Archive for July, 2009

Things to Consider Before Making Car Insurance Claims

Posted by admin on July 30th, 2009

Why did you insure your car ? of course to protect it from any loss or damage that might happen. But you still have to reconsider if you’d like to make an insurance claim, is it feaseble ? and how this claim could effect your insurance policy ?.

You can’t just make a claim for any scratch on your car, because too many claims can get you a penalty which will raise your premium. You also have to look into the cause of the acccident, causes such as drunk driving will only give you a bad reputation to your insurance company, and there are more things to consider.

Here I’ll give you things that you shall notice and consider everytime you’d like to make a claim:

  1. Policy Renewal. Everytime your insurance period ends, usually you can renew it or you can choose not to. But please notify that insurance company can also decide not to renew your policy. This can be affected by many factors including previous accident and claims.
  2. Minor Loss and Own Risk Payment. Everytime you make a claim, the insurance company will ask you to pay an own risk / excess fee. So if your car only experience a minor loss, it would be better if you don’t file a claim, especially if the repairment cost is only a bit more expensive than the own risk fee.
  3. Penalty. Usually every insurance company have a bonus and penalty policy. If you spend a whole year without a claim you’ll get a bonus which can be a discount for the insurance rate. But otherwise, a year full of claim will get you penalty and a lost of bonus, this penalty could raise your premium to the point that can surprise you. So it is suggested that you get full information about this before you buy an insurance policy from your insurance company or an agent, about how much bonus or penalty that you can get and the factors that affect them.
  4. Causes of accidents. If the accident happens because of your fault, the claim might be dropped or as I said before at least you’ll get a penalty except for minor accidents that might get exceptions. But still it depends on the claim numbers already filed and your “reputation”, including the history of tickets and violations such as drunk driving.
  5. Reporting an Accident. If you think you experience a claimable accident, then you should report it right away to your insurance company and police department so that the damages, injury and evidence can be assessed as soon as possible. retardation of report coul cause and investigation delay and might cause the insurance company drop your claim.
  6. Garage Cost. You should think about this one, because most of the insurance company will not cover the cost of storing your car while it’s waiting to be repaired, and if the claim is being assessed which could take sometime the storage cost might be remarkable. To solve the problem you should contact the insurer to make an agreement about who’s going to pay for this. This could work especially if you have a good reputation.
  7. Get an Advice from Your Agent. It would be better if you ask your agent before you make a claim, after all they have better knowledge than you, and to see the fact that each insurance company has different rules and features that might confuses you.
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How To Make A Suitable Cover For Your Life Insurance

Posted by admin on July 26th, 2009

Many people don’t feel comfortable about making plans for their death including by a life insurance, they just find that this is not a fun topic to talk about and some of them don’t even want to talk about it at all.

The people’s desire of having life insurance keep on dropping and According to the Insurance Information Institute, one-third of all U.S. families with a new baby at home don’t update their life insurance coverage. Maybe that what make the prices of life insurance have been dropping significantly. Since 1994, premiums have plummeted 50% for standard risk term insurance according to The Insurance Information Institute, and this year they’re expecting that it’s going to be dropping by another 4%.

This seems like a good time to buy a life insurance, afterall it’s actually very important to have a death plan, think about it.. don’t you want guarantee the life of your spouse and your beloved children if you suddenly leave them. To have your life well covered I’ll give you some helpful tips :

  1. Get Life Insurance Quotes. Look for websites providing free insurance quotes where you can get opinions and pricing information, this could help you a lot to choose.
  2. Make Yourself Feel Confident and Informed. No matter if you buy a life insurance policy on your own or hire a professional’s help, you should stick to the life insurance you get from the websites that you’ve searched earlier to make yourself feel confident and informed.
  3. Choose a Financially Strong Company. Make sure that the insurance company you choose have earned an “A” or higher rating given by one of the reputable rating companies such as A.M Best, Standard & Poor’s, Duff & Phelps, Weiss or Moody’s and Fitch.
  4. Remove The Perception That says Advisers Know Everything. sometimes There are some advisers say that they have more knowledge about an insurance company’s financial strength than a rating company, or claiming that ratings are not important. You cannot believe this, rating companies have learned good methods to decide the rating of one company and they do this professionally because that’s all they do so there’s no way and adviser could have more knowledge compare to them. And because life insurance is a long time insurance (life time) and even after the policy holder is gone, therefore it’s very important to know the company’s financial strength or you (your heirs) will end up getting nothing.
  5. Find Out How Much Cover You Need. To know this you can start to make a counting on approximately how much your spouse’s expenses until retirement and also your children expenses until they finish college. To do this you can use an online calculator provided by websites including MSN Money.
  6. Opt For Term Life. A term life policy is best for most people in age from about 20-50. For wealthy people over the age of 60 a cash-value life insurance can make sense, but for most people term insurance is still the best.
  7. Live a Healthy Life. If you buy a life insurance, you will be examined to determine your risk class. The lower risk class you got, the lesser money you will pay for the policy. To improve your risk class you can start by taking simple steps such as quit smoking, loose your weight, reduce your cholesterol and blood pressure. You’ll be surprised by how much money you can save for this.
  8. Decide How To Buy. Depends on how much extra money you would like to safe or use, you can go alone and buy it directly from the insurance company and save more money, you can go to a fee-only or commission-based financial planner, or through an insurance agent.
  9. How Those Third Parties Earn Money. Insurance agents and commission-only financial planners will earn money if you buy an insurance product from them, while fee-based planners charge both fee and commission on the product, and fee-only planners don’t sell products, they just charge a fee for their guidance.
  10. Rearrange Your Policy As According To Your Conditions. Your condition will change through the years, therefore you must adjust your life insurance with that condition. Especially when you marry, divorce, have a child or start caring for an aging parent. In the end, after your children all grown up and already have independent life, and by the time you sure that you’ve saved enough for retirement, then you can stop paying for life insurance entirely.

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Property Insurance for Renters

Posted by admin on July 25th, 2009

If you live in a rental house or in an apartment, don’t feel secure just because your landlord have already insured the building you’re living in. Usually landlords only insure their property, that means they only protect the building and it doesn’t include your belongings or anything inside the building. It make sense because if they insure the building and everything in it they would have to pay a lot more money for the policy especially for apartment owners. So what if your home got robbed, burned or any other loss causes that might happened, how do you protect your belongings? or maybe there’s a guess experienced an acccident inside your apartment and then press charges against you?

There’s something called renters insurance that you can use to protect you from all those risks. This kind of policy will protect you as if you owned a home, it includes :

• Personal Property Protection
Covers the loss or damage of your stuff
• Family Liability Protection
Provides legal representation and protection against judgments
• Guest Medical Protection
Covers medical costs for visitors injured at your home
• Additional Living Expenses
Reimbursement for costs of temporary housing during reconstruction

Coverage Choices:
• Replacement Coverage – Allows you to receive the full purchase price of lost items
• High Value Item Coverage – Extends protection beyond your basic policy limits

What about protection against flood ? well, usually a renters policy doesn’t cover floods, but you can ask the insurance company the possibility for you to have a national flood insurance policy.

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Another Tips For Your Auto Insurance

Posted by admin on July 23rd, 2009

Here are ten ways to reduce your auto insurance premium :

  1. Ask For Higher Deductible Values. Perhaps you already know that deductible is the amount of money you have to pay every time you make a claim. By increasing your deductible value let’s say from $200 to $500, you can decrease the cost of your comprehensive premium by 15 to 30 percent and so on.
  2. Drop The Coverage You Don’t Need. Protecting old cars with a low market value with collision / comprehensive cover is a waste of money, because any claim you make perhaps lower than the premium’s cost and the deductible amount.
  3. Don’t Duplicate Medical Coverage. You can ask your insurance company to remove the personal injury / medical protection from the policy schedule if you already have a good health, life and disability insurance.
  4. Buy a Low Profile Car. This tip is a kind of hard to follow because it’s related to people’s taste for private vehicle. But it’s true that it’s more expensive to insure a car that costs a lot to repair, popular amongst car thieves or known as a vehicle that’s not having a good safety record. As a recommendation to see vehicle’s risk levels you can visit Insurance Institute For Highway Safety’s Website.
  5. Lessen Drive. Have you ever heard of “low mileage discount”? actually many insurance companies give this kind of discount to the policy holders who drives a lower than average number of miles each year. Please contact your insurance company for more information and to ask whether you qualified or not.
  6. Optimize Your Safety Instruments. You also can get a premium discount based on the safety instruments you have in your vehicle such as air bags, anti-lock brakes, automatic seat belts, an approved alarm system, daytime running lights, or an anti-theft device.
  7. Teenager’s Discount. Insure your teenager child in the same policy with you. If your child has good grades and pass an approved driver’s education course, this could give you a lower rate. you can even have additional discount if your child goes to college which is at least 100 miles from home and doesn’t bring along a car.
  8. Put All Of Your Vehicles In The Same Policy. If you have more than one vehicles it would be a lot cheaper to put them in one insurance policy than if you put them in separate policies. You can also get special price if you buy property or life insurance from the same company.
  9. Other Discounts. There are actually a lot of discounts that you can have, for example usually there’s a discount for senior citizens (if you’re older than 50 or 55 and/or retired), discount that’s given for not having accidents or moving violations in three years or if you’re a long time costumer. You must contact your insurance company to confirm this.
  10. Think Before Making Extra Payment For Roadside assistance. Roadside assistance like a tow could increase your premium and effect your eligibility for coverage. If you hold a credit card you may already have a roadside plan provided by your credit card, try to check it out with your credit card provider.

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Jewellery Insurance

Posted by admin on July 20th, 2009

Jeweleries are valuable things and for some items it could have a very high sentimental value for some people like engagement ring, jeweleries also can be assets for your future and that’s why you should keep them safe and to make sure why not protect them with insurance ?
some people already feel safe to protect their belongings including jewelery through property/home insurance which is including protection against theft for valuable things inside the house. But if you have lots of valuable jeweleries you will need more protections than just protection against theft.
In purchasing additional insurance for your valuable jeweleries be sure that you have a full understanding about the coverage, here are the questions you must ask your insurance agent to make sure that you have a good cover for your jeweleries :

  • Is there a deductible and how much is it ? what can affects the raising or lowering the deductible of your policy ?
  • Do you need an appraisal before you obtain the insurance policy? is the insurance company only take reports from certain types of appraisers?
  • are the items covered in any place the loss happens ? will it covers you during domestic or international trip ? (in case you don’t have a travel insurance)
  • Will you get a full replacement cost ? would you have to replace the items or you can get a cash settlement instead?
  • is it covers the repairmen of damaged jeweleries (not only total loss) ?

If I may suggest, The Chubb Group is one of the jewelery specified insurance company that offers a good protection, here I give you example of chubb’s engagement ring policy guidelines :

  • Full coverage according to the amount shown on the policy
  • No deductible
  • Coverage applies for the loss happens anywhere / worldwide
  • Chubb only offers a cash settlement. If you replace the ring, you select the jeweler.
  • An appraisal is needed, but the appraisal requires only for items valued over $50.000
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Amount of Cover

Posted by admin on July 14th, 2009

How much cover do we need? Let’s see, If you make a claim, the maximum an insurer will pay you is the amount of money, or ’sum insured’ in your contract, so that sum has to cover everything. People often make mistakes in this matter, in order to have a lower insurance rate they often decrease their ’sum insured in the policy schedule or they only cover some parts of their assets that they consider to be valued.

Don’t ever underestimate of what you own and under-insure. If you under-insure, you won’t get enough money to cover the total cost of your loss. For example, the ’sum insured’ for your home must be enough to cover all your costs if your home were destroyed, including rubbish removal, temporary rental accommodation as well as rebuilding costs. So never determine the sum insured for any of your assets only by an unfounded approximation, you have to make a serious calculation or ask an expert if necessary.

Under-insurance can hurt in another way. Suppose you insure your home contents for $15,000, but they’re really worth $30,000. Your insurer may be allowed under your contract to pay only part of any loss or damage because you have insured your property for only part of what it’s worth. In this case you have to be very careful in reading the terms and conditions given by the insurance company in their product disclosure statement as well as in the policy schedule.

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Life Insurance For Self Employed Person

Posted by admin on July 13th, 2009

If you are an employee of a company you usually got insured by the company you work for through workers compensation policy, but if you are a self employed who would insured you if something bad happens? In this matter you should cover yourself for accident and sickness insurance through a private insurer.

There are several types of life insurance that you can use. Some life insurance offers some kind of investment which functioned as a retirement fund where you contribute over a certain time and get back your investment plus interest earnings at the maturity date, but if you feel like you can manage your money and savings well you won’t be needed that kind of insurance. The other type of life insurance could be useful for everyone who doesn’t have any compensation guarantee from any institutions, this kind of insurance designed to cover risk - things that could happen to you. Here are some covers that this life insurance can give:

  • Income protection or disability insurance - covers part of your normal income if you are prevented from working through sickness or accident.
  • Trauma insurance - provides a lump sum when you are diagnosed with one of several specified life threatening illnesses.
  • Term life insurance or whole of life cover - provides your dependents with a lump sum if you die.
  • Total and permanent disability insurance - provides a lump sum only if you are totally and permanently disabled before retirement.

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Valuable Asset Insurance For Business Owner

Posted by admin on July 13th, 2009

For those who own a business, this type of insurance is very useful to protect their assets & revenue-generating capacity. Many businessmen have felt the benefit and the feeling of secure by using this type of insurance. Here are some protections that are given by the insurance to a business owner:

Building and Contents

There are two ways to protect your building / property, through property insurance and asset insurance. It covers the building and everything inside including contents and stock of your business against fire or natural disasters such as earthquake, lightning, storms, including explosion.

Burglary

Protects your business assets against burglary or thievery, this is very useful especially for those who don’t have a security officer to watch over the building.

Business Interruption or lost of profits

This is one of the most important cover that a businessman should have. It covers the business on going if the business is interrupted through insured perils such as fire or other things insured. It ensures your on going expenses are met and anticipated net profit is maintained through a provision of cash flow.

Fidelity Guarantee

It covers your business from the loss caused by a misappropriation of your employee who embezzle or steal

Machinery Breakdown

Covers your business from the damage of mechanical and electrical plant and machinery at the work site.

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