks… the fact of the matter is, I’ve seen statistics that show that on average by the age of 37 a person is 3 1/2 times more likely to get disabled than they are to die. This continues to be the case until you hit the age of 68 when it switches and suddenly you become more likely to die than become disabled but we don’t need to talk about that!

The thing about it is, our medical industry is becoming better and better at saving people’s lives. This gives people a false sense of security because they don’t consider the fact that even though their life has been saved they may be disabled for many years to come and possibly forever.

This becomes especially important if you do any kind of manual labor job, or even any job that requires physical activity of any kind because if you become disabled you may not be able to perform your job function anymore. And what do you do for money then?

This is why disability insurance is so vitally important. It’s not enough to get car insurance because that car wreck could disable you. It’s not enough to get health insurance because it will cover hospital bills but it won’t help you if you become disabled to pay your house payment and other bills. It’s not enough to get liability insurance to cover the financial stability of your family because you may not die but merely become disabled in which case you still have to support them. No, all these things require that you also have disability insurance.

So how do you pick the right disability insurance? First off look for one that is non-cancelable by the company that issues it. Make sure it’s cancelable by you, just not by them! Next make sure that it’s guaranteed continuable until the age of 65 at least. 70 to 75 years old is even better.

Next make sure that there are no restrictive riders when your policy is issued. What you want in a disability insurance is to have the broadest coverage that you can get to cover as many different areas as possible.

Next make sure that your premium cost doesn’t increase before you reach the age of 65. That is to say, make sure there is no cost increase and that this is guaranteed in writing.

These are some of the more common things that you need to look for in a disability insurance. There are many other things that you could look for, but these main things will set you in good stead and send you firmly down the path to finding a good disability insurance.

Tags: Disability Insurance, Insurance
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How Much Disability Insurance Is Enough?

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

By Jason Markum

Insurance, it’s a vitally important part of every single one of our lives yet at the same time it’s hardly understood by anybody. We have insurance for cars, houses, medical, expenses, even life insurance in case we die, and disability insurance in case we are no longer able to work to support ourselves.

In fact the entire country here in America right now has just spent the last 3 to 6 months massively debating health insurance all the way up to the highest levels in Congress were they’ve been trying to pass the president’s health insurance initiatives unsuccessfully. The point is, which ever side of that debate you take, it’s pretty incredible that so many of us are spending so much time talking about it!

I mean, it’s insurance; the world is talking about insurance! But I digress…

One thing I find though in all the talk of insurance on all the different levels… one thing hardly ever gets talked about and that is disability insurance and that’s a real shame because disability insurance is one of the most important insurances that you will ever need.

It covers us in case we get disabled and can no longer work. It pays all our bills, and supports our families, and makes sure our kids are able to go to college and that we can pay for. In short it’s the most important insurance I can think of and we hardly ever talk about.

So I for one would like to talk about it in this article today and I’m going to do so by talking about how much disability insurance is enough.

The first thing to do before you buy disability insurance is to completely assess your financial background. You need to list all your assets, including your house and cars and cash and investment accounts everything that has a value in can be liquidated. Next figure up how much money you need to live off of for each year. Make sure to calculate the cost of mortgage payments, utility bills, food, other insurance costs, and absolutely everything that you pay for in a given year..

The point of this exercise is to get a good idea of how much money you have right now, and how much you need to live off of in a given year so that you can calculate how much will need if your income level suddenly dropped to zero.

One important thing to consider is inflation. All the things that you spend money on might cost a total of $60,000 a year let’s say. That $60,000 is going to increase next year because of inflation. To buy the same exact things next year in my cost you $62,000. So when calculating how much you’ll need in the future be sure to calculate for inflation and if you don’t know how to do this search around the Internet and I’m sure you can find a free inflation calculator or at least learn the simple mathematics involved which I won’t get into today.

Another thing to consider is partial payment for work. Does your job include partial payments in the case of your disability? If so be sure to calculate that in to the equation.

Also an important thing to consider is increases over time in your expenditures. Your expenditures may be $60,000 a year this year but in six years your kid may need to go to college, at which time your expenditures will jump quite a bit. Be sure to take these sorts of things into consideration when you make your calculations.

You can get a fairly good idea of how much you’re going to need in disability insurance just by doing these simple exercises I’ve discussed in this article. But at the end of the day you really need to sit down with a licensed professional insurance agent and go over the numbers with them in greater detail because they will catch things that you have missed.

Tags: Disability Insurance, Insurance
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How to Get Better Homeowners Insurance

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

By Jason Markum

Insurance tends to be a complicated issue to discuss. People find it hard to understand the fine print in most of their policies and in fact most people don’t understand how the insurance industry even works so they tend not to ask questions when they should and not to prod when they should.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be taken advantage of with your insurance policy, but it does mean that you might not be getting the best policy for your money; because after all, what do you know?

A case in point I like to talk about is homeowners insurance. Almost everybody buys their house with a mortgage. Hardly anybody pays with cash these days, at least nobody that I know! The point of this whole thing is that if you buy your house with a mortgage the bank is going to require you to have home insurance before they give you the loan. The reason why they do this is in case something happens to the house they are covered because in most circumstances the house is the major form of collateral for the loan and if house disappears the collateral disappears and the bank loses its money.

But I’m getting off track here…

The fact of the matter is since banks require you to have a homeowners insurance, people often just buy whatever homeowners insurance the insurance company tells them to. They don’t necessarily realize that they can negotiate and get better homeowners insurance. I know, when you’re borrowing a lot of money from the bank like that it’s a nerve-racking situation and the last thing you want to do is nitpick over homeowners insurance… but the fact is, you can save yourself a lot of money especially in the long run if you do nitpick over that homeowners insurance!

Another fact is, most people overspend for homeowners insurance. They do this by protecting themselves against minor losses that you really are better off not wasting your money on covering because the replacement costs for these things aren’t significant to begin with.

So what should you have covered in your homeowners policy? Well first off make sure that you’re protected against the total destruction of your house. The bank may only require you to have 80% coverage but you’re better off with 100% destruction coverage.

If you have lots of items in your house like expensive silverware, expensive jewelry, expensive electronic devices like big-screen TVs, surround sound systems and things like that, you’re going to be tempted to ensure those things in your homeowners policy but I strongly suggest you don’t. If you’re worried about replacing those things, purchase separate insurance solely for those things as it will almost always be less expensive than clumping those things onto your house policy.

Finally I suggest you stay away from policies that only cover a certain amount of liability protection for personal liability. Many policies will only cover hundred thousand to $150,000 in personal liability which is hardly ever enough money. Instead, go for an umbrella policy that picks up where your homeowners insurance leaves off.

Tags: homeowners insurance, house insurance, Insurance, mortgage
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How To Protect Your Stuff With Renters Insurance

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

By Jason Markum

We get so caught up in America talking about health insurance and also car insurance and homeowners insurance (and life insurance, and even disability insurance for that matter) that we often don’t talk about renters insurance as much as we should and because of this millions of renters don’t get the coverage that they need and deserve.

I’ve always wondered why that is? Is it because we just don’t take renters seriously? I mean a homeowner; that’s somebody who’s invested a lot of money into purchasing a house. We think of them as more responsible steady members of society and homeowners insurance goes hand-in-hand without even thinking about it.

Renters on the other hand; well… they’re just renters. What do they have worth insuring anyway? I don’t know if it’s because we don’t think of renters as serious members of society because they don’t own their own home or if we just don’t bother to worry about them for some other reason… but the fact of the matter is renters have just as much right to have their possessions insured as everybody else and that’s what I’m going to talk about in this article today… how to protect your stuff with renters insurance.

Today the statistics say that only one person in five who rents has their stuff insured with liability insurance. This is just absolutely amazing! This figure should be much higher and hopefully after reading this article it will be since all of your renters will go out and buy renters insurance ;-)

Generally speaking the person that owns the building you live in, the landlord, will have insurance. That insurance will usually only cover the building, and not your possessions. So if there’s some sort of problem like a fire or flood or earthquake or something like that, your stuff won’t get covered if it is destroyed. Likewise, if there is a theft and somebody robs you, that landlords insurance probably won’t cover you for that either.

First thing you need to understand is that you need a policy that has full replacement coverage. That’s gonna cost you a little bit more but is well worth it because a policy without it will usually only cover the cost of your items minus depreciation. So if you had that TV for say, five years, the insurance company may claim that it is worth zero dollars since all of it’s value will have depreciated away. That’s why you need a full replacement coverage that replaces your items no matter what.

Most policies will only cover say $25,000 worth of loss and for many people that’s nowhere near enough money to replace all of your items. Luckily for just a few dollars more per month you can raise the limit up to $100,000 or more.

If you have especially expensive items like jewelry etc, you may want to have them insured separately instead of lumping them into your renters insurance policy.

Finally not all insurance companies are created equal, but in the case of rental insurance it’s usually quite okay to go with a discount insurance broker. Shop around for the best value and the cheapest costs and you should be just fine.

Tags: Insurance, rental insurance, renters insurance
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How To Get The Cheapest Car Insurance For Your Children

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

By Jason Markum

Nobody likes to pay insurance premiums month after month, and year after year, it’s especially hard to pay the premiums on our auto insurance because unless you’ve ever gotten into a car accident you’ll never get any of that money back. The fact of the matter is, many people drive their entire lives without having an accident and it can be incredibly frustrating to have to keep paying the premiums and to watch the premiums increase year after year and become more and more expensive.

And then one day you have children and you don’t even think about it but one day they will be driving themselves are going to need car insurance. Perish the thought!

Children are especially hard to insure with car insurance because the insurance companies know that kids are the most likely to have accidents, especially kids that have only recently gotten their drivers licenses. Because of this, you are likely to wildly overspend for your kids car insurance if you’re not careful.

In this article today I’m going to give you a few simple tips that you can use to find and acquire the cheapest car insurance for your children.

The first trick in lowering insurance premiums for your children is to list them as occasional drivers and not principle drivers. The principle driver is somebody who drives all the time constantly, or principally. An occasional driver is just that… somebody who drives only now and then. Let’s face it, your children are going to be in school most of the time and most likely they’re driving ability is going to be curtailed by other things and specifically since you really keep an eye on things and decided when they can drive. That means they are realistically only an occasional driver.

Listing your kids as an occasional driver can lower your insurance premiums a lot. Most people don’t realize how much but for boys that premium can decrease by up to a third and for girls by almost a fourth just by listing them as occasional drivers. Seems well worth it to me!

The next trick is to only cover your children for one of your cars. These days families have two and sometimes even three or four different cars and your gut instinct is going to be to purchase coverage for your children on all of those cars. A better idea is to simply designate the cheapest car as “their car” and purchase coverage for it alone.

If several of your children have their licenses at the same time then cover the girl for the more expensive of the cars and you’ll save a lot because female drivers tend to have less expensive insurance for some reason.

So there you have it, two simple tricks for lowering your children’s car insurance quickly and easily and with not much effort on your part. There are in fact many other ways to lower insurance premiums for your children, especially if they still live in your home but I will leave them for another time.

Tags: auto insurance, car insurance, car insurance for children, childrens insurance, kids insurance
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More Tips For Saving Money On Your Children’s Car Insurance

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

By Jason Markum

Boy are insurance premiums shooting through the roof! Seems like a month doesn’t go by when some insurance of mine hasn’t increased its premiums by just a little bit. Why, at the end of last year 2009 I even got a letter from my health insurance company telling me that times are tough and we all have to band together and pull each other through this recession. Apparently the way to do that is for me to start paying more for that particular health insurance!

But there’s one kind of insurance in particular that is historically more expensive then it maybe should be, and that is auto insurance for children. Now I can sort of see the case that the insurance companies make… that is, kids get in lots of car wrecks. They’re stupid, they do stupid things, they drive stupidly, they don’t pay attention very well, and they simply don’t have much driving experience which leads to more auto accidents. And when there’s more auto accidents, that means the insurance companies have to pay out more money… which is something that no insurance company likes to do. Hence higher rates for childrens car insurance.

This can be especially hard to handle if your family has several children all of whom need car insurance. But there is some silver lining to this problem. There are several ways that you can lower the cost of your premiums for insuring the children in your family.

The first and most basic tip is to make sure that your children have taken driver’s ed. While it is true that most states require the passing of driver’s ed in order to issue a valid drivers license, some states don’t. If you live in one of those states then make sure that your child has attended and in fact passed driver’s ed class anyway. If they do, you can expect a decrease in your insurance premium by sometimes as much is 10% or more. Of course you can must actually pass the class; it’s not good enough that they merely attended.

The next tip that most people have already heard of is called the “good student discount”. Basically this just means that if your child maintains at least a B average you get a discount. The higher your child’s grades are, the higher your discount will be… so keep that in mind, most people don’t realize that part. You’d be surprised but sometimes having a good student can lower your insurance premiums by as much as a fourth which is a lot of money if you actually think about it.

Another tip has to do with cars that your children own outright. If your kid owns their own car then insure them under your policy and not under their name. Almost every insurance company offers a multicar discount and this discount can range anywhere from 10% sometimes up to as much as 30% depending on the company. That will give you a significant discount month in and month out.

Finally, if your child lives over a hundred miles away for college and doesn’t have a car on campus then you can try for a college student discount which ranges usually from 10% up to 15% and sometimes even 20%. You may be curious why you would need car insurance at all for your children if they’re away at college and aren’t driving… well they always come home don’t they? Spring break, fall break, summer break, Christmas break, and on and on… and when they do what’s the first thing they ask for? The keys! So there you go.

There you are, several tried and true tips to lower your insurance premiums for children in your family.

Tags: auto insurance, children auto insurance, Insurance
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How To Guard Against Uninsured Motorists

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

By Jason Markum

There’s nothing worse in the world than getting into a car accident that was caused by somebody else who doesn’t have car insurance. You have spent your entire life dutifully paying your auto insurance premiums month after month, year after year, and in all that time you have never had a single accident. Then one day, through no fault of your own, somebody runs into your car causing significant damage, maybe even totaling it.

You get out of your car, you make sure everybody is okay, and then you grab your notepad and pen out of the glove box and go to get the insurance information from the person who ran into you. Almost immediately you can tell that something is wrong! Maybe they start stuttering or looking away or try to change the subject… but in no time at all you figure out the problem. They don’t have car insurance.

What do you do under such a circumstance? What CAN you do under such a circumstance? Sure the police will issue a ticket to that person for not having insurance and the fine can be quite hefty… they may even lose their license. But that doesn’t help you any! That doesn’t fix the dent in your car or replace it if it was ruined!

Sometimes your own policy will contain a provision that deals with uninsured, or underinsured accidents. In fact some states require that basic liability insurance contains such a provision. But that doesn’t mean it will cover all the expenses. If your policy does have such a provision, the chances are that it will pay out a very bare minimum of what you will need to make yourself whole again.

If you are especially worried about this then there are some steps you can take before hand. Of course, it’s important to note that these things must be done before hand and are usually unavailable after the fact. What that means is that if you get into an accident and haven’t put these steps into place already, it’s going to be too late to use them.

The main thing you can do is to purchase additional underinsured coverage in your own insurance policy. This will raise your insurance premium every month but will give you the peace of mind that you need to make sure that no matter what happens, you will be covered. Basically what this insurance does is pay out if the other person that caused the accident doesn’t have insurance, which is exactly what we’re looking for.

The problem with these policies is that you’ll really have to go at it with your insurance company if you ever have to have a claim paid out. Why is that? Because your insurance company doesn’t want to give you money because somebody else who is not a customer of theirs crashed into you. So you may have to go head-to-head with your insurance company and really push in an adversarial sort of way to get these policies to pay out. This means strict note taking and medical reporting so that you can really prove what the damages are and make sure they are without dispute.

Tags: underinsured insurance, uninsured insurance, uninsured motorists
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How To Pick The Best Full Service Stock Broker

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

By Jason Markum

I am a stock picking machine! I read a company’s annual report, a read the balance sheets and income statements and other financial statements, I read the Wall Street Journal from cover to cover every single day, and in my spare time I watch Bloomberg television which is one of the best financial news stations on the planet. Heck, I also listen in on quarterly financial calls that the companies make with their investment bankers!

Then, when I have all my information lined up, and I know I’ve made a great decision about a new stock to pick I go out and I buy it! Some time usually goes by and then….stock starts to drop.

It happens every single time… the fact of the matter is, for all my effort, I’m just really really bad at this! And I studied finance and economics at one of the better private colleges in America! I have training specifically in this area! But it doesn’t matter, I still stink at it!

So what am I to do, and what are you to do when, like me, your investment decisions go badly? The only option may be for you to hire a full service stockbroker. These people are paid to give you advice to help you pick the stocks that will perform the best overtime.

Many people don’t understand what a full-service brokerage firm can do for them, so I thought I’d write a short little article to describe some of the things that you can expect from them.

First of all you should expect advice. They will be full of investment ideas and if those ideas are any good they will be tailored to your specific style and investment needs. They may even give you advice on creating financial plans like an accountant would.

Second they can give your research, lots of research. The largest brokerage firms spend millions of dollars every year on in-house research that they will make available to you. These are great if you want to stay up-to-date on the companies you invest in or the specific industries that they work in.

Third they will offer you other investment products besides stocks. This might include municipal bonds, tax shelters, zero coupon bonds, mutual funds, real estate investments, and even some insurance like annuities and the like. Some firms will even offer you things like free checking and money market accounts and most firms will allow you the opportunity to borrow money against your investment account (called margin trading).

There is one big thing that you absolutely have to keep in mind before choosing any full-service stock brokerage firm and that’s this… all stockbrokers make money solely on whether or not you buy or sell a stock. The more stock you buy and sell, the more commissions they make. This means that they have a vested interest in getting you to buy and sell as much stock as possible which may not be the best investment strategy for you. Be sure to keep this in mind for choosing any stockbroker.

Tags: full service stock brokerage, investing, stock broker, stock brokerage
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