Cognitive Networking and Marketing

Automobile insurance is an increasing expense for almost all Americans. We can’t afford to have it, and we certainly can’t afford to not have it. When researching car insurance companies and comparing policies, it is a good idea to follow these easy guidelines to get the most coverage for your insurance dollars.

Get discount car insurance quotes from as many carriers as you can. Automobile insurance rates may vary drastically depending on the model of your car and the type of coverage you need. Consider as high a deductible as you can reasonably afford, since higher deductibles translate into lower insurance premiums. Review quotes and policies carefully to make sure you are only paying for coverage you really need. If you have homeowner insurance, ask your agent if you are covered already for certain items you might be charged again for on your auto policy.

After you have gotten quotes from different car insurance carriers, it is usually a good idea to create a spreadsheet to help you avoid comparing apples to oranges. Set up a scenario with car repairs and medical expense to best compare the coverage differences under real-life situations.

Once you have chosen the two least expensive automobile insurance policies for the coverage you need, contact a reputable body shop in your area for a referral. Automobile body shops deal with insurance companies every day, and you want to make sure the company you send your premiums to each month will be responsive and fair if you have to make an insurance claim. The body shop probably has a good insider opinion on how the insurance company operates, how long it takes to get an adjuster to view the damaged vehicle, how long it takes to get paid on a claim, how fair the estimate was, were used parts requested versus brand new parts and so on.

Trust me, a 10 minute talk with a reputable body shop manager can reveal a lot of great information about an insurance company and how they tend to handle their claims. A few dollars difference in premium dollars to get coverage from a company that handles their claims properly may save you a world of hassle in the event of an automobile accident.

Nov. 8, 2005- The Internal Revenue Service has announced the 2006 limitations on the deductibility of long-term care insurance premiums from taxes.

Premiums for “qualified” (see explanation below) long-term care policies are treated as an unreimbursed medical expense. These premiums what the policyholder pays the insurance company to keep the policy in force — are deductible to the extent that they, along with other unreimbursed medical expenses (including “Medigap” insurance premiums), exceed 7.5 percent of the insured’s adjusted gross income.

Long-term care insurance premiums are deductible for the taxpayer, his or her spouse and other dependents. However, there is a limit on how large a premium can be deducted, depending on the age of the taxpayer at the end of the year.

What Is a “Qualified” Policy? To be “qualified,” policies issued on or after January 1, 1997, must adhere to regulations established by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Among the requirements are that the policy must offer the consumer the options of “inflation” and “nonforfeiture” protection, although the consumer can choose not to purchase these features. Policies purchased before January 1, 1997, will be grandfathered and treated as “qualified” as long as they have been approved by the insurance commissioner of the state in which they are sold.

The Taxation of Benefits Benefits from reimbursement policies, which pay for the actual services a beneficiary receives, are not included in income. Benefits from per diem or indemnity policies, which pay a predetermined amount each day, are not included in income except amounts that exceed the beneficiary’s total qualified long-term care expenses or $250 per day (for 2006), whichever is greater.

The full article: IRS Issues Long-Term Care Insurance Premium Deductibility Limits for 2006

Most young people are more used to being penalised by insurers for being younger - motor insurers for instance regard younger drivers as a higher risk and therefore charge a higher premium. The biggest part of a travel insurance premium is medical cover, and in this case, younger people are a LOWER RISK because they are less likely to fall ill abroad and have to be flown home after expensive treatment.

However, younger people will often not get cheaper travel insurance - the insurer may use the lower risk to subsidize the premiums of older travellers or family cover.

At Hastings Direct Travel we give lower rates for younger travellers but offer the same high levels of cover.

We specially provide our travel insurance is available with following options:

UK cover European cover Worldwide cover Independant travel for adults Cover for you and your partner Cover for your whole family Wintersports cover Ski and snowboarding cover (including off piste)

Hastings Direct Travel Insurance is provided through Text2Insure Limited, part of the Hastings Insurance Services Group. Text2Insure is an Appointed Representative of Hastings Insurance Services Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

Hastings Direct Travel Insurance is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

Hastings Direct Travel Insurance offers a high level of cover for single trip, annual trip, long stay and ski/snowboard insurance

Please visit our site - http://www.hastingsdirecttravel.com

Best regards,

Malcolm McLean Director Text2Insure

malcolm@text2insure.co.uk

Tips on how to get Cheap Motorcycle Insurance

Now that you know how the motorcycle insurance company will view and rate you, and what types of coverage are available, here are some tips on how to get a good deal:

1. Shop, Shop, and Shop More: Insurance can vary widely in the same region. Do not assume that your existing insurance company for your car, home, etc. will offer you the best deal. Take a whole day to call as many companies as you can to get a rate quote. Shopping around for insurance can sometimes be the single best way to cut your insurance costs. The more companies you call the better chance you will find a great deal on cheap motorcycle insurance. When you are comparing companies, reduce your best quote by 5 - 10% to see if it can be matched.

2. Securing Your Bike: What can you do to keep your bike more secure? If you can garage your bike, alarm it, or secure it somehow while it is parked, you may be able to secure yourself some discounts on your insurance.

3. Don’t Over insure: Remember, if something happens to your motorcycle, you will only receive the market value so over insuring will not help you get a higher price for your bike.

4. Mileage: If you only ride your bike once in a while during the summer for pleasure, you should be able to get a better rate if you can keep your mileage low. Also, if you do not carry passengers, this can lower your rate as well.

5. Special Motorcycle Training: Taking special DMV or other motorcycle classes can help decrease you rate. Just make sure you keep your certification documents handy for the insurance company to view. Also, some associations have contracted discounts for their members. It cannot hurt to check this out as well.

6. Provide Honest Information: If you falsify information in obtaining a quote and coverage from the motorcycle insurance company, if the need arises to file a claim and the motorcycle insurance company determines you have provided false information, they will not process your claim and you can be pretty sure that they will drop your coverage.

NOTE: There is no reason to overpay one insurance company when another one is willing to give you a better deal. If an accident would occur you will get the same value for your bike regardless of what company you choose. By taking the time to find out how the insurance company will view you, your bike, and your riding habits, you can learn how to save while still getting a great policy.

Talk to the cyclist or salesperson who sold you the motorcycle, and also look through motorcycle magazines, motorcycle Web sites and the yellow pages. Dealerships don’t always work with the best companies, and you might get talked into a policy you don’t want.

Bubbles come in all sorts of sizes and shapes. They can be found all over the place and can hold all sorts of stuff. The most famous is the boy in the plastic bubble. That bubble is huge and made of plastic, that is made to save lives. It keeps a nice sterile environment for a sick person to live in. Then there are bubbles that you blow with gum. The best kind of gum to blow bubble with is Hubba Bubba. The biggest bubble ever blown with a singe piece of gum is over two feet in diameter. Bubbles underwater are usually filled air, or carbon dioxide gas that rise to the surface and break to re-enter the atmosphere. Some bubble are bad like when somebody bursts your bubble. That means that somebody did something to you that might make you feel bad or upset. Then there are the regular old blowing bubbles. They are made of soap and water. Babies and small children love them the most, but there are adults who like them too. Every year all over the world, there are thousands of people who gather in huge numbers to see can make the biggest, best and most bubbles. People all over the world love bubbles, I think this is a universal thing. What I would like to do is get inside a bubble. In the movie, Explorers, a boy figures out how to make a artificial bubble that is strong and can hold lots of air and people too. This bubble can be controlled by computer, and in the movie a bunch of boys take that bubble into outer space. Some of the most important bubbles are trapped in ice. Down in the Arctic, scientists drill way down in the frozen Earth hoping to find some ice that has good air bubbles. In the air bubbles are the basic building blocks of life that hopefully tell the story of how the Earth was made.

Looking for low cost health insurance quotes? Good. You are taking that most important step of shopping around for the best price. But more importantly, you undstand that it is important to have health insurance, and perhaps, even more importantly, understand that the real purpose of health insurance, as for any insurance, is protection. That is, you do not get health insurance to act as a sort of discount off the price of doctor and hospital services. The point of insurance is protection in the event of catastrophe. Yes, health insurance costs are high and continue to rise, but do not forget that the reason you are seeking health insurance quotes online–and even offline–is to insure you get the most protection (not discount) for the best (lowest) rate.

Getting health insurance quotes is now extremely easy with the use of the Internet. Take advantage of online insurance quote availability to get an idea of the range of premium prices offered. Even if you don’t want to buy online, you will have a better understanding of what the insurance agent is talking about, and when it comes time to put ink on the contract, you will be making a more informed decision. Remember, too, that quotes are free and come without obligation.

When you look for cheap health insurance quotes, online or off, you must also consider type of health care you want and what that means in terms of how your care is delivered to you. Health insurance is a much more than a matter of co-payments, co-insurance, and deductibles. When you get a health insurance quote, you are getting a quote on a certain kind of plan. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a single “best” plan. You will find that there are some plans that will serve your needs better as an individual, and plans that will be better for both you and your family’s needs. Plans will vary according to what services they offer, and you will probably have to make some hard choices as to what services are most important. No plan will pay everything; there will always be out-of-pocket costs associated with your medical services, though some plans will pay more for the services you deem most important. So, health insurance quotes are really the tip of the iceberg to a very important subject.

Cheap Health Insurance Quotes and the HMO, PPO, FFS/indemnity plan, and POS.

*HMO–An HMO is a health maintenance organization. An HMO contracts with doctors, hospitals, and other medical providers to form a sort of network. As a member of an HMO, you are required to use the providers in that network. You pay the HMO a certain amount of money per their payment arrangements in order to receive medical services.

*PPO–A PPO is a preferred provider organization. A PPO is similar to an HMO in that there is a network of medical providers that you can use. However, the PPO does not require you to use that network and allows you see doctors and go to hospitals out of network. Normally, you do not need a referral to see doctors out of network. However, in that event, you do pay more for the service. That is, the amount of coverage is less.

*POS–A POS is a point of service plan. A point of service plan is very much like an HMO except that POS doctors can refer you out of the network of providers to see a specialist. In a POS, you would not refer yourself, and if the plan does refer you out of the network, you do pay more for the service.

*FFS–A FFS or indemnity plan, is a fee for service plan. In a fee for service, you are billed by the service. You are usually not required to use a network of providers. That means you choose which doctors, hospitals, and specialists you want to see and use. Because you make the decision about who you see and where you go, there is no need for a referral to see a doctor. The only limiting factor is whether or not the provider accepts the insurance of the fee for service plan insurance.

Low Cost health insurance quotes have a lot going on behind the scenes. Seeking an online quote? Now you have a better idea of what that quote is for. When you visit an insurance agent to talk health care, be sure to look thoroughly into the options available to you. Your health insurance quote represents a package of insurance services, and it is important for you to understand the relationship between the quote and the services you may be purchasing.

Insurance involves transferring a risk that you bare, onto an insurance company, so that you no longer have to worry about the event occurring. While you pay a fee, or premium for this, what you get in return is peace of mind. So what is the risk that you are transferring with life insurance? Well, quite simply, it is the financial risk of your own death. It should also be remembered that it is in certain circumstances possible to insure the life of another person, such as your husband or wife, or an important employee. The insurance company will then pay out to the named beneficiary once the event occurs, and this is usually a family member or business associate of the insured.

The thing that insurance companies will be looking for is insurable interest. It may come as a surprise but in the early days of aviation, there were some clever entrepreneurs who would hang around at airports and buy life insurance policies on the passengers. Since plane crashes were very common, a good proportion of the insured passengers died and the insurance companies were faced with the prospect of paying out vast sums to these men.

This is not the reason insurance was developed and the system was not designed to cope with this kind of speculation. Therefore the rule developed that you could only insure the life of someone you had a real interest in surviving. There is also the public policy issue that it would be tempting to some people to insure strangers and then make sure they died soon.

The insurance policy will have two important details defined right at the outset. The first is who is to be paid out under the policy. While this seems obvious, it is important to think carefully about it as, unlike in most insurance contracts, the purchaser of the policy is rarely the beneficiary under a life insurance policy.

The second is the amount to be paid out on to occurrence of the event. It must be remembered that this is also subject to the rule of insurable interest and therefore you cannot have a policy on your life for more than your life is reasonably financially worth. Since the premium is partially calculated on the amount of the payout, you will simply be paying for more insurance than you can receive. Therefore be honest with how much you earn and how much support your providing to your family so that the premium will be accurately assessed.

Joseph Kenny is the webmaster of the insurance site www.insure121.com/ where you will find information, news and links to the leading providers of insurance in the UK. If you found this article interesting you may find more articles of the same nature in the insurance guide located on site.

Auto Insurance policies can be divided into different categories according to the coverage they provide. Broadly speaking there are four kinds of policies known as Collision Insurance, Comprehensive Coverage Insurance, Uninsured and underinsured Motorist Coverage policies and No Fault Automobile Insurance policy. Besides these, there are policies that take care of other needs like covering an auto loan, paying for towing expenses or paying for the cost of a rented car while your vehicle is being repaired. The most common insurance policies are:

Collision: Any property damage caused to your vehicle due to an accident caused by any other vehicle or object is covered under this policy. The claim amount cannot exceed the actual cash value of the vehicle and is subject to any deductible.

Comprehensive: Any property damage to your vehicle that is caused by non-collision factors like fire, theft, vandalism, and even natural disasters like flood, hurricane or earthquake is covered under this policy.

Uninsured Motorist Coverage (UM) and underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage: takes cares of any injury that may result to you or to persons insured in your policy from an accident that takes place with another uninsured or underinsured driver or vehicle owner. Generally only body injuries are covered under this policy.

No Fault Auto Insurance Policy: Irrespective of who caused the accident, the insurance company pays for the medical expenses and for the loss of wages that the insured suffers on account of a collision under this policy.

Some other additional coverage that an auto insurance policy holder can buy are:

Property Damage Liability and Bodily Injury Liability: These two policies protect the insured from any claims made against him for causing damage to property including vehicle belonging to another person or for causing any bodily injury or loss of life to other individuals up to the amount mentioned in the policy.

Auto Lease Protection: is an additional protection that you may add to your collision or comprehensive auto insurance policy to take care of any gap that exists between your auto loan amount and the cash value of your vehicle.

Full Tort and Limited Tort: available only in the state of Pennsylvania allows the insured to retain unrestricted rights to bring a lawsuit against a negligent party or recover expenses incurred for certain damages.

Rental Expense: Known as Extended Transportation Expense Coverage, the policy pays for a rental car while your vehicle is being repaired or replaced.

Medical Payments Insurance covers medical expenses for injuries sustained in an accident involving any vehicle for the insured, his passengers and other parties irrespective of whose fault it is.

Towing and Labor: An additional coverage option that can pay for all necessary towing and labor costs to tow your damaged vehicle to a work shop or another location.

Marcus Dubois is a veteran in the insurance industry, and recommends InstaQuoter to get an instant auto insurance quote. See www.instaquoter.com/auto/ for more information.

It’s simple, always have your Life Insurance policy “Written in Trust”. This may sound technical but it is easy to understand and it’s so easy to organise.
“Written in Trust” ensures that in the event of a claim, the policy will pay directly to the beneficiaries you name on the policy when you first take it out. If you do not do this, the policy will payout to your legal estate and this inevitably means that the money stays in your solicitor’s hands for some time.

Yes, that implies legal delays and, of course, your solicitor takes a small cut!
Then, if the value of your taxable estate exceeds £275,000, and remember your home can easily account for the lion’s share of the £275,000 limit without much difficulty, your estate will have to pay Inheritance Tax. This represents 40% of the estate’s taxable value in excess of £275,000. So, if your estate has to pay Inheritance Tax and the proceeds of your life policy go to your estate, the taxman gets his hands on 40% of your life policy!
But it’s so easy to avoid all these problems.

Simply get your policy “Written in Trust”. Then the life insurance company pays out immediately, directly, and totally tax-free, to the persons you have named on your policy. All you have to do is tell the online brokerage organising your policy that you want your policy “Written in Trust” and they will automatically sort it out for you.

This advice remains sound even if the policy is designed to pay off your mortgage. Rather than your estate using the insurance payout to pay off your mortgage, the policy can be written in trust and paid to your partner and then he or she can use that money to pay of the mortgage. The benefit? Well if your taxable estate exceeds the IHT threshold the mortgage is effectively paid off tax-free.

The extra good news is that all the brokers we’ve met will arrange for your policy to be “Written in Trust” as a free of charge service. So it’s a win win situation and there aren’t many of those around these days !

Michael Challiner has 15 years experience in financial services marketing at senior level, the last 5 of which specialised in online marketing. Prior to that he spent 15 years in advertising with two of the world’s top advertising agencies, J Walter Thompson and Saatchi & Saatchi.

Michael now works as the editor of Scrouge Life Insurance on behalf of Andromeda Webs Ltd

Futher reading Life Insurance - What is it ?
Futher reading Life Insurance - What types are there ?

If you’re into war simulation then Combat Mission II is a must have. Unlike the first person simulations, which may have very realistic graphics, this PC game is realistic in that it forces you to think out your every action. You become the general of the army. You decide whether to attack or retreat, try to outflank the enemy or meet him head on. You have to consider the terrain, time of day and weather. You don’t need skill, as the game is actually simulated for you after you supply your troops with their orders, but you do need brains, lots of them.

And that may be the one drawback to this game for people who don’t want to have to think that much when they’re playing a PC game. This game is all thought. And the control you have over your army is complete. The instruction manual is over 200 pages long. Fortunately, it is very well written, though it will require a lot of reading.

The concept itself is not even that simple. Basically, Combat Mission II focuses on World War II on the Russian Front. The armies involved are the Germans, Fins, Russians, Italians and Romanians. The game covers the time period between 1941 and 1945 when the Russians marched into Berlin. For US fans of the good old US Army, this is one big disappointment as the game doesn’t cover the war in Europe.

The game follows what they call the “we go” principal. In other words, even though you are commanding a large army, depending on the battle itself, you give specific order to each division, company and squad and then after you give these orders you don’t physically control the actions of each. They will take action on their own based on your orders. If you command them to attack a bunker, they’ll attack the bunker on their own. In the course of doing this, they may be ambushed by an enemy squad or company. If so, they will either fight back or retreat on their own, that’s if they’re not killed first.

There are a number of weapons and vehicles in this game. Each one is programmed to behave as realistically as possible based on ballistics and other factors. Yes, a lot of work went into the programming of this game.

The terrain is set up according to the actual terrain of the various countries and has a great effect on each battle’s outcome. The battles themselves are set up according to many of the real battles that were fought in the war. Of course you may get different results since this is a simulation.

But the most fun comes from programming your own battles and designing your own terrain situations. The number of things you can do with this game are virtually unlimited. Not only can you program battle scenarios but you can program campaigns which are a number of battles strung together.

Combat Mission, made by CDV, is arguably one of the best war simulation games ever made. If you’re a big war fan, you won’t be disappointed if you check this one out.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to PC Games