In the older post I’ve informed you about the insurance broker that can help you getting a suitable insurance coverage for your assets. Now I shall give you things that can help you to choose the right broker to become your insurance adviser and risk manager. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘premium’
Money Insurance
Posted by admin on August 2nd, 2009
In a business, especially small ones, you’re not always make transaction through bank transfer or with a cheque, sometimes you also need cash to make a business transaction. so, sometimes you must keep a large amount of money in your safe at your business place or maybe at home. Or maybe you are the owner of a grocery store that opens 24 hours which is very vulnerable for a robbery, or perhaps you are just a person who likes to keep a large amount of money at home for some purposes (many people do this). The problem is nothing can really guarantee the safety of the money in all of those places, that’s why you need to make a safety plan. (more…)
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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 :
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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
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.
