Insurance - All The Basics
Insurance - All The Basics
What is insurance? Insurance is a means of providing protection against financial loss in a great variety of situations. It is a contract in which one party agrees to pay for another party?s financial loss resulting from a specified event. Insurance works on the principal of sharing losses. If you wish to be insured, against any type of loss, agree to make regular payments, called premiums, to an insurance company. In return, the company gives you a contract, the insurance policy. The company promises to pay a certain sum of money for the type of loss stated in the policy. History Insurance is thousands of years old. The Code of Hammurabi, a collection of Babylonian laws of 1700BC, is believed to be the first form of credit insurance. A borrower did not have to repay a loan if personal misfortune made it impossible to do so. Insurance as we know it today can be traced to the Great Fire of London in 1666, which devoured 13,200 houses. In the aftermath of this disaster, Nicholas Barbon opened an office to insure buildings. Types of Insurance Insurance generally covers situations involving pure risk ? that is, situations in which only losses can occur. Such situations include fire, floods and accidents. People also buy insurance to cover unusual types of financial losses like, a dancer might insure her legs against injury. There are mainly three types of insurance policies sold: 1. Life Insurance A life insurance policy provides that the insurance company will pay a certain amount when the person dies. This may be paid in a lump sum or in installments to the beneficiary [people named by the policyholder to receive the death benefit]. Some types of life insurance policies also enable policyholders to save money. Such policies have a cash value. A policyholder may borrow money against the cash value or surrender the policy for its cash value. Annuities These are savings plans sold by insurance companies to provide a fixed and regular retirement income. If the annuitant [owner of the annuity] dies before receiving the guaranteed number of payments, the insurance company must continue the payments to the beneficiary. Dividends Some insurance policies refund part of the premiums in the form of dividends. Such policies are called participating policies. An insurance company pays dividends if the money it collected in premiums exceeds the amount needed to pay benefits and administrative costs. Dividends may also include a share of the profits the company earned on investments made with premium funds. Dividends are most commonly paid on life insurance. 2. Private Health Insurance Health insurance pays all or part of the cost of hospitalization, surgery, laboratory tests, medicines, and other medical care. The rising cost of medical care has increased the need for adequate health insurance. You could suffer a major financial hardship without such coverage, especially in case of a serious illness or accident. Dental insurance is one of the fastest-growing types of health insurance. It helps pay for a wide variety of dental services. 3. Property & Liability Insurance Individuals and businesses buy property and liability insurance to protect their assets against financial loss. Property insurance provides direct compensation if a policyholder?s possessions are damaged, destroyed, or lost as a result of perils. Liability insurance protects individuals and businesses against possible financial losses if their actions result in bodily injury to others or in harm to property owned by others. The main types of individual coverage are: ? Homeowners Insurance This provides protection against losses from damages to an owner?s home and its contents. ? Automobile Insurance This is the most widely purchased and most important kinds of insurance. Drivers are legally responsible for any costs arising from accidents they cause. This insurance protects a policyholder against financial losses from accidents. Financial viability of Insurance Companies Financial stability and strength of the insurance company should be a major consideration when purchasing an insurance contract. An insurance premium paid currently provides coverage for losses that might arise many years in the future. For that reason, the viability of the insurance carrier is very important. In recent years, a number of insurance companies have become insolvent, leaving their policyholders with no coverage (or coverage only from a government-backed insurance pool with less attractive payouts for losses). How Insurance Is Sold Most insurance companies sell policies through agents. Exclusive agents are employees of an insurance company who sell only that company?s policies. Independent agents sell policies for several companies. David Dugan is a contributing author to the insurance information site <a href="http://insurance.divinfo.com/">http://insurance.divinfo.com/</a>, a site that has information on auto, homeowners, life, pet and all kinds of insurance as well as the retirement site <a href="http://retirement.divinfo.com">http://retirement.divinfo.com</a>.
Source: www.ArticlePros.com
Affordable Home Insurance — Steps You'll Do Well Not To Miss
Everyone can enjoy high value home insurance without breaking the bank. The two things that are holding you from enjoying a better rate now are relevant information and a resolve to make use of the information you get. Following are a few steps that will help you reach this goal… 1. It’s more expensive and needless to insure the land on which your home is standing. Those who ignorantly do this are paying a lot more than would do them any good. They just insure their house for its complete value without subtracting the land’s cost. If you made such a mistake, you need to review your home insurance coverage and go through it again with your agent. Lower your coverage to the cost of your home and its contents minus the land’s cost. This implies that you will spend far less on home insurance. No matter what you do and who you meet, don’t forget that the only things you insure are things that can be stolen or destroyed and your land is not one of such. 2. Motion-sensitive lighting lowers your home’s risk of burglary and, as a result, helps you get cheaper home insurance premiums. Burglars will avoid any place where their movement will be easily noticed. And motion-sensitive lighting does this exactly. Because thieves avoid houses with such lighting, you lower your home’s risk of burglary and, consequently, your premiums. 3. Have special fire and security systems that alert fire stations, police stations or other monitoring center. Not only will you enjoy a huge discount, you will as well feel more secured once you remember that your home is always monitored. Depending on the insurer, this type of systems can get you discounts between 25% and 30%. 4. You’ll get lower home insurance premiums if you obtain group home insurance. It’s also good to verify from associations you belong to if they have any group discount from any insurer. Though, before you use this option, compare the rates you will get through such an association with what you’ll pay with another insurance company. You can get an insurance company that your association has no form of affiliations with that offers your profile a far lower rate. There’s fierce competition in the home insurance sector and you can take advantage of this to get more affordable rates if you take your time to do extensive shopping and comparisons. 5. You will likely lower your rate if you take time out to go through your home insurance policy at least once a year or whenever things change in your house. That rare rug Aunt Molly gave you might not really be worth the $10,000 you insured it for at the moment. Reduce your coverage accordingly if it has dropped in value and this will help you save while maintaining adequate coverage. However, a review may show it’s now a lot more valuable and that you have to increase coverage. The good thing, in spite of all, is that whichever it is you will be the better for it. 6. The most important step to considerable savings in home insurance is comparison shopping — Given that you do it right. You can get quotes that will have a difference in excess of $1,000. You could quickly save so much by simply choosing the lowest quote. This should be the case if you’re just after the lowest price. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for the best value to price ratio then you would have to check the details of the lowest quotes. Different insurance companies may have adjustments for similar policies. It’s important that you ask the agent what’s included and what’s excluded.Here are recommended pages for home insurance quotes… <a href="http://quality-insurance-4-less.com/Home-owner-insurance-in-Michigan.html#Hometownquotes" target="_blank">Cheap Home Insurance Quotes</a> <a href="http://quality-insurance-4-less.com/Home-owner-insurance-Massachusetts.html#InsureMe" target="_blank">Affordable Home Insurance Quotes With Ease</a> Chimezirim Odimba writes on insurance.
Source: www.ArticlePros.com
