Auto Insurance Quotes

The latest fuel saving system- the water to gas technology- has most of the public getting confused. Would that mean that we would be putting water in our gas tank? The answer is NO!

With the water to gas conversion it doesn’t literally mean that water will be put inside the gas tank to conserve on fuel. This system uses a water conversion kit called the electrolyzer or the hydrogen generator. This is the device that converts the water into vapour to separate the hydrogen and be used as supplement to gas. So it is very important to follow the instructions stated in the conversion and installation guides.

Water in gas tanks poses big problems. Since water is heavier than fuel, it will build up in the bottom of the tank until it undergoes something to remove it. Water and gasoline is immiscible, meaning it would not mix except in minute or very small quantities. With the water settled in the bottom of the tank, it could result to rust. It also freezes easily and can leave the driver stranded depending where the water froze. Once the water in tank gets deep enough, it will be drawn into the fuel line and can result into clogged filters and strangled motors. Since water is also thicker than fuel, it can’t get through the injector. So water tends to block the injector resulting into engine misfire.

Mechanics said that water in fuel tanks are serious issues. The only thing motorists can do to remove the water without removing the fuel tank is to use isopropyl. But experts recommend sending the vehicles to a repair shop so that all of the water in the tank could be flushed out completely.

A trick used in aircrafts to reduce water contamination in fuels is to fill up at the end of the day, so the tank has less air space overnight. They also fill it up to the brim every night so there is no airspace above the fuel that could lead to vapour condensation. But since cars are only required to be filled with gasoline once a week, this trick may not be applicable to vehicles. Parking indoors will also help in reducing water contamination in gas tanks.

Another possible cause of water in gas tanks is simply the climate. When you have wet conditions, overnight condensation may happen in the fuel tank. Condensation in the tank would occur most in similar conditions to carburaetor icing high humidity/wet conditions with temperatures just above freezing. The car would cool down over night and the moisture in the air space in the tank condenses on the inside of the tank. At the same time, the cooling air in the tank would contract and suck more in from outside worsening the already worse situation.

There are also several incidents of local gasoline stations pumping contaminated gas into vehicles. Some of these gasoline stations were closed down due to the illegal processes that they were doing. An example would be what happened in Deltona, Florida. Some drivers claimed that a Deltona gas station is selling tainted gas. There were two drivers who told the media and reporters that their cars broke down immediately after filling up at the local Deltona gasoline station.

These would be some typical situations where water in gas is not a good thing. Taking care of our vehicles and being aware of the conditions around us will equip us on how to better handle vehicle maintenance.

497

Most Americans are struggling to afford health insurance. In just the past few years, the cost of buying health insurance for your family has skyrocketed. I was talking with an insurance agent recently, who told me it’s not unusual at all for his clients to be paying $1,000 to $1,400 per month for their family to be covered.

I don’t know many people who can easily afford those kinds of monthly insurance payments. Most who are paying them are making major sacrifices in othe…
medicine,insurance,
Most Americans are struggling to afford health insurance. In just the past few years, the cost of buying health insurance for your family has skyrocketed. I was talking with an insurance agent recently, who told me it’s not unusual at all for his clients to be paying $1,000 to $1,400 per month for their family to be covered.

I don’t know many people who can easily afford those kinds of monthly insurance payments. Most who are paying them are making major sacrifices in other areas. The vast majority of Americans put health coverage very high on their list of priorities, so the other things that get left behind might surprise you. No question, the quality of life is far lower for many people now that they pay so much to be insured.

Meanwhile, many employers are cutting back their employees’ insurance coverage. Professions that once paid all their employees’ health insurance premiums — like teachers and firefighters — are finding the employee footing the bill for larger and larger portions of their insurance.

How are people coping? Many Americans simply don’t have health insurance anymore. That’s a big problem not only for families, who often put off going to the doctor, but also for society in general. People who hesitate buying medicine or seeing a doctor often end up very sick in hospital emergency rooms.

Others are simply reducing the amount of health insurance they have. They pay a larger portion of their doctor visits and prescription medicine costs. If you are a young adult, it may not make a lot of sense to pay huge insurance premiums to be covered for major illnesses that you are very unlikely to experience.

There are a growing number of health insurance plans that let you pick and choose the areas of coverage you want to pay for. While this practice was prohibited in many states, more and more places are seeing the wisdom and necessity of this approach.

Even more pressing than the cost of health insurance is the cost of buying prescription medicines. Many people simply can’t afford the spiraling cost of the medicines they need. Others might insist, willingly lowering their standard of living just to afford overpriced medicine. The solution to this problem increasingly has nothing to do with insurance. Organizations use their large pool of members to negotiate big discounts on prescription drugs at thousands of chain and independent pharmacies nationwide. Typically you can save up to 60% off generic drugs and up to 15% off name-brand drugs.

This is a big advantage for the elderly, families, businesses, organizations, and anyone who wants to lower their cost of medicine. Additionally, some programs also cover medicine for your pets. If you often care for an ill animal, this can save you a lot of money over time.

Unlike insurance, discount drug programs are often very low cost or free. Pharmacies participate in the discount programs to encourage you to buy from them. It’s a win-win for both you and the medical industry.

396

Auto insurance is often a sticky subject.
auto, cars, insurance
Auto insurance is often a sticky subject. Everyone feels like they’re paying too much to insure their car, and wants to know how to get their premiums down. It’s an industry that really lacks an effective way to make price comparisons, leading many people to switch every few years the way they do with credit cards or phone providers.

When you understand the factors that go into deciding the price you pay for auto insurance, however, you should find it much easier to read the market and use it to your advantage. This article should give you a basic grounding, but whole books have been written on the subject ?it’s up to you how much you want to learn.

The most basic thing you need to understand is that insurance companies don’t decide premiums based on how much they like you, or how much they think you can afford. Insurance is based on one thing, and one thing alone: risk. Every time the insurance company has to pay out for an accident, they keep a record of the amount, and every other factor they can find ?the make, age and model of the car, the age and gender of the driver, where they live, how long they have had a license, and so on. There are hundreds of factors.

From this, the insurance companies can build up what is called a ‘risk profile? This allows them to work out the risk that they will have to pay out to any given person, and how much they would be likely to have to pay, based entirely on past experience. This is why a newly-qualified male driver in his twenties driving a sporty car has to pay so much to get insured ?the statistics show that this group is by far the most likely to have an accident.

Once you understand this system, you can use it to your advantage. Obviously you can’t change who you are, but you can change your car. The make, model and age of your car are three quite important factors in your risk profile, and they’re all open to you to change. It is not difficult to use online insurance quotation tools to find out which cars are pricey in insurance terms, and which ones are cheaper, and use this to help you make buying decisions.

492

Peter, our freelance journalists doesn’t take kindly to people driving into his beloved car. No, he doesn’t use his fourteen stone of gym-honed muscle to exact retribution nor is he into road rage. Of course he’s got his car comprehensively insured but he’s also covered another way. He’s got legal insurance. He included in his car insurance as an optional extra. This extra cover allows him to claim for costs and losses excluded covered from normal comprehensive and third part…
car,insurance,legal,cover
Peter, our freelance journalists doesn’t take kindly to people driving into his beloved car. No, he doesn’t use his fourteen stone of gym-honed muscle to exact retribution nor is he into road rage. Of course he’s got his car comprehensively insured but he’s also covered another way. He’s got legal insurance. He included in his car insurance as an optional extra. This extra cover allows him to claim for costs and losses excluded covered from normal comprehensive and third party policies. So four months ago when his car was whacked from behind at the traffic lights, the legal profession swung into action! Not for free you understand, after all who’s heard of a solicitor labouring for free? No, but it was free to Peter ?his insurance company paid all his legal costs.

Whilst the garage appointed by his insurer made a beautiful job repairing his bent MX5, his comprehensive policy didn’t normally cover claims for personal injury or loss of earnings. So the extra ? a month Peter forked out for legal expense cover, became money well spent. He’s already received compensation for the broken wrist he suffered and negotiations for his loss of earnings are well advanced. One-handed journalists aren’t much use in our office so he took a month off!

Legal expense insurance assists policyholders to claim back losses and compensation where the accident wasn’t their fault. The losses can include the cost of hiring a replacement car whilst yours is in the garage and, for those not comprehensively insured, the costs of having your car repaired. As in Peter’s case, legal expense insurance will also fund claims for personal injury and loss of earnings.

Cover for legal expense is one of those insurances that’s under rated until it’s called on. The insurer will run the claim for you and sends the settlement cheque at the end of the process. All you have to do is record the facts on the legal expense claim form, speak to the solicitor nominated by your insurer, be prepared to answer a few follow-up questions, and sit back. If the case goes to court, they’ll represent you and fight your corner ?although you may also have to attend.

Most car insurance policies sold on the Internet don’t automatically include legal expense cover ?it’s normally an optional extra. That’s because price competition on the net is so fierce that the insurers prefer to keep their headline premiums down as low as possible.

You’ll find that the optional cost of legal expense cover does vary from insurer to insurer. For example, More Than comes in at ?7.85 per year, Direct Line ?9.95, Churchill ?1 and Budget ?4 per year. Just a few insurance companies such as Admiral, include some legal expense cover for free.

So make sure you don’t forget legal expense cover when you buy car insurance. Complicated claims for compensation can drag on your years especially if severe injury is involved, and final settlements can end up in millions.

855

“Those magnificent men in their flying machines? Ever since the Wright brothers pioneered our ascent into the skies we have strived to fly higher, faster, further with aeronautical advancements surpassing one another at an ever-increasing rate.

Taking to the skies is, of course, much more than the romantic notions upheld in quaint versions of “Up, up and Away?or “Come fly me, let’s fly, let’s fly away? It is, for most aircraft owners, a significant part of their liveli…
aviation insurance,insurance
“Those magnificent men in their flying machines? Ever since the Wright brothers pioneered our ascent into the skies we have strived to fly higher, faster, further with aeronautical advancements surpassing one another at an ever-increasing rate.

Taking to the skies is, of course, much more than the romantic notions upheld in quaint versions of “Up, up and Away?or “Come fly me, let’s fly, let’s fly away? It is, for most aircraft owners, a significant part of their livelihood and not to be contemplated without the proper insurance.

Aviation insurance is different from other forms of insurance in that it is very subjective. Due to the vast array of aircraft types, uses and pilot experience, policies should always be specifically tailored to suit the unique requirements of each individual applicant. For this reason it is recommended that a broker, specialising in aviation insurance be engaged to arrange cover.

When applying for aviation insurance, several matters will be taken into account including:

?Sum insured: Aviation policies are divided into

i. Hull: The loss of or damage to the aircraft.

ii. Liability: Loss of or damage to property belonging to others and/or bodily injury to others as a result of the insured’s negligence

Aviation insurance is based on “agreed value? This means that, in the event of a total loss in respect of the hull, the amount agreed to in the policy is what will be paid upon acceptance of the claim.

It is vital that the aircraft be insured for its true value as major difficulties can arise for the owner if the amount is under or overinsured. For example, if an aircraft is grossly underinsured, the agreed value will not be enough to enable the owner to replace it.

In the case of overinsurance, the insurer may decide to approve a lengthy repair process, costing more than the market value but less than the agreed value. This will result in major delays to plans of getting “back in the air?

Liability is a different issue with settlements determined in most large cases by the courts.

?Type of aircraft: Generally, helicopters cost more to insure than fixed wing aircraft. Here in Australia, this is partly due to the manners in which they are employed, for example, mustering livestock and heavy industrial use.

Helicopter accidents are also more likely to result in a total loss of the aircraft than fixed wing accidents. What would seem a relatively minor “heavy landing?in a fixed wing aircraft would most likely write-off a helicopter.

The best way to ensure the lowest price possible is quoted for the aircraft, fixed wing or rotary, is to be clear with the insurer exactly what it will be used for. For business owners, it may be worthwhile considering whether diversifying from the central business function is worthwhile if diversification results in more hazardous usage of the aircraft.

?Pilot Experience: Pilot experience and qualifications are the most important aspects of determining the amount of the premium and level of coverage. In some cases, cover may not be extended if the pilot has not enough hours in the air logged.

If any persons other than the owner are to be flying the aircraft it is the owner’s responsibility to ensure all details regarding additional pilots be accurate and up to date. Inaccurate information can lead to a claim being rejected. There are basically three types of pilots able to fly the insured aircraft:

i. Owner: Self explanatory

ii. Open Pilot Warranty: The Open Pilot Warranty (OPW) is the minimum standard of requirements that must be met in order for a pilot to fly the insured aircraft. Although names of OPW pilots do not have to be notified to the insurer, it is crucial to ensure that all OPW pilots meet the requirements for the insured aircraft. Remember that the OPW for one type of aircraft may not be satisfactory for another.

iii. Named Pilots: These are persons you will be permitting to fly the aircraft but who do not meet the OPW standards. Using Named Pilots will generally mean a higher premium.

It is useful to consider the insurer’s position here. An aircraft is a high level of risk to the insurer. In order to underwrite that risk it must be worthwhile. Since most aircraft accidents are statistically due to pilot error, more premium must be charged for less experienced pilots to justify the risk.

Once cover is granted, renewal after one year is not always automatic.

As the renewal date approaches, cover is re-evaluated along with the premium. This can have a positive outcome as pilot experience and any additional training undertaken will be considered when calculating the new premium.

Overall, the main issue to be understood is that all information given regarding the aircraft to be insured and its pilot(s) is to be as accurate and up to date as possible. Whether or not this leads to a premium one may deem “cheap?is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the premium will be a true reflection of the risk.

And that is as insurance should be.

359

Everyone wants affordable car insurance but nobody wants to pay the price. That may not have made much sense to you but the insurance buyer has to be better informed. There has to be some time spent on educating yourself enough to make intelligent decisions about your next insurance purchase. Too many folks avoid all responsibility when it comes to buying car insurance. You do not need an insurance course to understand the fundamentals involved in rating car insurance. Look a…
Affordable,car,insurance
Everyone wants affordable car insurance but nobody wants to pay the price. That may not have made much sense to you but the insurance buyer has to be better informed. There has to be some time spent on educating yourself enough to make intelligent decisions about your next insurance purchase. Too many folks avoid all responsibility when it comes to buying car insurance. You do not need an insurance course to understand the fundamentals involved in rating car insurance. Look at the declarations page on you car insurance and you will find all that you need to know.

The Declarations Page

1. Policy Period ?This is the specific time period that the policy is effective. Some car insurance policies have an annual renewal and others have a six month renewal. Do not shop for car insurance with a declarations page that shows that your policy period has expired. That could cause you to be placed into a sub-standard carrier. Shop at least one month before your insurance is ready to expire.

2. Vehicles ?Your vehicles will affect your physical damage rate. When shopping, make sure that you give the quoting company the vehicle identification number of all of your vehicles. This is usually on your declarations page.

3. Drivers in Household ?Every resident relative with a driver’s license should be listed on the policy unless they have other insurance.

4. Liability Limits ?These are the limits for bodily injury and property damage insurance. This is very important coverage and not a good place to cut costs if you are a property owner. This portion of your policy pays benefits to the party that you have may have injured in an auto accident. It also pays for the damage to their vehicle.

5. Physical Damage ?This is your collision and comprehensive benefit that you see on your declarations page. This is coverage for your automobiles. Your deductible selection will raise or lower the rate.

These are some of the many policy benefits that you will find on your declarations page. Ask your insurance company about discounts and tort option. Learn all that you can and you can help make your car insurance more affordable.

319

The need for affordable individual health insurance is becoming more prevalent because of the rising numbers of self-employed. Entrepreneurs are changing the landscape. Home-based businesses are growing at a phenomenal pace. The enormous growth of small business has generated a greater demand for individual health insurance. This is a first time experience for many of these new start-ups. Group health insurance is provided by the employer. The employee that is enrolled in the…
affordable,health,insurance
The need for affordable individual health insurance is becoming more prevalent because of the rising numbers of self-employed. Entrepreneurs are changing the landscape. Home-based businesses are growing at a phenomenal pace. The enormous growth of small business has generated a greater demand for individual health insurance. This is a first time experience for many of these new start-ups. Group health insurance is provided by the employer. The employee that is enrolled in the company group health insurance plan rarely examines the coverage or the cost. This changes dramatically when they are forced into purchasing their own individual plan.

COBRA (the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985) guarantees a continuance of coverage when you leave your employer. This coverage is made available for 18 months after you leave. You have a 60-day window after termination of employment to shop for your own individual health plan. This window of time is critical to the insurance shopping process. If you have any thought of leaving your employer then it is imperative that you investigate the availability of individual health insurance.

Individual health insurance is medically underwritten. That means that the insurance company will gather all applicable medical information on you and or your family to determine if they can offer you an individual plan. Pre-existing conditions are often eliminated and in some instances coverage can be denied.

Things to consider:

1. Health ?Do not presume that you or any of your family is Insurable. There may be certain pre-existing conditions that are covered by some companies and excluded by others.

2. Self-Insuring ?The higher deductible that you elect will decrease your premium dramatically. This is called self-insuring. Some companies have deductibles that go as high as thousands.

3. Insurance Company ?There are many reliable insurance companies in the health insurance industry use their quotes to compare coverage.

We have done the research so you don’t have to. Please see our recommended source for insurance quotes online.

1935

A new solution to the astronomical number of uninsured Americans while keeping the health care industry private.
uninsured, health insurance, no health insurance, no medical insurance, without health insurance
Lack of health insurance coverage for over 41 million Americans is one of the nation’s most pressing problems. While most elderly Americans have coverage through Medicare and nearly two-thirds of non-elderly Americans receive health coverage through employer-sponsored plans, many workers and their families remain uninsured because their employer does not offer coverage or they cannot afford the cost of coverage. Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) or HAWK-I here in Iowa help fill in the gaps for low-income children and some of their parents, but the reach of these programs is limited. As a result, millions of Americans without health insurance face adverse health consequences because of delayed or foregone health care and extending coverage to the uninsured has become a national priority. -(Information taken from kff.org)

The number of people that are forced to go without health insurance is nothing less than a crisis in this country today. We have fallen into a vicious cycle over the last few decades in which health insurance premiums have become too expensive for even a middle class family to afford. This in turn results in the inability of the uninsured to cover medical costs which often times results in the financial ruins of the family, and in turn results in the continuing loss of income by the medical community, which in turn drives the cost of medical expenses higher, finally cycling back to the insurance company which then must drive the premiums of health insurance higher to help cover the rising cost of health care.

Many proposals have been tossed around by politicians on both sides of the isle ranging from socializing health care comparable to the Canadian system, to endorsing health savings accounts and cracking down on frivolous law suits against the medical community. Many of these proposals have good points, but along with whatever good points they bring they also bring major downfalls. For instance; a socialized national health care program would eliminate the need for health insurance all together and the cost would be taken on by taxes, which in theory doesn’t seem like a bad idea. However, the downfalls to this system include a deficit in new doctors willing to get into the field due to the inevitable decline in income while the demand would grow due to no personal responsibility. In short if people didn’t have to worry about deductibles or copays that would normally keep the person from seeking medical treatment for minor things, they would simply go to the doctor every time they had an ache or pain. So now we have waiting lines for people with major health problems since everyone is scheduling an appointment while at the same time we are loosing doctors due to lack of incentive.

The current battle cry by the republican Bush administration is to push HSA’s (Health Savings Accounts) which reduce premium by taking a less expensive high deductible health insurance plan with a tax deferred savings account that earns a small interest on the side that you contribute to along with your premiums each month. Any money withdrawn from the savings account for qualified medical expenses are taken “tax-free”, and unlike a flex spending account like many people are familiar with in employer based plans, you don’t lose the money you put into the account that you don’t use. Basically if you never used any of that money in the savings account you could withdrawal or roll it over into another vehicle once you turn 62 1/2 penalty free to be used for retirement. This is a viable option for some people, however for many the premiums for these plans are still too expensive, and the problem remains that if you need major treatment in the first few years of the policy you will not have a big enough amount in the savings account to help cover the gaps leaving that person responsible for a large portion of the cost out of pocket.

Now we come to what I believe is one of the biggest problems from a health insurance agent’s point of view, which is the inability for persons with pre-existing health conditions to obtain coverage. From the number of people that contact my office searching for health insurance coverage, I would have to say that about half of them have a health condition that will either result in an insurance company declining that persons application, or result in an amendment rider which basically excludes coverage for any claims related to that condition. An example of a condition that I run across constantly is hypertension or high blood pressure. This condition will sometimes result in a company declining an application all together if other factors are involved, but most generally result in an amendment exclusion rider. You may think that this isn’t that big of a deal, after all, blood pressure medicine is about the only thing they would have to pay for out of pocket, but what many people don’t realize is that this rider will exclude ANYTHING that could be considered part of this condition including heart attacks, strokes, and aneurisms which would all result in a huge out of pocket claim. Consider the fact that my father had a double by-pass surgery recently that ended up with a final bill of around $150,000. This whole amount would have had to come out of pocket had he had a hypertension rider on his health insurance policy, not to mention the added cost of 2 months off of work thrown into the mix. On a modest income of $40,000 per year this would have ruined him financially.

So what how do we fix this problem? Obviously the proposals thus far have been flawed from the beginning, and even if one of these plans gained support from the American people chances are it would never be passed into law simply due to political infighting. One side wants to keep health care privatized while the other wants to socialize it, which as we discussed before both have upsides and downsides. It seems that we are doomed on this issue and there is no real ideas or light at the of the tunnel right? Maybe not, let me tell you about a client I had in my office a couple of years ago.

A young woman came in wanting to compare health insurance plans to see if there were any options for her and her family. She had several children and had been on Title 19 Medicaid and had been going to college paid by the state. She had recently graduated from college and had gotten a job with the local school system, however for whatever reason she was not eligible for health insurance benefits. Obviously she still couldn’t afford 5 or 6 hundred dollars per month for a plan so she went back to the aid office and explained her situation. They ended up working with us to find an acceptable private health insurance plan and reimbursed her for a percentage of the cost which I didn’t even know was possible!

This got me thinking, consider how many more people would be able to obtain coverage if they could be reimbursed by the government a percentage of the premium according to their income. For example; take a young married couple in their 20′s with one child, let’s say that their family income is $25,000 and that the average premium for a $500 deductible health insurance plan for them is $450. Just as an example let’s say that the government determined that a three person family with an annual income of $25,000 is reimbursed 50% of their premium taking the actual cost to the family to $225 per month. This is now an affordable enough premium for the family to consider.

With this merging of private insurance with government assistance we get the best of both worlds. Of course the next question goes to cost, how much more would this cost the American tax payer and how much would this raise taxes? I don’t think that it would cost the tax payers much more an here’s why I think that: First off we would bring down significantly the amount of uninsured people that are unable to pay for the medical care they get in turn driving down the total cost of health care. Secondly the number of people that are forced into bankruptcy and driven to Medicaid Title 19 assistance due to medical bills stemming from catastrophic medical conditions that don’t have health insurance coverage would be significantly reduced. This is important to keep in mind considering that once someone is on Medicaid they are receiving health care basically 100% covered by the government so there is no more incentive to not seek treatment for minor or non-existing conditions. On the flip side many conditions that would have not been caught before they became severe because a person didn’t seek treatment due to not having insurance coverage would now be caught before they turned into a catastrophic claim. Finally, if the government allocated a certain amount of money to help cover claims by people that have pre-existing conditions the private insurance companies could do away with exclusions and declines due to already existing health problems, this is already done is some states such as the HIPIOWA Iowa Comprehensive Plans which insures Iowa residents that can not obtain coverage elsewhere.

You may be sitting there thinking that this is all just wishful thinking and that these ideas could never be implemented, but all of these ideas are already being implemented. The problem is that only some states do some programs and not even most health insurance agents know that some low income families can get reimbursed for health insurance premiums. If these programs were all standardized and put into effect on a national well publicized level I believe it would put one hell of a dent in the uninsured population in this country. Now I don’t pretend to know what the reimbursement levels should be for what income levels but I do know that anything is better than nothing, and in my opinion this is the best middle ground we could find. The Democrats would be happy with the socialized aspect of the reimbursement, and the republicans should be happy that health care remains privatized giving this solution a better chance at a by-partisan backing.

I have faxed this idea to several senators and congressmen but always received the same type of standard response about how they are concerned with health care and that they are working hard to find a solution knowing full well that no one really even read my letters. The only way to get these ideas out into the public is for you that read this to pass it on to others by word of mouth, by email, or by linking your websites to this webpage. If enough buzz is created than these ideas would get the consideration that they deserve, and if enough people like you and I demanded that a solution be found than perhaps enough stress can be placed on the politicians to get something done. The number of uninsured Americans is only going to go up, the cost of health care is only going to go up, and the cost of health insurance premiums are only going to go up if something isn’t done now! Until then the only thing that I as a health insurance agent can do is to compare all of the options out there and present you with the lesser of all of the evils, which in too many cases the option that is chosen is the biggest evil of going without coverage.

322

You might not have realised it, but boat insurance is the oldest kind of insurance there is
boats, insurance, ship
You might not have realised it, but boat insurance is the oldest kind of insurance there is. People have been insuring their boats since the 17th century, and over time a number of standards have arisen. The chances are, though, that you’re probably much more familiar with car insurance ?so the good news is that car insurance and boat insurance are actually very similar.

Basically, there are three situations you can be insured against: your boat (or its cargo) being damaged, your boat sinking, and your boat hitting another. Although few countries make it a requirement that your boat must be insured (considering how many boats sail in international waters), you would be very wise to at least buy the third party insurance, in case you hit a boat that is very much more valuable than your own. You will probably find it quite unnecessary to insure your boat against total loss unless it is very valuable ?it is mainly practical for large ships, and especially for ones carrying valuable cargo.

As with car insurance, policies come with an excess to discourage small claims ?for boat insurance, this is usually quite a large sum of money, as the intention of the insurance is to cover you against substantial losses instead of just scratches and dents.

There are also a few kinds of insurance you can buy that are unique to boating, although it is unlikely that you will ever find yourself in need of them. If you get Increased Value insurance, your policy will pay out at your boat’s market value if it is more than the amount you insured it for ?only useful if you expect your boat to go up in value. Finally, if you’re thinking of sailing into a warzone, you might want to get war risk insurance. Of course, you might also want to get your head checked out, if you know what I mean.

356

What is the best homeowners insurance for you? The answer is probably not that obvious to you because most of us have not taken the time to understand our homeowner’s insurance. We would much rather turn that responsibility over to the insurance professionals. There is nothing wrong with that approach but it still leaves you a little bit too uninvolved over a very important insurance purchase. People have a natural fear of the unknown. We like to steer clear of things that ar…
home,insurance
What is the best homeowners insurance for you? The answer is probably not that obvious to you because most of us have not taken the time to understand our homeowner’s insurance. We would much rather turn that responsibility over to the insurance professionals. There is nothing wrong with that approach but it still leaves you a little bit too uninvolved over a very important insurance purchase. People have a natural fear of the unknown. We like to steer clear of things that are unfamiliar to us. Our insurance is often one of those things that we would rather just avoid. That may come in part from the old days when insurance was purchased under pressure from the insurance agent. That method of sales has just about vanished in property and casualty insurance. People willingly contact agencies about policies and coverage. The agent is more like a consultant these days. The best homeowners insurance is usually purchased when we ourselves have a better understanding of our policy and how we want to be serviced. The insurance atmosphere is much more professional and there are more ways to purchase insurance. Purchasing online or by telephone is becoming as common as purchasing from the local agent.

The homeowner’s policy itself has a couple of integral features and benefits to consider. Buying replacement cost insurance verses actual cash value insurance is one of your most important decisions. Replacement cost homeowner’s policies settle any loss by replacing or repairing your dwelling and its contents with like kind and quality without depreciation. Actual cash value allows for depreciation and expects you to make up the difference as an out of pocket expense.

The most important cost savings decision that you will make is the size of the deductible. It makes sense to have as high a deductible as possible on your home policy because of the infrequency of claims.

The best homeowner’s insurance for you revolves around how you want to do business, whether to purchase replacement cost or actual cash value, and the size of your deductible. These three areas will lead you in the right direction.