The Best Cheap All Insurance

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

The National Flood Insurance Program

Although FEMA does have a excellent recovery program, we also have, what we call, mitigation. And mitigation is to prevent future loss of life and property and part of that mitigation division is the National Flood Insurance Program. The program consists of three components. There's flood plain mapping. FEMA creates the, what we call, the flood insurance rate maps. They're mapped for every community in the country, and the delineate the risk areas. The second component is flood insurance. In other words, flood insurance is a federally subsidized insurance program that protects homes and businesses from flooding. And that leads me to the third and final component: flood plain management.

FEMA makes an arrangement with local communities that, if they adopt and enforce our minimum standards, we will provide flood insurance to residents within those communities. And one of our minimum standards is that the lowest floor of any structure has to be built at or above the base flood elevation. Usually, the higher above that base flood elevation the lowest floor of your house is, the less your flood insurance premiums will be. Well, along those coastal v-zones areas, where you expect a high velocity wave action, the lowest horizontal structural member of that structure has to be at or above the base flood elevation. This is to allow the waves to roll under that structure and to create less damage to that structure. In your a-zones, we also have minimum building standards and one technique that we like to use is to put in openings.

Some of us refer to them as flood vents. In other words, if you put in openings around your foundation walls, which allows the water to flow in and flow out and reduce the hydrostatic and hydrodynamic pressures of that water, hopefully, in a flooding event, your structure will have less damage because you will have maintained the integrity of your foundation. We also require that, and the community enforces these, that all your utilities, your furnace, your hot water heater, be elevated to or above that base flood elevation to once again, prevent damage. And it has been shown that if your house is built properly, in accordance with our minimum standards, those structures that are built properly are less damaged by a flooding event than those that are not.

What is Title Insurance and is it Worth it?

Unknown at 5:52 AM No comments:

What is title insurance and is it necessary? I’m Tom Oldfield. I’m a real estate and business lawyer in Fircrest, Washington. Title insurance is different from car insurance or homeowner insurance in that title insurance insures against what happens in the past, not something that happened in the future. If you buy car insurance and you had a wreck last week, it’s not going to cover it.

If you buy car insurance and you have a wreck next week, it’s covered. Title insurance is the opposite, it insures against last week’s problem. There are 2 primary functions for title insurance. The first is that the title insurance company prepares what they call a preliminary commitment that states all of the encumbrances – any debts or easements or anything that’s out there that affects the title – so that you can look at that before closing and see what risks there are, if there are any risks. The title insurance company then issues a policy that guarantees you against loss if there are any other problems with the title that they didn’t disclose.

The other significant value and significant obligation under a policy of title insurance is that if there is a claim, if someone is claiming that they own your property that a deed to the person that sold the property to you was invalid, that you can’t enjoy your property like you should, the title insurance company has a duty to defend that claim. They have to hire a lawyer, pay that lawyer, and defend that claim, and if there’s a loss in value – a lower value in your house – because of that claim they have to pay that loss.

Monday, February 15, 2016

Affordable Home Insurance - Steps That Guarantee Cheaper Insurance Rates

Unknown at 10:55 PM No comments:

Affordable Home Insurance -- Steps That Guarantee Cheaper Insurance Rates A fire-safe home exterior will help bring down your rates. You'll be doing the right thing if you ensure you don't have anything flammable close to your home.

Even though cutting bushes around your house looks simple... ...You will get lower premiums if you do keep them at a distance of at least 10 feet from your structures. The likelihood of a fire in a house is a very strong factor that determines your home insurance rate. It's more expensive and a waste of money to insure the land on which your house is built. Many people pay much more than they should on home insurance just because of this mistake.

You've made same mistake if you insured your home for the price you bought it without checking the cost of the land it's standing on and deducting it. If you made this mistake, meet with your agent quickly and go through your coverage. Subtract the cost of the land and you will discover that you'll need far less coverage. Your premium will drop and you'll still have sufficient coverage if you do it right. Since insurance is for things that can be lost, insuring the land which can neither be lost nor damaged isn't right.

Home Insurance Replacement Cost

Unknown at 12:45 PM No comments:

When you are buying a homeowners insurance policy the first thing you look at and have to think about, and make a good decision on is, what is the value of your home. Now, I say you make a decision; once again, you should be guided by the insurance agency you are dealing with. What you don’t do, is use the purchase price of your home. Sometimes a mortgage company may mandate that you insure your home at least equal to the mortgage.

That may be something you don’t have a choice with, but maybe your house needs to be insured for more than that. I will say though, if your agent is in to it, like we are, and your mortgage company is requiring you to have a higher value than what you really need to insure your home for, it’s worth taking a shot at to see if the correct value can be established. So what does that mean, “correct value?” Again, you don’t base it on the purchase price.

What you base the value of a homeowners policy on is what it is going to take to rebuild your home if it goes flat to the ground – burns down, blows away in a hurricane, however it gets damaged you have to build it back. Market value, as we know right now, market value changes. What happens is that based on the characteristics of a home from square footage to the type of construction - brick, block, frame, the roof, the garage, all the different factors that go into a home. These questions are asked and put into a computer model. These models are designed by insurance companies and will help determine what that value needs to be to replace your home in today’s market, obviously with new materials.

It is even sensitive enough, this computer model, to know what the cost of building is in your very zip code. The amount that you determine is a professional and accurate way to go about determining the value for your home. Heads up, if you ever get into a situation where someone says, “how much is your house” or “how much did you buy it for” and they go with that. It really needs to start right there, with getting the value established with what it would take to rebuild your home if it went flat to the ground.

Home Insurance Deductibles

Unknown at 4:38 AM No comments:

“This policy contains a clause which may limit the amount payable.” Have you ever wondered what this means? You’ll see it on the front page of most insurance policies. This refers to your deductible. When you suffer a loss, there’s almost always a deductible to be paid. This could range from $200 to $2,500 or even higher. Often earthquake deductibles will be a percentage of the amount of coverage on your home.

Deductibles help keep your premiums down. How? Well, deductibles prevent payments being made on very small losses. This significantly reduces an insurance company’s costs, thereby helping to keep everyone’s premium down. If you have a low deductible, such as $200, you may be tempted to make claims on very small losses. If you do, you could lose any “claims free discount” you may be enjoying. Also, after a few small claims, you’ll likely see your base rate go up, possibly costing you more than it would have cost to replace the small items yourself.

A number of claims could even result in the insurance company no longer offering you a renewal. If you opt for a higher deductible, you’ll see a fairly significant saving in your premium amount. Small losses may not be covered, but you’re really buying insurance to protect yourself from a catastrophic loss, such as earthquake, fire, windstorm damage, water damage, and break-ins. It may be worth your while to opt for a higher deductible. You’ll save money, and by covering very small losses yourself, you’ll keep your premium down. Your insurance will be there for you when you really need it!

How To Buy Homeowners Insurance - Understand Underwriting Goals of Homeowners Insurance

Unknown at 2:34 AM No comments:

I'm Romie Brown. On behalf of Expert Village, I'm here to discuss your tips and tidbits on how to buy homeowner's insurance. In this clip, we're going to discuss underwriting philosophies and eligibility for coverage for insurance companies. One thing that's very important is that you realize that there are guidelines to getting insurance. Just because you buy a new home doesn't mean that it is eligible for coverage. So some of the things we have to consider is: the age of the home. Are there any perils at home, any slip, trip and falls? See if there are any prior losses. You can get this by talking to your insurance agent about doing a report, like a clue report, on said property, to make sure there are no prior losses. Plus, that helps you in the buying process. If there were prior losses on that property, that they were properly repaired, so that way before you buy the home. This can help you in the negotiation process with the price, as well.

Prior losses are a huge thing in the insurance industry right now. Not only personally, but also for the house that you're buying. Insurance companies are very leery about houses that had, for example, water breakage in pipes on a constant basis. That means there's an underlying problem there that needs to be addressed. And until that problem is addressed, most insurance companies might back off that home, just because it's a loss waiting to happen. The average losses for homeowners is once every eleven years. That's taking into consideration the little old lady down the street who's been in her house for fifty years, who never had a loss. And then the young couple down the street who had two losses in three years. So the average is once every eleven years. So if an insurance company sees a house that's had a couple losses in the past couple years, that throws up a red flag. So it's very important to make sure you know the loss history of that home. And also protect your loss history to make sure that you're insurable.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Health Insurance Choices for Families

Unknown at 5:16 PM No comments:

I've been married for almost 15 years to Kelton. He's a designer, an architect. And then we have one daughter, Gwendolyn and she's almost 8 years old. The current piece I'm working on right now is composed of mainly steel and there's a component that's in the lake series of buoys and water lilies. So it's a pretty large piece, it's probably about, in total about 40 - 50 feet long.

Starting at age 27, I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Went through treatments to get me through that. Since then really I've been in great health up until 5 years ago when I had a heart attack. I was age 39. If Kelton wouldn't have had health insurance whenever he was first diagnosed, it would have bankrupted him. We were just dating at the time, but those bill as they came in, looking at a quarter of a million dollars every time he was in the hospital. Thankfully he had at least limited health insurance. Ever since then our family has made it a top priority to be sure that we had the best health insurance that we can provide. I think health insurance is absolutely crucial.

In fact our friends are used to us preaching about how they must have health insurance and our family knows all too well what can happen if you don't. It's expensive to have health insurance, but it is not nearly as expensive as it would be if we didn't have it. One of my least favorite things to do is to shop for health insurance. We have a broker who's been helpful in that way but it is still incredibly complicated. And I feel like I'm a bright gal, I can usually figure things out but there's just no apples to apples comparison.

Our family is very hopeful that Connect for Health Colorado is going to be able to offer not only us but myriad people who not ever had health insurance or were not happy with their health insurance be able to have an opportunity to get good affordable care. It sounds like what we need in terms of being able to choose our health insurance. To be sure that we can have the physicians that we want to work with especially given my history. That's important. I want to be sure that our family is always covered.

Life Insurance - Protecting Your Family

Unknown at 7:56 AM No comments:

I can't believe it's nearly been two years since they lost their dad. It's still tough but you have to try and get on with it. I'm so glad we had Smart Life insurance, so at least I don't have to worry about my mortgage. Our policy was for £100,000 which I used to pay it off. It was easy to arrange on the phone with no forms, and after what happened my friends got Smart life insurance too. I mean why risk it?

Arranging smart life insurance can help give your family financial security and peace of mind. If you're a UK resident aged 18 to 64. You can apply to a benefit amount of £60,000 to £750,000 depending on your age, you won't need a medical or a blood test, there are just some health and lifestyle questions. Say you are 40 and a non smoker it is under £10 a month in the first year, for a £100,000 benefit amount.

You can add cover for your children or for critical illness, and the benefit amount can be paid in advanced if you are diagnosed as terminally ill. The younger you are when you start your policy the less it will cost you per month, and you can make changes whenever you want with no admin charges. You're in control; plus we will send you a will kit with your policy, and as a thank you, you'll get back 10% of your first years premiums.

New York Health Insurance Explained

Unknown at 4:50 AM No comments:

Millions of us now have health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, or what some people call Obamacare. But like many things in life, your health insurance can often be confusing and complicated. Whether you've been insured for years or you're new to the game, understanding your policy is important to your health...and your wallet. First things first, you have to pay your premium every month or your insurance could get cancelled - kind of like your cable subscription. You can also think of it like a shared health care piggy bank -- we all chip in each month, even if we're healthy, so the money is there when we need it.

If you get insurance at work, your employer probably pays most of your premium and the rest comes out of your paycheck automatically. If you have Medicaid, you most likely don't have to pay any premium at all -- the federal government and your state take care of that. If you're insured through a new health insurance marketplace, depending on your income, you may be eligible for a tax credit that pays a portion of your premium. Once you have that shiny new insurance card, you'll want to try really hard to keep it in your wallet! To better your odds at staying healthy, be sure to take advantage of the free preventive services that all new insurance plans provide.

But of course...stuff happens. And that's when insurance really comes in handy. Now, having insurance helps a lot, but it doesn't mean all your health care is going to be free. There are lots of details about your insurance plan that affect how much you pay when you get sick or injured. If you have Medicaid, a lot of these services could very well be free. Otherwise, you'll likely have to pay something when you go to the doctor or fill a prescription. This is called a copay when it's a specific dollar amount -- like $25 per visit...or coinsurance if it's a percentage of the bill. There's also the deductible -- that's how much comes out of your own pocket before your insurance starts paying. Depending on your plan, you might have a deductible for all your care, or it might only apply to some types of care, like hospital stays and prescriptions.

So read your plan material, because it can add up to thousands of dollars! Another important part of your plan is the out of pocket maximum. This is the most you'll ever have to pay in any one year. At least for the benefits your plan covers. Your insurer will pay 100% of anything beyond the maximum for the rest of the year. It can be just as confusing dealing with prescriptions! Your plan has a list of drugs it will pay for, called a formulary, but the prices vary. Check with your doctor or pharmacist, because a generic drug might fix you up the same as a brand name drug, but the price difference could be huge. So, those are the costs typically involved, but remember that they'll be affected by your insurance plan's provider network. This is a list of doctors and hospitals that are connected to your plan. Insurance companies negotiate discounts with these providers.

Stay in-network, and the discounts get passed to you. Go out of network, and you could end up paying full price. And remember that out-of-pocket limit? It won't work if you go out of network! In some plans -- like HMOs or EPOs -- your insurance would pay nothing if you go out-of-network. In other plans -- like PPOs -- your insurance will cover you no matter where you go, but you'll pay a lot more if you go out of network. Also, if you want to visit a specialist - like an orthopedist - some plans require a referral from your primary care doctor.

Sound easy enough? Well, sometimes staying in-network can be tricky! In a hospital, it's possible that your surgeon could be in-network, while your anesthesiologist is not. If this happens to you, don't be afraid to negotiate with your provider or file an appeal with your insurer. So as you can see, there's a lot to think about when you choose an insurance plan each year.

Some plans may have low premiums, but fewer doctors or hospitals and high deductibles. There are tradeoffs, and understanding and choosing among plans isn't always easy. Remember, if you have questions call your health plan and ask, or check with your hospital or doctor. If you still have questions, your state insurance department or Consumer Assistance Program can help. With the Affordable Care Act, there's new support for consumers, so take advantage of it! Having health insurance protection is a good thing, especially when you know how it works. We hope you're now better prepared for the next time you have to pull that insurance card out of your wallet.

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Reasons for Renters Insurance

Unknown at 11:40 PM No comments:

So... you have just moved into your new place. It could be an apartment or home. You're unpacking and getting the furniture... "just right". You can finally relax. But wait... what would happen if there was damage to your personal property from... a fire... a storm. Or what if you had a theft? What would you do? How would you replace your personal property... and get back on your feet? Did you know... Landlord insurance policies generally do not cover "your" personal property and some risks? To protect your personal property and yourself from some risks consider purchasing Renters insurance. It helps protect your financial well being. Renters insurance has some similarities to homeowners insurance.

However, it is designed specifically for those who rent where they live. Renters Insurance policies offer a variety of coverage, deductibles and endorsements to choose from. An insurance agent can help you choose a policy that's right for you. There are a few things to consider when you are looking to purchase a Renters insurance policy. For one, know what a policy will and will not cover. Review the terms of your policy to learn exactly what is, and what is not covered. A policy with "Replacement Cost Coverage" will reimburse you the amount that it takes to replace your personal property with similar items, up to the policy limit.

A policy with "Actual Cash Value" reimburses you for what your personal property was worth at the time they were damaged or destroyed, up to the policy limit. Please note the reimbursement for actual cash value could be much lower than replacement cost because of depreciation and other factors. Another thing to consider is whether your policy will cover any additional living expenses if your residence becomes uninhabitable due to a fire... storms or other loss. You should also consider what type of liability coverage the policy offers. Liability coverage provides (depending on the terms of your policy) financial protection if someone is injured while at your residence.

So, once you have purchased a Renters policy, you might think you are done, and ready to kick back in your new place. Not so fast... there's another big thing to consider. Like homeowners, renters should make sure to have their personal property documented... just in case something happens. Product identification, including brand, model, serial number, purchase date and price should be documented. It's also a good idea to take photos or a video of each room and its contents. Keep the list, photos and or video of your personal property in a "safe" place. So, protect yourself from financial loss with renters insurance... and then you can really relax and settle into that cushy couch... and enjoy the show on your big screen TV.

Pages