Torrential downpours, a dam bursts, the levies don’t hold, a tree collapses during a storm, a hurricane, a tsunami, an earthquake, a tornado-the house is victimized by natural disaster and your possessions are caught in the fold. Now, the insurance adjuster is on his or her way, provided it is a weekday, and you’ve got mounds of destruction to clear out. They may pay for new carpet, repair to the roof, a new couch, replace your computer, but will they cover all your books, records, stamp collection, and other hard to account for valuables? Probably not. That could be thousands of dollars you are losing! Anyway, if you have kept detailed records, you can make them pay. It’s not that hard either. Keeping Records To get the restitution you deserve from a home disaster, you have to provide detailed and accurate records! If not, it is too easy for the insurer to say that your claims are frivolous or inaccurate and get out of paying them. With this in mind, there are a number of criteria that you must have on record. You want to keep track of: * Name of item * Who the item was purchased from * Date of purchase * Price * Book value for item (such as for cars, collectibles, antiques) * Condition of item You may also want to keep good digital images of the item on file. This way, you have indisputable evidence. Use a computer database, even an Excel spreadsheet will do, to consolidate all of this information. Keep a digital backup as well as print copies in a safe location. You don’t want your records to be destroyed by the disaster as well! Plan of Attack The first thing to do is remember to log all of the information for any new items that you acquire or purchase. Scan the receipt and keep it with the other information. Have everything on file digitally and in hard copy. As you are essentially dividing the items you must record into two sections-old stuff and new stuff-staying very on top of the new stuff is an easy way to make sure you don’t fall more behind. You might be tempted to rush through the old items because you are terrified that the disaster will strike before you are prepared. There is no need to rush! Unless the dam just broke and you are downstream, as long as you steadily chip away, you will quickly have the data ready to get the most from your home insurance. It will help to prioritize the order in which you go about your work. Start with the most important/expensive items, the move on down the list in order of difficulty to replace, rarity, sentimental value, etc. Go all the way down to your shoes; you can get your home insurance company to pay the $100 they cost. Set a schedule. If it takes 20 minutes to record most of the data and get a digital image on file, at an hour a day, that is 5 items per. If you have 200 to do, you’ll have records ready for your home insurance in about 6 weeks.
The majority of US citizens who have their health insured get their coverage through employer-sponsored group plans. Still, not all employers provide such coverage options. And if you happen to be employed at such an enterprise this means that you are forced to look for an individual insurance plan.
Despite the common belief, there are some pros to buying individual insurance through private companies. The biggest advantage here is of course in the possibility of tailoring your policy to your exact needs, instead of coping with plans selected by the employer. You are free to adjust the plan just as you like, dropping coverage you don’t need and raising your deductibles for lower premiums.
And instead of being the hostage of your workplace in terms of insurance coverage, with individual plans you get the protection you need no matter where you are working at the moment. For as long as you pay the premiums you will be covered, even if you’re unemployed.
However, there are certain disadvantages to individual insurance plans as well:
* Group insurance plans provided by employers usually carry more coverage than individual plans with the same rates. That is because group plans have lower marketing and servicing costs compared to individual ones.
* Most group insurance plans provide coverage to all employees and their family members, while individual plains may refuse to cover persons who have certain health problems. And some plans will also drop coverage on a range of pre-existing health conditions.
* In the majority of states, the premiums you pay for individual health insurance gradually increase as you get older. At first, you can avoid paying too high premiums by switching providers on a regular basis. But as you age, it will be harder to get cheap health insurance as most companies charge older people with higher rates.
If you still wish to find good individual insurance plan then you will definitely need a good insurance agent to work with. Defining the amount of coverage and types of coverage to be included in your plan is a tough decision. Working with a competent agent will help you define your insurance needs and get the right coverage for your personal situation. Remember that you have to trust your agent in order to get the most out of your collaboration. You have to provide all the information required as only this way your agent can help you with the best health insurance quotes he can find.
Don’t forget to ask the following questions when looking for an individual plan:
- Will this plan offer the coverage for going to a specific doctor or hospital?
- What the referral system is all about?
- How pre-existing conditions are covered?
- What about coverage away from home?
- How much should I pay in premiums, deductibles and co-payments?
- Are there any additional payments I have to know about?
- Are there any maximum amounts that the plan will pay?
- Are there any specific benefits available with this plan?
It may look hard finding a good plan in the individual insurance market. So make sure to make the purchase with caution, like you would do with an expensive item, say a car. Research all of your options, see what companies are offering and make the decision only after analyzing all the possibilities.
One sad fact becomes obvious to all start-ups. No matter what you want to help get your business up and running, it never seems to come cheap. In part, this is because you don’t know where to find the discounts. But, more often than not, it’s a problem caused by your past experience. Take auto insurance as an example. You may have owned a vehicle of some kind for several years and, with multiple quotes available online, you can see what the average rates are for the standard makes and models. Except, these are the rates for non-commercial use. The problem starts because of the number of people insured. The majority of drivers do not use their vehicles for commercial purposes so they make a big group when it comes to dividing up the expected cost of loss. With a smaller number of commercial drivers, you have higher costs divided among a small number of insureds.
OK, so why are there higher costs? As a careful owner-driver, you remember the last premium hike and drive more carefully to get through the next couple of years without another accident. But if you sit in a vehicle insured by your employer, there’s no incentive for you to drive carefully. Any premium hikes will not be passed on to you. This is a big management problem. You may rely on a fleet of vehicles for your business. If there are too many off the road being repaired, you cannot make deliveries or meet your other commitments. That means your insurance cover must include not just all the liability costs to repair the damage your negligent drivers cause, but all the costs of maintenance and repair, and for hiring replacement vehicles while yours are off the road. In a perfect world, all your fleet drivers would have excellent driving records and never pick up tickets while driving for you. So how are you going to encourage them to keep their perfect records for you?
Now let’s think about what you are carrying around in those vehicles. Are these goods likely to catch fire, leak dangerous chemicals or cause any other injuries if there’s an accident? This is the time to sit down with your insurer and give full details of your business use. This is not just to get all your operational uses covered, but also to avoid any unnecessary cover that might be included in the standard package. Insurers depend on you to make a full disclosure of the risks. If your reputation for truthfulness is not good, the premiums are likely to be set higher. Affordable small business insurance rates are earned by running a good business in a transparent way. Insurance companies have detailed models for all the major business types and they will quickly spot anything “unusual” about your business. This puts you in the catch-up position, having to explain and justify. Although it may be more expensive when you start, you will earn lower small business insurance rates over the years by running an efficient operation with a only small number of claims.
One of the more reassuring myths we have today is that it’s always possible to achieve certainty. Even if it’s only being wise after the event, we can always tell who was at fault, who deserved to win, and so on. This gives us all a pleasant feeling of security. If we feel someone somewhere is in control of “things”, we are trusting and more confident “things” will turn out right. Except, of course, there’s no such thing as absolutely certainty. As anyone with even the vaguest interest in sports or gambling and setting odds will tell you, everything can work out different to what you expect or hope for. So never assume the auto insurance company knows everything. Yes, they employ these actuaries who work out all the statistics and come up with probabilities. This allows the insurers set general premiums for classes of drivers. These actuaries comb through all the records of every traffic accident. They know who was driving what vehicle at the relevant time, what the road conditions were like, and so on. Adding them all together gives them the right to say younger drivers have the most accidents so they should pay the highest premiums.
Except we should ask whether this is fair. At some point, we are all learning to drive. Equally, we are all going to get old with poor eyesight and slowing reflexes. We can all be distracted at the wrong moment. Every vehicle can have a mechanical failure and deprive us of the ability to slow down or steer where we want to go. So, if the insurers wanted, they could put everyone in the same class as “drivers” and average out the cost of loss between everyone. This would set a “fair” premium. Everyone would pay the same for the right to drive on the roads. In this, the good drivers would be subsidizing the bad, the lucky drivers the unlucky, and so on. What could be more fair than that?
Ah, but you are now up in arms. This is socialism/communism! It’s redistribution! It’s punishing the good drivers by making them pay for the freeloading bad. You say the fair system takes every driver as an individual and asks what vehicle he or she drives, how many miles a year will be covered and at what times of the day, and so on. The individual takes responsibility for his or her driving and never pays anything towards anyone else’s liabilities. Actually, that describes self-insurance where you pay all your own liabilities out of your own savings. All insurance groups people together and shares the risk. That’s why grouped premiums are lower than an individual’s costs should there be a claim. So, auto insurance companies strike a compromise. They group similar drivers together and share the cost of loss between them for the general premium. Then the insurers increase or decrease the rate depending on the actual driving record. This means young drivers will pay the highest premiums of all groups, but the best young drivers will pay less than those who manage to hit trees or other moving objects.
When you are shopping for a health insurance quote one of the things you might consider is a group health insurance policy. But you should know that there are many drawbacks to group health insurance policies that can adversely affect you and your family.
The Difference between Individual and Group Policies
Before you look for health insurance quotes you should understand the difference between group and individual health insurance policies. Group health insurance policies are those issued to employer, fraternal or trade groups. They have advantageous rates because there is a distribution of policies to both sick and healthy people. In addition, group insurance policies are not individually underwritten so your individual health problems are not taken into consideration when you buy into a group health insurance plan.
Individual insurance policies are issued to individuals and families. The rates are based on the health history and potential health future of the individuals the policy is issued to. The policy issuance is not dependent on being a member of any particular group. You can be denied coverage if you have certain illnesses unless you live in a state with guaranteed issue policies.
The Drawbacks to Group Health Insurance Policies
You can only keep a group health insurance policy for as long as you are a member of the group. Once you leave the group you may have access to COBRA, which allows you to carry the group insurance coverage up to 36 months after you leave the group. If you get a group policy while you are healthy and then you become chronically ill while you have the policy, you may no longer be able to get your own individual policy.
Additionally, while you may be able to choose between plans in your group’s benefit profile, there is no guarantee that the group will offer the type of policy or coverage options that you and your family really need. You may be subject to a restrictive set of doctors and treatment centers, may not be able to see doctors that you are used to seeing and may not have certain care options that you are used to getting.
In short, if group health is the only kind of policy you can get due to poor health or financial issues, then it is a good choice. Otherwise, an individual policy may be a better bet.