Health Insurance Coverage

Health insurance is something that everyone needs today. The rising cost of visiting a health care provider or a hospital stay makes it imperative that everyone have some type of health care coverage. Government statistics estimate that over 40 million people in America are not covered by any type of health insurance on any given day. That’s an enormous number of people who really are taking a financial risk.

While most Americans are able to obtain some type of health insurance through their place of employment, many others, the underemployed, the self-employed and the unemployed simply don’t know where to find good, quality coverage at a fair price. The Census Bureau estimates that nearly 15% of the population has no coverage. The long term effects of this are hard to quantify because it means that young children do not see a health care provider unless they are seriously ill. Unfortunately this approach while appearing to save money can be devastating to the long term health of the child.

Health care providers and other experts all recommend that every one have some type of health insurance for the necessary time when they’ll need to visit their Doctor or hospital.

We’ve searched all over the web and have located a few quality companies that we feel are not only financially sound and secure, but which also offer competitive rates. You don’t need to even sit down and visit with an agent, all the information gathering and work can be done over the internet.

You’ll find the best life insurance for your needs that will comfortably fit into your budget. Solid life insurance will give you peace of mind and confidence.

For more you may visit: www.health-insurance-guru.com

How to File a Home Insurance Claim

Home insurance claims are a fact of life. The whole reason you get coverage is to
protect your assets. Getting the coverage is just one step. Do you understand what
your policy covers and for how much? This might seem like a silly question but the
fact is there are many homeowners who have a very rude awaking as to how much
they are insured for. The first thing you should do if you don’t understand your
policy after reading it is having your insurance provider explain it to you. It’s better
to now where you stand before a disaster strikes. Ask away!

Some important questions to ask would be:

1. Are your belongings insured for replacement cost (the amount of money it would
take for you to replace an item today), or actual cash value (the replacement cost
minus depreciation)? This makes a huge difference when you are restocking lost items in your home.

2. Is your home insured for its replacement value? Some people cut corners in order
to save some bucks and insure the home for half its replacement value or a fraction
on the replacement value. When the time comes will you have enough money to
rebuild if a catastrophe strikes?

3. What liability coverage’s are provided in your homeowner’s policy? This makes a
difference when your child’s visiting friend little Mikey gets hurt at your home under
your roof. Boys will be boys but that won’t help you pay the hospital bills!

Do you know the answers to all of the asked questions? If not get to reading and
asking these questions of your home insurance representative.

Now that you have covered your bases, you should feel a bit more secure that you
are ready for that day when you have to file that claim. That day is now! What do
you do now? The answer to that question depends on what type claim you are
filing. First and foremost address any life threat to you and your family. If there’s a
fire in your house get out of there and call the fire department. If you’ve been
burglarized call the police! Once the emergency has been addressed call you agent
or Insurance Company right away. Have your policy number available if possible.
The importance of calling right away is that insurance companies place a time limit
on filing claims. Once they’re done asking you questions, ask them anything you
need to know.

Am I covered? Does my claim exceed my deductible? When will I receive my check?
How long will the claims process take? Will I need to obtain estimates for repairs?
Remember the only dumb question is the one not asked; make sure you understand
everything.

The next few steps of the common senses kind; make any repairs and or take steps
to protect your property from further damage. Save any receipts for what you
spend; submit them to your insurer for reimbursement. Prepare a list of lost or
damaged items. Save any documentation you have; if you have a home inventory
catalog, use this to expedite your claim. Save receipts of any living expenses
incurred during this time period if your home is so damaged that you can’t live at
your home. Provide any additional needed information to your insurance provider
assigned to handle your claim. Finally if you are dissatisfied with any part of your
settlement offer, talk to your representative. Make them clarify to you step by step
how they came to the figure they are offering you.

Medical Insurance Rate - Why Does It Change and How is It Decided?

Are you shopping for health insurance? Are you looking for the best rates? Are you totally confused? There are so many people scrambling for health insurance and are trying their best to compare the rates. This is not easy at first because the health insurance companies have had to come up with creative alternatives in their insurance portfolios. Those creative alternatives can give the average person an insurance headache.

The rising costs of hospital and physician services are always passed on to the consumer. The consumer depends on their insurance company to pay for their medical expenses in exchange for a premium. The medical rates are based on several criteria.

Here are a few:

1. Gender – Male/Female rates differ.

2. Tobacco - Non-Tobacco – Tobacco users are higher

3. Household Status - Single, Parent-child, Parent-children, Husband-Wife, Husband-wife-child, Husband-wife-children

4. Deductible – $500 to $5000 (with some companies)

There are some things that you can do to affect the rate. The most cost savings method is to choose a high deductible plan. The higher the deductible calculates into a lower the rate. Low deductibles no longer justify the premiums paid. This trend toward high deductibles is called self-insuring. You are taking on the financial responsibility for the deductible amount.

The best way to offset and prepare for the out of pocket deductible is to start a health savings account. This is a tax deductible savings plan for medical expenses. It’s the equivalent of a medical IRA. The tax deduction offsets some of the out of pocket expense you incur with the higher deductible. Contact your tax advisor or accountant about starting a health savings account.

To view our recommended source for reliable quotes, visit this page: Affordable Health Insurance.

To view our recommended source for all other insurance, visit this page: Insurance Quotes.

Credit and Car Insurance: What Are Insurers Looking For?

If you’ve shopped for car insurance lately, you’ve probably noticed that prospective insurers are checking your credit when determining your car insurance premium. But what exactly are insurers looking at and how will it affect your insurance rates?

Introducing: The Insurance Score

We’re all aware that our credit score is used to determine the spending limit on our credit cards or interest rates on loans. Our creditworthiness is used by lenders to gauge our ability to pay back loans and the amount of money we have to do so.

On the contrary, insurers don’t care how much money you have in the bank—they just want to know how you’ve used your credit in the past and how it’s influenced the way you pay bills, loans and other debts.

Because insurers use credit differently than traditional lenders, they’ve come up with a score all their own: the insurance score.

Formulating an Insurance Score

How do insurers formulate an insurance score? Fair Isaac, a financial management solutions company, provides insurers with a formula with which to calculate your insurance score. And while that formula does involve your actual credit score, your insurance score is calculated in a way which quantifies how you’ve used credit in the past.

The good news for consumers is that because of this formula, no one item can prevent you from receiving a good auto insurance rate. But what is of concern to car insurance shoppers is that insurance rates can vary from insurer to insurer.

Why?

For the most part, insurers are allowed to come up with their own scoring models. This is also good news for consumers—your insurance score might be better with XYZ Company rather than ABC Company. This further highlights the importance of shopping around for the best auto insurance rate.

Elements of an Insurance Score

So how do you know what components are incorporated into your insurance score?

According to Fair Isaac, the following factors are used to determine an insurance score:

• Payment history
• Length of credit history
• Amount owed on revolving accounts
• Delinquent items and collections
• Amount owed for delinquent items
• Time passed since last delinquency or late payment
• Total amount of outstanding debts

Fair Isaac does not consider the following:

• Race, age, sex, marital status, religion or country of origin
• Employment history, job title or salary information
• Child support agreements
• Rental obligations
• Whether you have or are participating in credit counseling
• Where you live

If you’re curious about your insurance score, direct all questions to your insurer. While they may not disclose your actual score, they should be able to answer any and all questions related to credit-based scoring.

Cleaning Up Credit

While some states are questioning the insurance industry’s right to use credit information in determining auto rates, 92 percent of the nation’s 100 largest auto insurers are currently using credit to develop insurance scores—and folks with bad credit are paying anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent more than drivers with good credit.

Obtain the best possible insurance score and:

Look over your credit report. Most states entitle you to at least one free credit report each year. Get a copy of your credit report and check for any errors that may hinder your ability to obtain a good insurance score.

Pay on time, all the time. Automatic withdrawals and online banking are making it easier for consumers to make timely payments. If you have a hard time remembering what bills are due and when, online bill pay is probably a good move to make!

Pay down large balances. If you have large outstanding balances or revolving debt, work on paying those balances off as soon as you can. Revolving debt has negative affect on your credit score—especially if you owe large amounts of money.

Tips for the Road

You may be unable to prevent insurers from looking at your credit history, but when it comes to finding cheap auto insurance, you’re not out of the running. Be sure to compare multiple auto quotes from different insurers and work on cleaning up your credit. You’ll be rewarded, not only with affordable car insurance, but in many other financial areas, too.

About InsureMe

Megan L. Mahan is a copywriter and insurance information expert with InsureMe in Englewood, Colorado. InsureMe links agents nationwide with consumers shopping for insurance. Specializing in health, life, home, long-term care and auto insurance quotes, the InsureMe network provides thousands of agents with insurance leads every year. For more information, visit InsureMe.com.

Do You Need A Long-term Care Insurance Provider?

When purchasing insurance, most of us take care of the immediate needs—car, health, home, even renter’s insurance—and we search for those providers according to location, coverage, rates, etc. But many of us don’t consider looking into long-term care insurance, much less long-term care insurance providers. There’s a good reason for this. Not everyone needs a long-term care insurance provider. However, some folks do and they fall into two main categories—the elderly, and people with a debilitating illness or injury and/or require assistance with everyday activities.

Having long-term care insurance is not for everyone, but if you or a family member falls into one of these two categories, having a long-term care insurance provider just makes sense; otherwise, expenses come out-of-pocket, whether the pocket belongs you or your family. Of course, people don’t always know if they’re going to need long-term care insurance in the future, but researching statistics can help predict. For example, many people over the age of 65 need the services of a nursing home at some point, and the number of women in nursing homes far outweighs the number of men in nursing homes. Also, people can sometimes predict their need for long-term care insurance if they have a family history of illnesses and diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Once you decide that you or a family member needs long-term care insurance, take time searching for a provider. Make sure to check with several different long-term care insurance providers for specific coverage needs and rates, but understand that you will only need one provider and one policy. The provider you choose must be a financially stable company. Thoroughly read all documents before purchasing a policy in order to understand your exact coverage, rates, etc., and ask questions if you don’t understand something. In the end you will be secure with the provider, policy, and rates that are right for you or your family member.

Our recommended source for insurance quotes long term care insurance quote, affordable health insurance

Why Disability Insurance Is So Important

When you have a disability of any type, your time, energy, and emotions are all heightened as you begin the journey to learn all you can so that you can regain the best quality of life that you can, given your particular circumstances. And, if you are married, and/or if you have children, trying to communicate with them what is going on with you, as well as to your doctors, becomes a difficult chore also.

With all of this chaos in your life, the absolute last thing that you need to worry about is money! What if I can’t work any longer? How will the bills be paid?

Perhaps you are saying that you do not need any disability insurance. Consider the following.

Disability Statistics[1]

The odds of a person having at least one long term disability (LTD) that lasts three months or longer before that person reaches age 65.

DISABLED: (1999) According to the Disability Management Sourcebook, the number of folks between 17 and 44 with severe disabilities has increased 400 percent over the past 25 years. One in seven people will become disabled for five years or more before they reach 65.

ODDS, STATISTICS AND DISABILITIES: (1999) The chances of using your homeowners insurance are about 1 in 88. The odds of using your auto insurance at about 1 in 47. The chances of using your LTC insurance is about 2 in 5. One out of two women and one out of three men will spend some time in a nursing home. (Journal of the American Society of CLU, 1996) More than 12 million older Americans will require some form of long term care by 2020. (Health Insurance Association of America). 72% of residents in a nursing home are women 90% of nursing home residents are over the age of 65. 22% of the disabled population is under age 65. (Puget Sound Life Underwriters Journal 1996). Functionally disabled people between the ages of 18 and 64 represent 40% of Americans needing long term care services. (Life Insurance Selling 1995)

The likelihood of needing LTC (obviously) increases with age. In 1991, 29.2% if those age 45- 64 had a disability; 44.6% between 65 and 74 had a disability; 63.7% between the ages of 75 to 84. 15.3% and 41.5% respectively had a severe disability. (Employee Benefit Research Institute, 1995) 80% of disabled persons are cared for at home or in adult day care centers. 72% of caregivers are family or friends. (Puget Sound Underwriters Journal). The cost of home care can run from $4.25 to over $200 daily depending on the level of skill needed (SF Chronicle, 1995). Caring for each Alzheimers patient will cost more than $213,000- on top of other medical expenses- over the remaining five years of their lives. (American Journal of Public Health, 1994). Over 99% of nursing home care is either custodial or intermediate care, not skilled care, and is not covered by Medicare or Medicare supplements (Journal of the American Society of CLU’s, 1996).

Reasons People Take STD and LTD

Leading the list of Top 5 causes of short-term disability (STD) workplace absence for 2001 was pregnancy (normal), followed by complications from pregnancy, injuries (excluding back), back conditions and digestive/intestinal conditions. The causes of claims and the percentage received for each cause were as follows:

LTD - 13 percent – Cancer, 12 percent – Complications from Pregnancy, 11 percent – Back, 9 percent – Cardiovascular, 5 percent – Depression
(2003) every year 12% of the adult U.S. population suffers a long-term disability. One out of every seven workers will suffer a five-year or longer period of disability before age 65, and if you’re 35 now, your chances of experiencing a three-month or longer disability before you reach age 65 are 50%. If you’re 45, the figure is 44%

STD - 20 percent – Pregnancy (Normal), 9 percent – Pregnancy (Complications), 9 percent – Injuries (Excluding Back), 8 percent – Back, 8 percent – Digestive/Intestinal

The primary sources of disability insurance are STD and LTD. It is important to see if your company offers these insurances. If they do, make sure that you are covered. If they don’t, you can get personal STD and LTD. By visiting the following website, you can get more information about disability insurances.

How Much Disability Insurance is “Enough”?

Research shows the following about employer-offered STD (short term disability) and LTD (long term disability).

Disability Insurance: ( 2003) In small private firms, fewer than one-quarter of workers have short-term disability coverage (22%), and just 13 percent have long-term disability income insurance, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Half of workers at large employers (100 or more employees) have short-term disability income insurance (47%), and more than one-third have long-term disability coverage (40%).

Disability coverage (American Council of Insurers 2004) 82% of employees are lacking in adequate coverage.

The Society of Actuaries says that only 2.5% of employees have individual disability coverage (i.e., paid for by the employee and not the company).

If you have already read the other blogs about Disability insurance, you know how important it is to know about what types of insurance you have, and how much each insurance will pay out, if and when you need it.

Now, you know how much your STD and LTD will pay out each month. The question is, how much SHOULD YOU HAVE?

There are some simple ways to determine just how much is “enough”, and it varies for each family.

1) Sick leave - maintain at minimum 5 days, and, at best, 10 days. In this way, you will be able to meet a usual time gap before your STD kicks in.

2) STD - most STD policies cover up to 26 weeks. To make sure that you have “enough” STD TIME coverage, the weeks should cover your LTD’s elimination period.

3) LTD - timewise, you will want your LTD plan to cover you until your retirement age. (Note, not all retirement ages are at 65. The retirement ages are increasing; make sure that you know your specific retirement age.)

Now, let’s talk about money. To calculate how much money is needed by you and your family, consider the following.

For each month, note the following.

1) OUTGO Your “must pay” expenses (including, but not limited to the following: house payment; utilities; car and gasoline; medical expenses; any child care; any loans, credit cards, etc.)

2) INCOME ON DISABILITY Add together any income other than yours (i.e., spouse’s income) plus whatever you will receive on a monthly basis from your company-paid STD and/or LTD. Add to this amount whatever savings you have, and how long this would last.

The gap between income on disability and outgo would be the amount of income that you might want to offset with a private LTD policy.

WHY THE NEED FOR DISABILITY INSURANCE BENEFITS?
What are the odds?: (2005) in the next hour 194 people will be injured in car accidents, 57 homes will catch fire, 230 people will die, and 1,027 will become disabled.

Here are the latest disability trends that concern you.

* Today, we live harder, work harder and play harder than ever before. As a consequence, there has been a dramatic increase in disabling injuries and illnesses.

* In the past 25 years, the number of severely disabled people ages 17 to 44 has increased 400 percent. While the number of people with protection has also increased, most Americans still have a disability income protection gap.

* This is alarming when you consider in a year’s time, chances are only one in 1,200 of you will need your fire insurance—generally considered a necessity for homeowners—but one in eight (8) of you will be sick, injured or killed.

* The risk of becoming disabled will continue to increase.

Aging is a main factor.

* Because of advanced trauma and cancer care, more people today survive illnesses and injuries that were deadly 20 years ago. In 1930, the average U.S. life expectancy was 61; today, it is 76; and by the year 2050, it will be 82. Today, there are 3.6 million Americans over age 65; by 2040, there will be 13.8 million.

* With Americans now living longer, age has and will continue to have a profound impact on disabilities. According to the National Association of Health Underwriters, there are 3.74 disabilities per 1,000 people ages 45 to 49. This increases nearly five times more with age, to 15.18 disabilities per 1,000 people ages 60 to 64.

* In addition, the traditional retirement age is moving up, and more people are likely to work part-time after retirement, thus increasing the risk of a disability later in their life.

Changing workforce

* More than 10.5 million people are starting their own businesses, consulting or working at home, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And more women than ever are now working; many families today rely on two incomes. In the early 1900s, there were only 500,000 married women in the labor force. They represented just 4.5 percent of all married women. Today, there are about 39 million married women working outside the home (representing 60 percent of all married women), and 17 million of them have children under age six.

* With more women working and families relying on two incomes, the need for disability protection has become greater, especially since women are twice as likely to suffer a disabling illness than men. And with more people working out of their homes and earning substantial incomes, the need for more flexible, individualized protection is on the rise.

Increase in workplace disabilities

* Over the years, the causes of disabilities have changed in the workplace.

* Today, disabilities due to psychiatric conditions, severe back pains, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, muscle/tissue disorders and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are increasing dramatically. Among the most common long-term disabilities (those lasting longer than three years) are circulatory and heart conditions, back disorders, psychiatric conditions, general sickness and subjective pain.

* Common short-term disabilities (those lasting less than three years) include normal pregnancies as well as pregnancies with complications, injuries, muscular or skeletal problems, and psychiatric or substance abuse problems.

About Disabilitykey.com & Carolyn Magura:
Disabilitykey.com is a website designed to assist each person in his/her own unique quest to navigate through the difficult and often conflicting and misleading information about coping with disabilities.

Carolyn Magura, noted disability / ADA expert, has written an e-Book documenting the process that allowed her to:

a) continue to work and receive her “full salary” while on Long Term Disability; and

b) become the first person in her State to qualify for Social Security Disability the FIRST TIME, in UNDER 30 DAYS.

Click here to receive Carolyn ’s easy-to-read, easy-to-follow direct guide through this difficult, trying process. If you are disabled, don’t let this disabiling process disable you. Read Carolyns Disability Key Blog.