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Archive for September, 2011

Although the rain fell and floods came with Hurricane Irene, it was not quite on a Biblical scale, but it was certainly devastating to many communities that had never before believed it possible they could be the victims of flooding. Yet, in upstate New York and Vermont, entire communities have been introduced to a new reality of flooding and mudslides. No matter what you think about all these stories of global warming and climate change, there’s an underling reality you can’t deny. This has been a bad year for weather. Read any of the hard news sites and they will all tell you the same story. Property and auto insurance claims have already broken records this year. By the time we’re through December, the year 2011 will have gone into the books as the most expensive for weather-related insurance claims.

Perhaps not surprisingly, insurers have been receiving a lot more calls asking about flood insurance. Obviously, many homeowners have discovered their own policies exclude flood damage. In the hope of reducing future losses, they now ask what’s available and this is not good news. The majority of private insurers withdrew from covering floods some years ago. For a number of reasons, insurers have found they cannot make flood insurance profitable and they are not prepared to cross-subsidize from other types of cover. Most now only offer the Federal Flood Insurance Program which is funded out of tax revenues. As an aside, even this insurance may be lost if Washington fails to renew its funding allocation by the end of September 2011.

Assuming the Federal Program survives this budgetary crisis, it’s not really designed for the majority of homes. The first states that asked for federal help were on the Gulf Coast and the majority of properties built close to the sea don’t have basements. The cover for basements is therefore limited to the replacement of mechanical equipment like furnaces and water heaters, and the main cover only applies to the first story and above with a maximum of $250,000 for rebuilding. If you live further north, basements are common and rebuilding costs are higher. This suggests you will always need to top up the Federal Program cover. You will always need a basic home insurance policy to cover all the other ways in which your property can be damaged. The Federal Program limits contents claims to $100,000, so you will need a policy to increase the rebuilding and contents limits. The cost of this supplemental covers varies quite significantly depending on the weather patterns and geography of your state. It might surprise you to know there have been quite serious floods in Arizona, but they are quite rare. Where the risk of flooding is low, you can probably find additional cover for as little as $300 a year. In states where the risks are higher, the home insurance rates are likely to be between $600 and $800 a year. After a while, you will come to a hard decision. In states where the risk of flooding is actually quite small, how long will you pay the additional premium? According to the insurance industry, most people allow these supplemental policies to lapse within two to four years.

Most people do not know as much as they should about insurance, like social security insurance. Now, the first thing that you have to know is that you do not get all types of insurance through your social security. The only insurance you are able to apply for here is disability insurance and retirement insurance. We will explain the many other types of insurances below, and go into more detail about applying for social security insurance too.

Most people think that insurance is a waste of time. This is because they put a lot of money into their policies every month and see no return on their monthly investment. This is with most types of insurance, and it is how it works. When it comes to retirement investing you are putting money away for the time you need to retire. You are investing in your future. This means that you will not see any type of return until you are “of age”; retirement age that is, it is a long term investment.

If you are taking out disability policy you will find that you do get a return quicker, because you will need to pay for your medical bills. However, there are two different types of disability. There is the investment, where you will put money away until your become disabled and are unable to work. This means that if you were to have an accident at work you will get paid out for the rest of your life. This is also called a passive income disability insurance policy.

This type of policy will run for a while, and is like any other type of insurance investment you will make. you are investing in your future, just in case, it is like having an alarm on your home, just in case someone decides to break into your home.

Then you get the other type of policy, like the social security insurance, where you are already unable to work. You will apply for a sort of grant that is attached to you social security number. You will then get a set amount of money at the end of every month to make sure that you have enough money for your essentials and medical bills, there are a lot of forms that you have to fill out for this type of insurance.

The one thing that you need to remember is that you may not get approved for this type of insurance on your first try. This means that you will have to go through what is called a social security disability appeal. You will need to get a lawyer if you are going to win this type of appeal and get the denial overturned. However, you do have the right to represent yourself.

As you can see, social security insurance is not that much different to any other type of insurance out there. So you have a good number of chooses to make before you choose which provider you are going to go with.

To understand the issues, let’s start with a quick tour of ZIP codes. They are used by the US Postal Service to sort the mail faster. Once sorted, bundles of mail are delivered by staff who know the ground. This plan was not devised to help set insurance rates. Indeed, when you look at the boundaries on a map, you see how arbitrary they are, often lumping completely different groups of people together regardless of social class or property value. Basing the calculation of premium rates can therefore look unfair in urban areas where, on one street all vehicles can be parked off the road in locked garages overnight whereas, round the corner, the quality of the neighborhood just changed for the worse and crime affecting vehicles parked on the roads is rampant. Imagine how people who have lived on that second street feel. They have been paying their premiums for years and now must suddenly pay more because they have no choice but to stay – sadly, with the collapse of the housing market, it’s no longer easy to sell and move to a “better” area. In other words, basing the premium rate on the address rather than the safety record of the driver looks unfair.

Let’s now move over to Milwaukee where State Senator Tim Carpenter has introduced State Bill 289 to prohibit insurers from relying on ZIP codes to set premium rates. This is yet another attempt to repeat the success in California where, in 2008, John Garamendi, the Commissioner for Insurance, finally pushed through the regulations to reduce the insurers’ reliance on ZIP codes. Note the regulations do not outlaw the practice. The Californian insurers can still use the ZIP codes as one of the factors when setting the rates. But the codes can no longer be one of the “main” factors. Why not outlaw it altogether?

The answer depends on the difference between the insurance policies. Liability cover pays out to any third parties we may injure through our bad driving. This can be and, for the most part, is based on our individual safety record as drivers. Where we live is never going to be terribly relevant to where we drive once the vehicle is in motion. The problem comes with collision and comprehensive cover. Both types pay out to you if your vehicle is damaged in a collision, by a vandal or by a tornado. Where you park your vehicle must therefore be an important factor in deciding the risk you might get hit. Similarly, the local crime rate when it comes to vandalism is as relevant as whether you live in an area frequently hit by tornadoes, floods, landslides, etc.

So, comparing these different policies, you might find cheap car insurance if all you want is the minimum liability cover. Where you live is always going to be less important. But when you move on to collision or comprehensive cover, where you live become far more important. For this reason, Tim Carpenter’s bill is going to struggle in Wisconsin. Although the insurers there are exaggerating when they say this bill will mark the end of cheap car insurance, only a compromise between the state and the insurers will produce a fair outcome.

Like everything written down, the Affordable Care Act sounds the perfect answer to all our problems. Except, of course, when it comes to turning the words into action, problems can emerge. One of the battlegrounds is turning out to be the insurance marketplaces or exchanges. These are supposed to make it easier and cheaper to buy insurance. They should allow people to compare prices, and discover whether they are entitled to any assistance like tax credits, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Every state is supposed to have one up and running by 2014. Should any state default, the federal government is apparently ready to step in and run one. The principle matches the mandate. If everyone is required to buy a policy, buying a policy should be made as easy as possible.

As we come in the Fall, ten states have already passed the necessary enabling legislation and are on their way toward getting their exchanges in place. Seven more states have bills pending. Legislation has failed in sixteen states. The rest of the states have either decided to take their time or are flatly refusing to make progress. Such is the world of politics with the Republican party dead-set against exchanges. Some GOP governors have sworn oaths on a stack of Bibles they will never sign an enabling bill into law. Yet this is not necessarily good politics.

Because the federal government will impose an exchange if the state refuses to act, the arrival of an exchange is unavoidable. Some GOP governors are therefore interested in negotiating terms. If they have no choice, they might as well try to influence the outcome to their advantage. So this September, health officials from the majority of the states will be attending a conference organized by the Department of Health and Human Services. Most GOP governors are prepared to talk about a partnership approach to give them some political leverage. Equally, if the states actually do less of the work, the budget requirements will be lower. For example, some states are offering to run local call centers to guide people through their choices. This is fairly uncontroversial. More problematic are the offers of some states to run outreach and education programs to bring their citizens into the exchanges. If staff hostile to the notion of the exchanges are involved, the exchanges may not get the expected number of applicants.

When the dust settles at the end of all the negotiations, we can hope for a health insurance exchange or marketplace in every state where citizens can be guided between federal and state aid, and the private section plans. With supportive staff working in the call centers, everyone should end up with the level of cover appropriate to their individual needs. Significantly, the exchanges are also intended to help small and medium-sized businesses navigate the new laws. Many business people are as confused as ordinary citizens. If everything works as it should, we should all find access to affordable covered significantly easier. However, with their opposition to the central principles of Obamacare undiminished, we can expect the GOP to find a whole new set of ways to slow down this health insurance reform. Your vote in the next election will help decide matters.

There are many ways to make money at home in a legitimate home based business opportunity. The reason why you have an interest in working from home will determine which path you may want to follow. Some corporate business have arrangements where they encourage employees to work from home while others can set you up as an independent contractor. That is, you are basically self employed and have the benefits of working for yourself like maximum freedom for your schedule and are paid based on the amount of work done. This may include the number of hours on the telephone answering customer service requests, or being logged into a computer being productive.

Most working from home arrangements include some type of working for yourself, but the growth of working from home for a large corporation shouldn’t be ignored. There are many formal companies that are actively encouraging it’s employees to work from home or sign up for several other flexible work methods. The reason for this is simply cost. Sun Microsystems continues to be a very strong supporter of having their people work from home at least part of the time. Without the need for ongoing formal office space for each employee, the company saves money and there’s less stress on the environment caused by the daily commute to and from work. The benefits to the employee are obvious.

So a good option, if you don’t mind the corporate culture and environment, is to find an employer who encourages work from home opportunities. Remember these are legitimate home based business opportunities that set you up as an employee or an independent contractor.

Even if the thought of joining corporate business is not appealing however, I encourage you to at least consider the possibilities. The reason is that if a company has embraced the idea of working at home, they’ve probably also thought about flex time and flexible work hours. If these are your primary interests that led to looking for legitimate home based business opportunities, then by all means check out corporate business with flex work options

One place to look for these corporate businesses are in the top 100 or top 500 best business lists put out yearly by several major business magazines. If they are recognized as being the best for employees, the likelihood of them offering flex work options like home based business opportunities is much greater. Another good place to check is on the various job posting boards like monster.com and careerbuilder.com When checking the job boards however, use the search capability for specific words and be sure not to limit yourself to just your local area. After all, what difference does it make where you’re located if you work from home.

Preparation if vital when preparing for any job interview, banking is no exception. Much of this depends on exactly what position you’re applying for. In broad terms a position in banking finance may range from:

o Banking finance auditor
o Banking finance investment executive
o Banking finance controller

It’s always a good idea to practice answering specific questions before the day of the interview. By doing your prep work before hand, you’ll come across as a confident individual which may give you the edge you need to land that big job.

Let’s take a look at specific questions that you should be ready to answer for each job.

Banking finance auditor

1) What is your level of experience?
2) What was your degree of responsibility in your last position?
3) What were the results of your auditing reporting?
4) What are some of your successful achievements?
5) What types of submissions of audits for federal or state authorities were you responsible for?

Banking finance investment executive

1) What is your experience with inter-relating investment and financial institutions?
2) What specific types of investment experience have you acquired in your previous positions?
3) What is the relationship of investment experience to this position?

In most cases, though a resume will contain this information, the banking finance investment executive will be expected to expand in detail on the management of investment funds and portfolios within the range of experience.

Banking finance controller

1) What are your finance management skills and experience?
2) What is your track record of implementing sound financial policies that helped to increase profitability and revenues in your previous positions?
3) What were your duties, responsibilities and corporate interface with executive management, cost accounting management and internal accounting management?

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