Jane Anthony asked:


No matter what kind of insurance you are shopping for, you should have no problem finding free insurance quotes.  When you are shopping for insurance, you should never, ever be charged for a quote for insurance from a legitimate company who offers good, quality insurance, because these insurance companies expect you to request and compare their coverage and prices with other insurance companies.

So, now that you know that you shouldn’t have to pay for insurance quotes, you might be wondering how to get your free insurance quote so that you can start comparing them.  



First of all, what kind of insurance are you looking for?  If you’re looking for life insurance, for example, do you want coverage without a physical or did you want to go with an insurance company that doesn’t require physicals to give you coverage.  Also, what kind of life insurance coverage are you looking for?  With whole life coverage, you can borrow against your insurance and pay yourself back.  With term life insurance, you pay your designated premiums for the term you’ve chosen.  At the end of that term, you can renew for a different term at different premiums, or you can pay a little extra and get all your premiums you’ve paid for the lifetime of the policy back.  It’s important to know what kind of insurance you are looking for before you request your free quotes.



Will you be shopping for your insurance online or will you be calling different insurance agencies to obtain your free quotes?  If you decide to shop for your new auto insurance online, you should have a rough idea about the type of coverage you’re looking for.  Are you looking for full coverage or do you just need liability coverage for your vehicle?  If you’re not sure, you should really talk to an insurance agent and have them prepare your free insurance quote.



Who will you be requesting your free insurance quotes from?  You should have a basic idea of at least three insurance companies you want to request free insurance quotes from.  Make sure you’re ready to compare your free quotes and take the time to review the insurance companies claims services before you commit to any insurance coverage.





Either way, it’s really important that you take the time to request your free insurance quotes so that you can start saving money on any kind of insurance right now.  With the economy the way it is, it’s never too soon to start saving money.  Not to mention that insurance of any kind is the responsible way to live your life and it’s essential that you have insurance to protect yourself and your family from any crisis that might occur.

By requesting your free insurance quotes, you can protect yourself, your assets and your family, while taking the time to compare insurance quotes so that you can make sure that you won’t be going broke while trying to take care of your responsibilities.  Help yourself sleep better at night and take the time to request your free insurance quotes and make sure you’re not going to struggle to pay for the protection you need.



Floyd

Divasue asked:


We are starting to think about a car and insurance for our son who is 17 shortly. Have you any advice on types of car and how the insurance system works, is it better for him to insure himself or for to do it through his father, and which companies are the best.
Thanks

Sue

reflect47 asked:


I live in Michigan a state where it is law to have insurance. I have also been denied insurance by a certain large insurance company based on my credit score. I just don’t think they should be able to pull your credit report if your required by state law to carry it. Hey if i don’t pay it cancel me.
Agreed your driving record should be all they need. I have been driving now for 13 years never been in a accident but been though a divorce which messed up my credit.
wooooowhooo….. the reason the guy with the 700 + credit score is likely to have a better track record with the insurance company is because he doesnt report it he pays for damages from his little plastic insurance policy called AMEX…. again never been in a accident got one ticket 7 years ago been though a divorce….. why do I get denied when I’m a proven good driver all because some one else isn’t. shouldnt they pay more and i get charged the same as the guy next door with the same driving record and a better credit score!
besides I would love to see where these so called statistics are coming from I think its all crap!

David

dsaf f asked:


Ok so 2 years ago I was driving along and a tire fell out of a truck bed in front of me and broke my windshield and did a little bit of front end damage. The truck kept going and so I ended up submitting a claim for like $600.00 to my insurance company to cover the damage. In return, they raised my rates to a point where the increase added up over two years has cost more than the repair bill. I’ve tried changing companies, but the claim is still in my records and I am under 21 so all the quotes I’ve received have been higher than what I was originally paying. As for the the rest of my record, it is totally clean, no wrecks, tickets, or even close calls. I’m about ready to say screw it to insurance, as I feel I’ll never need it. As far as I see it, I’ve already paid the insurance companies over $5000 and they’ve only covered $600.00 of damage and have treated me like crap.So whats the average penalty if I do get stopped and don’t have insurance?

Ronnie

Insure.com asked:


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.

Gerry Brogla, an actuary for State Farm, says in the majority of the cases at his company, the permanent policy continues as extended term if it lapses. At State Farm, extended term is the default option for most permanent policies.

If the policy lapses, and the extended-term period expires before the insured dies, the policy is worthless and the life insurance beneficiary will get nothing. If the insured dies before the extended-term period is up, the beneficiary will receive the death benefit. If the policy lapsed because the insured died (thus ending premium payments and causing the insurance to be placed in extended-term status), the beneficiary will still collect the full death benefit, regardless of when the extended term was up. The beneficiary always needs to supply the insurance company with a death certificate to verify the date of death.

There is no time limit during which a life insurance beneficiary must step forward to collect the money, according to Jack Dolan, spokesman for the American Council of Life Insurers. “If a person shows up 30 years after [the insured's] death, the company still makes good on it,” Dolan assures.

What happens if no one ever reports the death?

If the insured dies and the insurance company does not learn of the death, the policy lapses. Insurance companies will take steps to find out why a policyholder stopped making payments.

When an insurance company stops getting payments, it sends letters to the insured informing him the policy may lapse as a result of unpaid premiums. If the letters go unanswered, the company might initiate a search to find the insured. If that comes up empty, the company will then lapse the policy.

If a beneficiary to a policy never steps forward, it unfortunately means the insured paid money to a policy throughout his life and his beneficiaries never see a penny. This is why its a good idea to make sure beneficiaries are aware of any life insurance policies you have.

If you’re lucky, the state may have your money

In some cases when a beneficiary fails to claim a death benefit for several years, the money is transferred to the state where the insurance policy was purchased under the escheat laws.

If a company knows an insured died and it cannot find the beneficiary, it must turn the full death benefit over to the state comptroller’s department within three to five years of the insured’s death. The money is transferred to the state where the insured bought the policy. The money is considered “unclaimed property” and gets lumped in with dormant bank accounts and uncollected rent deposits. The comptroller’s department maintains a database that lists the names and addresses of lost life insurance beneficiaries.

Many states will try to contact life insurance beneficiaries in an effort to pay the death benefits. In Texas, for example, the names and addresses of the beneficiaries are published annually in each county in the state. In New York, the Web site of the New York State Comptroller’s Office of Unclaimed Funds has an online search to find any unclaimed death benefits owed to you. You can find out the procedures in your state by contacting the office of your state comptroller or treasurer.

Keep in mind your chances of finding the policy with the state are slim. The insurance company has no obligation to hand the money over to the state if it’s unaware the insured died. In most cases, it’s the beneficiary who contacts the insurance company.

Also, the insurer only transfers the money to the state three to five years after it cannot find the beneficiary but knows the insured died. If the state doesn’t have the death benefit, it’s likely the insurer is still looking for the beneficiary or doesn’t know the policyholder has died.

Unclaimed death benefits are rarely transferred to the state. Dave Potter, a spokesman for Hartford Life, says less than 1 percent of his company’s death benefits go unclaimed.

Del Chance, a life insurance claims manager at State Farm, says, “Turning over life policy benefits to an individual state after the death of an insured is extremely rare. State Farm utilizes their own search techniques as well as outside vendors to locate lost beneficiaries in the event of the death of one of our insureds. By and large these procedures have always located the beneficiary.

Tips for making sure your life insurance beneficiaries get your death benefit:

1. Give your beneficiaries your policy information. It can be a difficult and awkward conversation, but an important one.

2. Keep all your financial records (especially your life insurance policies) in one place. Don’t force your beneficiaries to search your house from top to bottom after you die.

Tips for looking for lost life insurance policies:

1. Go through canceled checks or contact your relative’s bank for copies of old checks. Look for checks made out to insurance companies.

2. Ask those who may have known about your relative’s finances. Speak with the relative’s lawyer, banker or accountant. Also contact the relative’s insurance agent.

3. Contact your relative’s past employers. They might know of possible group life insurance. The insured might have also purchased supplemental life insurance through work.

4. Check the mail for a year. Premium bills and policy-status notices are usually sent annually.

5. Look at income tax returns for the past two years. Check for interest income from policies or expenses paid to life insurance companies.

6. Contact the Medical Information Bureau. If your relative bought life insurance fairly recently, there might be a trail of the companies to which he applied. The Medical Information Bureau (MIB) maintains a database that might show if insurers requested your relative’s medical information within the past seven years. Record searches can be requested through the MIB’s Policy Locator Service and cost $75. The MIB says that nearly 30 percent of searches turn up leads.



Holly

Jim Thio asked:


Most aspects of capitalism is win-win. If employers make a lot of money from workers due to increase of workers productivity, those employers will hire as many workers as possible — increasing workers’ salary.

Hence, in most aspects of capitalism, people try to profit from others in any way they can.

However, not all aspects are win-win. If same shops sell the same product at a different price, of course, you’ll pick the cheaper package. In this case, picking a package that makes the shop profit more will tend to hurt you.

The same thing works for insurance. A good rule of thumb on whether an insurance package is good for you or not is whether the insurance program makes a lot of money doing it or not.

No, I am not advocating that such huge profit should be prohibited. To the opposite, when an insurance company makes a lot of money, then they’ll invite competitors that’ll shift their profit back to you. Free market is still the best in this area. I am advocating that you don’t buy such insurances.

The same way, I am not advocating that merchants shouldn’t make a lot of money selling their products to you. I am advocating that you should buy from the business providing the best product, and service, at the least costs. That’s how capitalism works.

The following are insurance programs where insurance companies make a lot of money. Hence, avoid these programs like plague.

Flight Insurance

The safest way to travel is by airplane. There is a statistic that says that if you travel by airplane every day for 1000 years, you’ll probably get a plane crash once. Even then, you’ll survive. However, plane incidents are always reported on TV. That causes fear. Humans act based on emotions and feel that flights are much less safe. Not only that, you also have life insurance covering your life.

Mortgage Life Insurance

I have found out that you’re better off buying term life insurance. Again, in general, insurances that are mixed with something else, like mortgage, or savings, are usually bad ideas. The more things are mixed, the more consumers are confused. The more confused the consumer, the more money insurance companies make.

Credit Card Lost Prevention Insurance

By law, your lost is limited to $50. So don’t buy.

Accidental Death Insurance

Stick to regular good old term insurance. The probability that you’ll die due to accident is lower than you think.

Rental Car Insurance

This is also another rip off. Insurance companies make too much from this. Chances are, it’s already covered with your regular car insurance. Think of it this way, you use your car for a whole year. If you rent a car for 1 day, then the probability that you will have a car accident within that 1 day should be around 1/365 of your regular car insurance. However, rental car insurance is sold at much higher price than that.

Children Insurance

“Mommy, our kids are dead, I am so sad. But fortunately, we got them insured. So we got cash.” There are only two ways why you should buy children insurance. First if your child is the bread earner of the family. Second if you plan to hack them into pieces. I’ll explain more why when we understand the true nature of insurance on http://FasterFinancialFreedom.com/art.390.0.html.

Identity Theft Insurance

The hassle of going through claiming the insurance coverage is better spent on checking your free credit report.

Insurance, Risk, and Investments

Every time you put $1 in an insurance, you’ll probably get $.50. The other $.50 goes to the insurance companies and to their seller. Most of the time, the ratio is even higher.

For example, say you buy term insurance for $1 million. Say you paid $2000/year for that kind of insurance. Then I bet, the insurance companies know all along that the probability you’re going to die that year is only 1%. Hence, the insurance companies make $2 for every $1 they pay in claims.

The more complicated the insurance, the larger the ratio. In permanent insurance, for example, insurance companies probably make $5 every $1 they pay.

You can’t win in insurance by buying more insurance. Your true gain doesn’t come from the higher expected value of your return. Your gain comes from increased stability of your business. Say you have a lot of houses that’s all in the bank. Say one of them is on fire. Then a $100,000 lost can cost you way more than $100,000. Perhaps it’ll force you to fire sale your other houses at cheap price. You see how financial instability can knock you out of business? Insurance addresses this.

Also, with insurance, your income from year to year becomes smooth. Women like stable income. IRS are more lenient towards stable income too. You’ll pay less tax if you earn $50,000 per year for 10 consecutive years than if you earn $100,000 per year for 8 years and lost $150,000 per year the next 2 years. The former case will put you on lower income tax bracket and relieve you from paying the tax on the extra $50,000/year that you’re going to lose.

So what are the tips?

Do not over Insure

Remember, the benefit of insurance is stabilizing your income. If you over insure, your income will be instable again because you’ll actually make more money if your house is on fire than if it stays in charge.

Now, some people love to over insure. The only time this can be profitable is if you plan to burn your house. This is illegal, however. Insurance companies understand that those who are over insured are less likely to guard his house well, observe fire codes, and so on. So, they charge much higher premiums.

Keep the Co-payment Threshold High

In many insurances, you pay the first $10,000. The insurance pay in addition to that cost. Say you wreck your car. Say the cost is $5,000. You pay for it. However, if the cost is $100,000, then you pay the $10,000 of the cost, and the insurance pays $90,000.

Why is the co-payment high? First, insurance claiming is not easy. There’s a lot of fraud going on and there’s a lot of administrative processes that need to be done. If the insurance company puts the administrative cost to the claimant, they’ll lose customers.

“Oh I lost my house, but I have to cough up even more money to get money from my insurance.” Only governments can do such cruelty and stay in business.

So what do insurance companies do? They put the administrative cost in the premium.

So the premium becomes high. After all, if your loss is small, why not just pay for it? Saving the lesser premium in investments will be more than enough to pay small losses without losing your financial stability.

It’s also never a good idea to file a claim for small losses. Filing such claims will make insurance companies mark you as a high risk. Hence, they’ll raise the premium even more.

Sell Life Insurance Policy

The problem with term life insurance is you receive it after you’re dead. Well, sometimes you can get your money before you die. That process is called viatical settlement. It’ll only work for those whho are terminally ill. So an investor pays a reduced version of the coverage. After you die, the investor gets the coverage from the insurance company.



Michael