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Archive for the ‘Insurance’ Category

The very reason why you continue to strive and earn a living is because of this: Love. When you love someone, be it your wife, husband or children you always think about what would be the best for them. You want to give them the best that life has to offer. Yet sometimes, things won’t happen the way you would want them to be. Especially if it would mean that you would leave them behind. If that time comes, you want to make sure that everything else would be okay for those that you’ll leave behind.

Have you ever asked yourself this question? If i die, what would happen to my family? Will they be able to cope up with life’s hardships? The answer, one thing is for sure. Life will still go on for them no matter how painful, no matter how bitter it may seem. Yet, you can make it easier and simpler for them. How? By having life insurance, your family and loved ones will be able to go through life’s financial difficulties with ease.

What exactly is life insurance? Life insurance is a type of insurance that pays money when the insured person in the policy dies. It is a contract between the person insured and the insurance company where the insurance provider would pay a certain amount of money to the beneficiaries of the insured person so long as the insured person’s premium are current and up to date.

The next question you might be asking next is, do i need insurance? Usually people with families and loved ones that they want to provide comfort when sudden situations or emergencies arise would say yes. Having life insurance is a form of relief from financial troubles when a major turn around in life takes place. You may think that lifeinsurance is for old people who would have the tendency to use it more than the younger generation does. Unfortunately, accidents and sickness that eventually leads to death can happen at any point in life regardless of age.

The reason why people need life insurance is to care for your loved one when your partner or loved one dies. Life insurance is a way of continuing support and care for your loved ones left behind, making the financial difficulties of living without you a little easier to handle. Life insurance is not only for those people who have families to take care of. Even single people should have life insurance as it would ensure that all your expenses in connection with hospital and burial are well handled. Having beneficiaries doesn’t mean they have to be blood relatives. Beneficiaries can be your best friend or even a charitable institution.

As well, there are certain types of life insurance that carry a cash value. This type provides you with a valuable asset that can be used as a bond on loans or even against the policy itself when the need arises. There will be times in your life that having a cash value in your life insurance would be a great help to tide you over during these hard times.

There are four basic types of life insurance. They are term life insurance, whole life insurance, universal life insurance and variable life insurance. Familiarizing yourself with these four types would let you choose the best type of policy for you.

Term life insurance is a direct or clear-cut type of policy. This type of coverage lets you pay for a specific period of time. During that particular period, any beneficiary you choose will receive the benefits of your policy when you die. There are subcategories that fall under term life insurance. An example is you have the option to renew your policy every year.

However, since the price of the policy and premiums may go up higher every year as you get older, you may want to choose the guaranteed level term life policy. As this type of policy would have the same price range from 5 to 30 years depending on what you choose. There is also another type of term life policy called return of premium lifeinsurance or ROP. This type of policy would pay you at the end of the term, provided you are still alive. Upon your death, the term of the funds will go to your chosen beneficiary.

Whole life insurance is another type of insurance that you may want to check out. As the name suggests, it covers you for your whole life instead of a specific term only. Although a whole life insurance policy would cost more than term life policies, the investment power and coverage are more attractive to some insurance shoppers.

Universal life coverage is when an insured can add a preferred amount to the minimum price o the premium. The insurance company in return would invest the money with returns that are put back into the premiums or can also be left to build up. A subcategory of universal life insurance is universal variable life that gives the insurer to choose what they want to invest in rather than the insurance company deciding for them.

Variable life insurance coverage gives you more opportunities to invest including stocks. This policy is similar to universal life coverage because the returns are either used towards your premium payments or allowed to add up in an account. Your beneficiary will either receive the value of the policy, or the value of the policy in addition to a portion of, or the full cash investment returns account.

Remember, life insurance policies should offer you protection and security to you and your family as well as provide ease of mind and comfort when you need it. To choose the best type for you, always speak with a reputable insurance agent or provider that would answer any queries you may have.

There are dozens of different types of insurance, from insurance that you have to take out by law (such as car insurance), to policies that it’s a good idea to have (such as contents insurance) to those that are ‘nice to have’ rather than necessities.

Figures from the Association of British Insurers show that, during the recession, one in four people cancelled their home insurance. While it’s a good idea to make sure you’re not paying for insurance you don’t need, you should always think about what would happen if disaster were to strike before cancelling any insurance policies.

How does insurance work?

When you take out an insurance policy, you pay a premium to the insurance company. If you never make a claim, you never get any of the money back; instead it’s pooled with the premiums of others who have taken out insurance with a particular firm.

That may not sound like a good deal, but the idea behind insurance is that everyone pays into a pot of money, knowing that only some of them will ever need to make a claim. If you have to make a claim (perhaps because your washing machine has flooded your kitchen and damaged your floor), the money comes from the pool of your and other policyholders’ premiums.

How are premiums calculated?

Insurers are professional risk takers, which means they know the probability of different types of risk happening so they can calculate the premiums needed to create a fund large enough to cover likely loss payments.

Clearly, only a proportion of policyholders will make a claim in any one period. So, an insurer will take two important factors into account when calculating the premium it will charge. Firstly, how likely it is in general terms that someone will need to claim and secondly, whether the person who wants to take out the policy is a bigger or smaller risk than the ‘average’ policyholder.

Take three examples. In motor insurance, a young person with ahigh-powered car, or a driver with a long history of accidents will pay a higher premium than a mature and experienced driver with a car with a smaller engine who has not had an accident before.

Similarly, the owner of a fish and chip shop will pay a higher premium for his or her fire insurance than, say, the owner of an office. The risk is greater, so the premium is higher.

Someone who is young, fit and in a risk-free job will find it easier to buy life insurance and will pay lower premiums than someone who has a heart condition or is in a risky occupation.

The level of premium is also affected by the insurance company’s desire to target a particular section of the market. So, if an insurer wants to encourage younger drivers to buy insurance from it, it may decide to undercut the premiums charged by some of its rivals.

Two kinds of insurance

There are two different kinds of insurance - life insurance and general insurance.

General insurance pays out:

If a car has an accident or is stolen
If a house catches fire or is burgled
If a holiday has to be cancelled

Most life policies, on the other hand, pay out when an event happens, such as when someone dies.

Anyone can buy life insurance but, the amount you pay in premiums will depend on your age, your health, and the type of work you do. The younger and healthier you are, the cheaper the premiums for life insurance. But if you work in a risky job, you’ll normally have to pay more for life insurance.

Most types of insurance are annual policies. That means that the amount you pay can change every year and, if you’ve made a claim in the previous year or your circumstances have changed, it could affect your premiums.

However, some types of insurance, such as life insurance and insurance that pays part of your income if you cannot work because you’re seriously ill, are long-term contracts. That means you don’t get renewed quotes every year as the premium is set when you first sign up.

If you have a joint mortgage with your husband, wife or partner, you can take out life insurance that will pay out if they die before the mortgage is paid off. However, you can’t take out insurance on someone unless you’d be financially worse off if they died.

What is the excess?

With many general insurance policies, you have to pay the first part of any claim – called the excess – if something goes wrong. The level of the excess can vary widely. For a travel insurance policy, it may be £25 – £50 while for a car insurance policy it could be £100 or more.

Sometimes insurers will impose a large excess if you’ve already claimed for something and you’re likely to do so again, such as for flood damage or subsidence(which is when a building develops cracks because the foundations have moved).

General principles

Other principles apply to all kinds of insurance:

Insurance can provide compensation only for the actual value of property. It cannot cover the loss of sentimental value, for example.
There must be a large number of similar risks so that the likelihood of a claim can be spread among other policyholders. It must be possible for insurers to calculate the chance of loss so that a premium can be set which matches the risk.
Losses must not be deliberate and not inevitable. Clearly, you could not buy fire insurance for a house which was already burning nor life insurance for someone on his or her deathbed.
Lastly, there are some risks which have financial implications so vast that they can be dealt with only by the state. These risks (mainly those arising from war or the major escape of nuclear or radioactive material) are normally not insurable.

A relative has just died. He had a life insurance policy with you listed as the beneficiary. There’s just one problem: the life insurance policy is missing. You have no idea which insurance company wrote it.

If you find the missing life insurance policy in the future, are you still eligible to receive the death benefit?

Hope they paid their insurance bills

If you’re a beneficiary and you find the lost life insurance policy shortly after the insured dies (within six months to a year, for example), claiming the death benefit should be trouble-free.

First, determine if the insured had term or permanent life insurance. If the insured held a term policy, you’ll receive the death benefit if he died before the end of the policy term. If he died after the policy expiration date, you would get nothing.

If the insured had a permanent life policy, you’ll receive the money if the death occurred while the policy was “in force,” meaning all premium payments were made up until the time of death. If the death was a while ago, you’ll receive the benefit with interest from the date of death.

If the life insurance policy lapsed — meaning the insured stopped making premium payments before he died — there’s a chance you might get nothing. When a permanent life insurance policy lapses, most insurance companies switch its status from permanent insurance to one of two options:

“Extended term” — The insurance company uses the cash value of the policy to buy a term life insurance policy for the same death benefit using the cash value of the policy. The death benefit will continue for the longest period the cash value will purchase.

“Reduced paid up” — The insurance company will keep the policy in force permanently, but will reduce the death benefit.

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