10.07.08

Homeowners - Questions and Answers about Insurance

Posted in Insurance Information at 4:44 am by jumpajoe

While it would seem that a good credit score would have nothing to do with insurance rates, it is a fact that they do. Home Insurance companies are using your credit score as an indicator of responsibility. The theory is the more responsible the individual the less claims they will have. So, insurance companies are giving lower rates to those individuals with a better credit score. Most, if not all companies that sell home insurance, offer discounts for insuring your autos with them. These discounts can sometimes save you up to 30% off of your total insurance bill. Plus, you get the added convenience of having one agent for both your home and auto insurances. Discuss with your agent about the possibilities of receiving home insurance discounts for keeping your home in good repair. Some home insurance companies will offer savings for a anew roof, electrical, HVAC, plumbing updates. The discounts are generally not enough to warrant the replacement but if you needed it anyway, be sure to get the discounts if applicable. Your home insurance coverage should not necessarily be what you paid for them home. Land values are calculated into the final sales price and should be considered when insuring the structure. In others words you cannot hurt the dirt. A good idea is to call local builders and ask them what new home construction cost per square foot is going for. Take that number, multiply that times your square footage and that is the amount that your home should be insured for. Companies will not pay more than what it is going to cost to rebuild the home anyway, so make sure you are insured correctly. The deductible is your portion of the claim that must be paid before the insurance company pays for the claim. The lower your deductible, the higher your premium will be. Deductibles can range anywhere from $100-$5000 or more. The majority of homeowners will carry a $500 deductible, but the savings one can receive by raising your deductible to $1000 can be significant, up to 20%. It doesn t take too many claim free years to make up the difference between the two deductibles, but remember you should never raise your deductible to a level that you could not afford to pay. Most of the time, an agent will make sure that you are receiving 100% of the home insurance discounts that you qualify for, but it doesn t hurt to ask. Some insurance companies have discounts that others do not. Some offer discounts that most would never dream as being a discount such as 55 and retired, non smoking, military service, law enforcement, single parent discounts, etc. Home Insurance shopping is easy. Insurance shopping online is even easier.

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10.04.08

Car - Questions and Answers about Insurance

Posted in Insurance Information at 7:00 pm by jumpajoe

With so many options for health care insurance, it is very easy for the average consumer to become confused. Even the health care insurance offered in the work place has become more complicated. You used to have to decide how many people were on your plan and the rest was taken care of for you. Those days are almost gone. For those who are offered health care insurance at work, they now have a few options from which to choose. For the average person, this is tricky. There are deductibles, doctors to choose, and plans to consider. It can be very overwhelming. For those who are self-employed, or don t have health care insurance through work, it gets trickier. You may find yourself lost in a sea of information that you simply cannot understand. Health care insurance information tends to be worded in ways that you need a translator to understand. If you are having difficulties understand your health care insurance options at work, talk to your human relations department. Tell them you are confused, and that you need things spelled out for you in simple terms that make sense so you can make an informed decision. When you are looking for insurance as a self-employed person, you may have no idea where to begin. An Internet search will give you a good starting point. Once you have found some options, you should look through websites to find out some basic information. Call health care insurance company you are interested in, and ask them to spell out the terms and prices of each plan for you. If you find they are unwilling, or unable, to do this for you, you should move on to find someone who can. Always ask for total costs and deductible information. When push comes to shove, a good health insurance company will want to work with you, and your budget, to find the best coverage for your needs. This may be a timely endeavor, but in the end, it will pay off for you and your family. There are many low cost varieties of health care insurance plans online. Once you have talked to them, and have decided you like their prices, ask about the fine print. In fact, you should do this with any company, no matter where you found them. Beware of hidden fees and deductibles that can shatter your budget. No matter where you get your health care insurance, keep up to date on new policies and changes in their pricing and deductibles. You may have to be proactive and ask for updates. If you don t understand what is going on with your health care insurance, always ask. This will not only save you time, it will save you money as well. Have you ever considered investing in life and health insurance? It truly is imperative that everyone understands what this means.

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10.02.08

Auto - Questions and Answers about Insurance

Posted in Insurance Information at 8:30 am by jumpajoe

Again you should check with your credit card provider what they cover, but the bottom line is, if your own insurence covers liability, and your credit card covers the rental car, why pay a couple of hundred dollars for extra insurence when you re already covered? Have you ever wonder why car insurence costs vary from one car insurence company to the other? This is due to the different type of computation factors that car insurence companies use to derive the car insurence cost. Based on the answers that you replied to the car insurence company, they will add or discount the cost before arriving at a final price for your car insurence. Thus, it is important for you to shop around first before you commit yourself to a particular car insurence company as different companies take a different view of the various high risk factors. We will look at some of the factors that car insurence companies take into considerations. It is however, unlikely that full or comprehensive coverage will carry over from your own car insurence. This is because comprehensive insurence is calculated based on the value of your car. Insurers don t want to be in a position where they set your policy based on your say, $15,000 vehicle, and then have to pay out when you crash a $40,000 rental. So your policy will state that only liability insurence is provided when you rent. One of the problems with this information gap is that it can lead to wasted money. Every time you rent a car you are asked what kind of insurence you would like. The options are generally to take none, which costs nothing, or you could cover liability insurence, which should cost about $10 per day. Then you have a variety of options to cover the rental cat itself, prices for which vary from company to company and state to state. The full coverage option, which includes liability, passengers, and the rental car usually, comes to about $25 to $30 a day. Most people genuinely don t know what option they should be taking. Of course, there has never been an easier time to shop for automobile owners insurence, and that is a fact.

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09.29.08

Homeowners - Questions and Answers about Insurance

Posted in Insurance Information at 11:45 am by jumpajoe

Often times a new company will not insure a person that has been diagnosed with a disease or chronic condition because they are considered a high use risk. Even though companies want you to buy health insurance they do not necessarily want you to use it. There are many alternative programs in most States in the United States that offer plans to people that have been denied insurance due to a pre-existing condition. These are not always well publicized but certainly worth looking into if you or a member of your family fits into this category, and not an option to overlook as you buy health insurance. There are many companies and options to buy health insurance. Most of the major companies offer a free on line quote. Many of these companies also offer to provide comparisons for various plans within the company and also will compare the price of similar plans to their major competitors. The comparisons usually look at the type of deductible you are willing to pay as well as co-pays. A major flux in price from one plan to the next is whether or not prescription medications are covered or offered at a reduced rate with co-pay. Prescription coverage may not be necessary when you buy health insurance if you or your family members are not prescribed daily medication. The elderly that are more likely to have prescribed medications, have Medicare options to cover this area, so this is not as important of an issue for them when buying supplemental health insurance to pick up where Medicare ends.

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09.27.08

Life - Questions and Answers about Insurance

Posted in Insurance Information at 12:14 am by jumpajoe

Another way to check the customer service of a company is to find a claims telephone number on their website and call it up. If their claims people are nice to you, the likelihood of the customer service being a positive team has just raised. After you have assessed the courtesy level of the auto insurence company’s service department, then politely thank them for their time and hang up. No explanation necessary, they will just move on to their next call without giving you another thought. This technique is based on the theory that there are two kinds of companies: the ones who stock their sales teams with friendly people and put all the low-paid mean folks in their claims departments and the ones who stock both with friendly, professionals. Usually, this simple test will tell you the type of company with which you are dealing. If the quoted auto insurence policy has both the assets you desire and a high quality of customer service, then the quote is a true quote. Remember if you think you might end up actually using the car insurence–which we should all assume we will–then check these two things before running after the apparently low premiums. Disputes, especially when it comes to settling insurence claims, are not new scenarios. In fact, they take place every day. Just what causes these disputes? Well, one of the obvious reasons is most policy holders think that they deserve to be paid a larger settlement than what they receive. Second, claims are slow to process. And third, claims are denied.

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09.24.08

Life - Questions and Answers about Insurance

Posted in Insurance Information at 7:45 pm by jumpajoe

There are various ways to deal with your auto insurence company. First, is the aggressive approach, which I am not encouraging since I am a peace-loving individual, and believe that everything should be settled in a peaceful and civilized manner. There are actually several peaceful options which a policyholder may undertake depending on the degree of insurence dispute. For cases wherein your insurence agent is unable to solve your problem, it is advised to get the name and then the phone number of your insurence company s claims department. Afterwards, call the consumer complaint department and never hesitate to tell them your problem because they may be able to help you. And don t forget to get the name of the person whom you talked with in the consumer complaint department. The next step is to send all documents to the consumer complaint department to back up your complaints. Send it to the person whom you talked with in the consumer complaint department. But be sure not to send the original copies of your documents. Have your documents photocopied because you need the original copies in case you have to take the matter to court. Another option that you have is to ask for reassessment of your claims from the appraisal service or the arbitration service of your insurence company. If the result still has not satisfied you there is always your own state s insurence department that may be able to help you. Nevertheless, if you still feel that after you have applied all the above-mentioned options and yet you feel that you have not been given the appropriate solution you want, you can always take the matter to court. You can hire a lawyer, preferably one who is an expert in handling auto insurence cases.

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09.22.08

Renters - Questions and Answers about Insurance

Posted in Insurance Information at 8:15 am by jumpajoe

All the others are optional. That s the first and most important thing to remember when you re at the rental desk, and the total price for your two-week vacation car is quickly adding up and up. The other thing to know is that in many cases, you will be covered, to some extent by your existing car insurence. You will have to check your insurence policy to make certain, but for the vast majority of drivers, they will have liability insurence by virtue of their own car insurence, and this will carry over to the rental car. You may still require no insurence from the rental company however. This is because many credit card companies, including both visa and MasterCard, offer this insurence if you pay for the rental with one of their cards. This is a major benefit of using a credit card and should not be wasted.

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09.20.08

Car - Questions and Answers about Insurance

Posted in Insurance Information at 8:00 am by jumpajoe

Your goal should be to have an emergency fund available to take care of your family for 2-4 weeks (minimum)if possible. In a disaster it might be hard to even find a local bank to get cash. Debit/credit cards with a statewide or national bank would perhaps be better. Your biggest problem in getting your claim handled may be in either not having the proper homeowners insurence coverage or not having enough coverage. Most good homeowners insurence policies today cover up to 120% of your dwelling coverage limit. It is important that you review the dwelling limit with your agent every couple of year s at a minimum. Homeowners insurence policies do not cover Flooding, but you should again see your agent for this coverage. If your homeowners insurence falls short, you may qualify for money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) or a disaster-assistance loan from the Small Business Administration (SBA). Homeowners can borrow up to $200,000 for rebuilding and $40,000 to replace personal property at very low interest rates for up to 30 years.

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09.17.08

Homeowners - Questions and Answers about Insurance

Posted in Insurance Information at 8:45 pm by jumpajoe

Check out dental insurence website and Dental insurence Plansblog for all the latest articles on dental plans and dental insurence Most companies provide dental insurence coverage to their employees. Group dental insurence can prove to be an advantage in the sense that since a large number of employees are involved, greater benefits can be provided at lower costs. But what happens to people who are self-employed or to those whose companies are small and don’t provide dental coverage? The answer to this lies in purchasing individual dental plans and this is where the dental insurence companies come into the picture. Realizing profitable business opportunities in this business scenario, there are many companies who are now providing affordable individual dental plans. The working arrangement is simple, these dental insurence companies tie up with dental service providers who then provide patients treatment at reduced rates if they buy their dental plan from them. These days, there are many companies offering dental insurence plans. Before buying a package, it is absolutely essential to do some homework. People have to start somewhere and so the best thing to do is run an online search and narrow down on a few companies and do a comparative study of the plans they offer. People must note down points such as what is actually covered by the plans, additional benefits, deductibles, and monthly premiums. Another item of importance is what the plans offer in terms of preventive treatment and of course also emergency treatment. The cost should be another major factor, for it will include your monthly or annual fee as also the co-pays for which the patient will be responsible for all visits.

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09.15.08

Car - Questions and Answers about Insurance

Posted in Insurance Information at 5:45 pm by jumpajoe

While it would seem that a good credit score would have nothing to do with insurance rates, it is a fact that they do. Home Insurance companies are using your credit score as an indicator of responsibility. The theory is the more responsible the individual the less claims they will have. So, insurance companies are giving lower rates to those individuals with a better credit score. Most, if not all companies that sell home insurance, offer discounts for insuring your autos with them. These discounts can sometimes save you up to 30% off of your total insurance bill. Plus, you get the added convenience of having one agent for both your home and auto insurances. Discuss with your agent about the possibilities of receiving home insurance discounts for keeping your home in good repair. Some home insurance companies will offer savings for a anew roof, electrical, HVAC, plumbing updates. The discounts are generally not enough to warrant the replacement but if you needed it anyway, be sure to get the discounts if applicable. Your home insurance coverage should not necessarily be what you paid for them home. Land values are calculated into the final sales price and should be considered when insuring the structure. In others words you cannot hurt the dirt. A good idea is to call local builders and ask them what new home construction cost per square foot is going for. Take that number, multiply that times your square footage and that is the amount that your home should be insured for. Companies will not pay more than what it is going to cost to rebuild the home anyway, so make sure you are insured correctly. The deductible is your portion of the claim that must be paid before the insurance company pays for the claim. The lower your deductible, the higher your premium will be. Deductibles can range anywhere from $100-$5000 or more. The majority of homeowners will carry a $500 deductible, but the savings one can receive by raising your deductible to $1000 can be significant, up to 20%. It doesn t take too many claim free years to make up the difference between the two deductibles, but remember you should never raise your deductible to a level that you could not afford to pay. Most of the time, an agent will make sure that you are receiving 100% of the home insurance discounts that you qualify for, but it doesn t hurt to ask. Some insurance companies have discounts that others do not. Some offer discounts that most would never dream as being a discount such as 55 and retired, non smoking, military service, law enforcement, single parent discounts, etc. Home Insurance shopping is easy. Insurance shopping online is even easier.

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