Your Wealth Puzzle » General Insurance

Reinsurance & Cover Insurance Needs

yourwealthpuzzle — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:15:06 +0000

Can you personally get reinsurance? Do you want or need reinsurance? No and No. Reinsurance is the insurance that insurance companies buy to protect their insurance needs. You as an individual buy auto insurance or homeowners insurance to cover insurance needs you may have. Insurance companies buy reinsurance from specialty insurance companies that sell just reinsurance policies.

Our society has become such a litigious society that everyone needs insurance to protect themselves from everything and everybody.

Property Casualty insurance protects your assets – your home, your auto. Property casualty insurance also protects you if your liable for damage to other people’s property. Life insurance can be used to protect you if you live or die. The cash value in a permanent life insurance policy can be used for your retirement. If you die, your life insurance policy pays out a death benefit to your beneficiaries.

If you own a business, you absolutely need commercial insurance to protect your assets and liabilities.

Insurance is essential today. Do not be without insurance. Do not go unprotected.

General Liability Insurance

yourwealthpuzzle — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:38:18 +0000

General liability insurance is one of those insurance terms that is not interchangeable with small business insurance. General liability insurance is only one part of a small business insurance package.

A complete small business insurance package can also include business auto insurance, workers compensation or a healthcare insurance plan. The package may even have to include a building insurance policy if you own the commercial building where you operate your business.

General liability insurance is for paying those liability claims made against the business. How much coverage you need will depend upon the risk exposure of your business. For example, a floral shop is less risky than a dynamite factory, so less coverage is required and lower premiums are paid.

Talk with your insurance agent for an evaluation of your business insurance needs and a customized insurance program.

Discount Health Insurance & Discount Auto Insurance

yourwealthpuzzle — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:37:34 +0000

In these tough economic times, are you looking for ways to live below your means? One step you can take is to review your insurance policies.

To save money on your insurance policies, you can buy discount car insurance and discount health insurance. You can also lower your insurance premiums by raising your homeowners insurance policy deductibles. You can even buy life insurance online to keep your expenses down.

When you make your auto insurance comparison, you can go online or work directly with a car insurance agency. Sometimes you can keep your premiums down by working online because there is no agent involved. Keep in mind that when you work online, if you have billing questions or a car insurance claim, you will not have an agent to advise you. By working online you will also work your claims & billing online.

Purchasing life insurance, discount health insurance, home insurance or discount auto insurance online may save you money, but you will give up the agent support. So review your insurance policies, the savings may or may not be worth the loss of having an insurance agent available.

Insurances

yourwealthpuzzle — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:03:14 +0000

Insurances are not all the same – insurance agents are not all the same either. Some insurance agents specialize in property casualty insurance, while others specialize in health insurance.

Property casualty insurance agents sell auto and home insurance; RV insurance and umbrella insurance. Agents who specialize in health insurance, sell group, personal health insurance and supplemental health insurance.

Since their expertise is different, their training and licensing requirements are different. Personal health insurance and supplemental health insurance both ask medical questions, so the agent has to be trained accordingly. But when you buy RV insurance or umbrella insurance you are not asked any medical questions but instead questions about your vehicles, your driving record and your current insurance coverages.

If you are unsure of or uncomfortable about an insurance agents’ expertise, ask what they specialize in and ask for references. If they do not specialize in the insurance product you need, ask them to refer you out

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How Insurance Fraud Effects Me

yourwealthpuzzle — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:16:46 +0000

Insurance fraud effects you – even if you are not personally involved in fraudulent acts. Because of insurance fraud, insurance providers may be forced to increase your insurance premium.

Insurance providers lose billions of dollars annually due to insurance fraud. One way for them to recover that lost revenue is to increase policyholders insurance premium. Another way is to try to reduce or prevent fraud – and you can actually help here. If you are aware of fraudulent activity – report it to your insurance company, the federal fraud bureau or your state’s department of insurance.

Fraudulent claims are not always obvious and can occur with all types of insurance claims – auto or home claims, workers comp or medical claims. Be aware – fraud effects everyone.

Best Insurance Agencies for Insurance Needs

yourwealthpuzzle — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:09:04 +0000

There are 2 types of insurance agencies; which type of agency you work with depends upon your personal insurance needs. The training and licensing for each type of agency does differ slightly because the products sold are different.

One type of agency specializes in “medical” insurances. They generally just sell health care insurance, critical illness insurance and hospital insurance. While the other type of agency specializes in property casualty insurance. Some examples of property casualty insurance are marine insurance or boat insurance, vehicle insurance and hazard insurance.

Since property and casualty and medical insurance focus on different insurance needs, it is sometimes safer to stick with an insurance agency that specializes. The underwriting and the claims service for property casualty insurance and medical insurance are handled differently. For example a critical illness insurance claim is researched much differently than a boat insurance claim.

Umbrella Insurance Policy 101

yourwealthpuzzle — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:02:00 +0000

Why do you need umbrella insurance? Who buys umbrella insurance policies?

An umbrella insurance policy provides you with extra protection on top of the protection your auto and homeowners insurance policies provide. So if you own property, a home, a few cars and maybe a boat, you might want to talk with your insurance agent about an umbrella policy. Property ownership comes with responsibility and sometimes liability…an umbrella policy helps protect you from the additional liability.

If your insurance agent has not explained umbrella insurance to you, read on for a closer look at the advantages of an umbrella insurance policy.

The Basics of Umbrella Policies

The Value of owning an Umbrella Policy

The purpose of umbrella insurance is to pay the damages that “exceed” the liability limits stated in your primary insurance policies; your auto and homeowners.
Umbrella insurance “sits on top of your other insurance policies”.
Umbrella insurance is triggered to pay damages “after” your insurer exhausts the limits on your primary policy.
If you were personally sued, could you pay above the limits on your primary auto and/or home insurance policies?

Example of why an Umbrella Policy is Good

Let’s say your primary auto insurance policy limits are $300,000 but the damages from an accident that was your fault were $750,000. The injured party in this example would want their damages of $750,000 to be paid “in full”. The injured party usually does not settle for “whatever you can afford to pay” – no, they want to be made “whole”. So to make them “whole” you would have to pay some of the money out of your pocket because the insurance policy would only pay for the first $300,000. In this example you would have to pay $450,000 – do you have that much extra money?
Of course accidents or incidents that result in very high amounts of damage used to be rare; but they are occurring more because of the high cost of labor and materials.
A large loss with no coverage only needs to happen to you once for you to be in financial ruin.

Claims with Umbrella Insurance

An umbrella insurance policy kicks in after your auto insurance and home insurance policy limits have been met.
If the liability limits on your auto or home insurance policy are $300,000 and your umbrella policy limit is $1 million, you would have liability limits of $1,300,000.

Umbrella Insurance in a hard economy

During hard economic times extra protection is especially valuable because of the possibility of a fraudulent claim.
Fraudulent claims do increase in a tough economy.
So you could easily have a fraudulent claim filed against you, that you would be forecd to defend.
Even if a lawsuit against you is found to be “without merit”, you still would have to defend yourself against it.
Defense can get expensive – umbrella insurance pays for those expenses.

Personal Insurance

yourwealthpuzzle — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:08:56 +0000

If you are like most consumers today, your pocket book is stretched to the limit due to the current recession. Maybe you have been forced to cut back on your spending to cope with the recession; even on your personal insurance. Your unpaid bills are piling up. Your discretionary income is becoming less and less.

Is there anything recession resistant?

Perhaps. Maybe your personal insurance premiums are staying ahead of the spreading recession…. your auto, your home, your umbrella, your motorcycle and boat insurance. You may be able to save some money on your personal insurance, even in a battered economy. Sometimes you can save quite a bit on your personal insurance just by making adjustments to your insurance policies.

Here’s are some tips that may help you maintain your course even in this struggling economy.

Shop your insurance: You should shop your personal insurance at least once a year just to see if you still have the best rates plus the best coverages. You can call your insurance broker to shop it for you. Most insurance brokers have access to many different insurance companys. Or you can shop your personal insurance by yourself over the internet. All, if not most, insurance companies have a website where they let you run your own quotes. There are hundreds of thousands of personal insurance companies available in the market place today.

Keep your claim activity to a minimum: During economic downturns, the volume of insurance claims filed increases. Don’t get caught up in filing a claim for every little scrap you get into. Your insurance company can raise your rates due to too many claims.

Personal Insurance

yourwealthpuzzle — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:06:53 +0000

How can you keep your personal insurance premiums low? Here are a few tips.

Watch your credit score – insurance companys are: Most if not all insurance companys today are using credit scores to keep score on you. They started to implement this tool even before the economic downturn.

Pet ownership: Do not own whatever your insurance company considers an “aggressive dog”. Each insurance compnay has a different criteria for an “aggressive breed”. Check with your insruance carrier.

Maintain your home: If you do not have upgraded electrical; plumbing and heating systems, look into upgrading them. This will show the insurance company that you are trying to help keep your chances for claims down.

Personal insurance company’s use claim acitvity, credit scores, types of pets you own and the shape of your home to determine insurance premiums. So even if it does not seem as if you have control during this current economic downturn, you have more control than you think.

How These Times Affect Insurence Companies

yourwealthpuzzle — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:38:18 +0000

Bad economic times effects everyone, including insurence company’s and policyholders. The impact felt by insurence companies trickles down to the policyholders by higher insurence premiums. It is a cause and effect relationship.

Bad economic times, recessions and increased unemployment causes an increase in insurence claims. The effect of increased insurence claims causes increased insurence premiums. Insurance premiums remain low when insurance claim activity remains low.

Insurance premiums can also be kept low when insurance company’s are able to earn a good return on their investments. And given the condition of the stock market right now, the returns are just not there.

Due to an increase in bankruptcy’s and foreclosures, insurence company’s are seeing an increase in claim activity the effect is increasing insurance premiums.

Thefts, vandalism and arson are two areas of concern in the insurance industry. The theft of steel copper is increasing. There are a lot more vacant properties, which leads to increased vandalism. This increase in claim activity eventually effects insurance premiums.