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Being a young driver aged less than 25 is quite uncomfortable from the insurance perspective as you’re always charged with premiums that can be twice as high as your parents pay. That is because insurance companies regard younger car owners as being the most risky age group to insure. And while this may seem as a form of discrimination, the hard facts are on their side and you can’t do anything about it. Young drivers have less experience, end up in accidents more often and tend to take more risk while behind the wheel, which reflects in more at fault claims and more serious accidents. Still, even if you make part of this age group this doesn’t mean that there are no ways to get affordable insurance for your policy. Here are a few tips on how to do it right:

Ask your parents to include you to their policy

Although it may seem like a move that’s not very independent this still may help you save some money. Especially if your parents are paying the premiums. By including a high risk teen driver to the policy the premiums will automatically go up, however it will still cost you less than buying two separate policies for parents and the teen driver apart. So consider talking to your parents about such a move, especially if they already have very competitive premiums on their policy. more…

The GOP has a field of candidates who want to run for President. When the race began, the front runner was Mitt Romney but, when Rick Perry joined in, he surged into a lead. Whether he can maintain that lead is something only time can tell. The first signs are that the enthusiasm of the evangelicals and tea-partiers may not be shared by the rest of the country. Governor Perry has some interestingly partisan ideas and a Texan style of delivering them. But, if Perry is not likely to be electable, where does that leave Mitt Romney. He’s more the thinking-person’s candidate and, of course, he’s controversial” because of his health care reforms in Massachusetts. more…

These are the days of political correctness where, on issues of gender, race, religion and other divisive issues, we are expected to remain civil and avoid anything that might stir up trouble. This actually makes life quite difficult because, if real change is going to be made, there must be an honest debate about the issues. So, for example, should men and women receive the same pay for the same work? This should not be controversial. If the employer benefits equally from the work done by both sexes, there’s no reason to reward one more than the other. Except there’s no transparency. Only a tiny percentage of employers make pay grades public, so it’s almost impossible to discover whether any group of individuals is being paid less than the average for that type of work. Now let’s turn the question around. Would you expect a man to be asked to pay more just because he’s a man?

It’s a statistical fact that women live longer than men, so let’s say a man and a woman of the same age ask for quotes to buy a life insurance policy with the same guaranteed death benefits. If the insurance companies base the quotes on the math, the man pays more because he will live for fewer years. There are two reasons for this. First, the man may not work for as long before ill-health forces retirement, i.e. the payments will stop. Second, as women live longer, there are more years for the investment of the payments to build up in value. So women can expect to pay less than men for the same product. Except this would be a positive discrimination on the basis of sex. Presumably that’s illegal.

Moving on to insuring drivers, it’s a statistical fact that women are safer drivers than men. They are more likely to obey the law and generally drive less recklessly. So even if they are involved in accidents, they are traveling more slowly and so there’s less injury to passengers and less damage to the vehicles. Because premium rates are based on the risk an insured will claim, women should pay less than men. Except, unless the insurance company offers a women-only policy, men and women are grouped together so there’s no problem in giving to same rates to individuals with the same safety records. The averages will simply show that women pay less than men. more…

In one of the more extraordinary moments in the Presidential Candidate Debates, Rick Perry came out fighting, citing the example of Galileo to argue that we shouldn’t trust climate scientists. In fact, when you look at what he actually said, “Galileo got outvoted for a spell”. Does this mean we’re back to believing the sun goes round the Earth? Ah well, such are the things people say when they get on national television. For the scientists who have moved beyond the idea of the Earth being flat, they propose we are changing the climate by continuing to pump vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. One of the ways we do this is by driving so many miles in vehicles filled with expensive gas (that’s gas in our sense of the word and not to be confused with liquid petroleum gas or autogas). No matter whether autogas is more environmentally friendly, the underlying fact is we drive too many miles.

In a way, it’s not our fault. We have an enormous country and, when gas was cheap, it never occurred to us to design our towns and cities for efficiency. If you look at Europe, many major cities have integrated public transport systems that rely on local citizens to do some walking (or, in some cities, cycling). Anyone seen walking in one of our cities is considered either one of the urban poor or mentally disabled. With very poor public transport inside cities and an even worse provision between cities (now including the option to be molested when trying to board an airplane), everyone relies on the “car”. It’s a necessity of life.

Insurance is all about sharing the cost of loss among all drivers. To make this as fair as possible, the insurers offer discounts to those who are considered the safest. This encourages everyone to avoid accidents. It’s a statistical fact that, if you only drive a few miles a week and avoid driving at commuting times and at night, there’s a lower risk of an accident. It’s the same for those who live out in remote rural areas. With very few other vehicles on the road, the chances of a collision are small. Until now, insurance companies have refused to trust people to make an honest declaration of their mileage. But, with new technology available, your vehicle can transmit information about when and how far you drive. It can also tell the insurer how well you drive, e.g. send a message if there’s sharp braking and swerving from side to side. more…

Let’s start with a statement of the obvious. Many businesses store a large amount of data that’s of little use to anyone else. It may be historical records or just general information about the business and how it runs. No one would consider this sensitive and any loss would not affect anyone. But there are always elements of data that should be kept confidential and, to encourage you to take great care, there are a raft of laws and regulations intended to punish you if any of this data is lost in a security breach. Let’s start at an international level. If your business stores, transmits or processes the payment card numbers issued by American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard, Visa, and so on, you should comply with the security standards outlined in the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). This internationally accepted standard is directly applicable to your business and there are hefty penalties if you fail to keep cardholder details secure. As an aside, if you’re thinking you don’t need to take any notice of these international standards, try telling that to MasterCard and Visa the next time you lose some of their card numbers. Coming down to the federal and state levels, more than forty states have put laws in place to tell you what to do if you lose sensitive data. Some states require you to keep data encrypted when in static memory. Needless to say, there are penalties for failure to comply and data loss opens you to civil suits from anyone whose privacy has been affected by your breach of regulations. more…

Personal Injury Protection (PIP) covers against medical expenses and some of the losses that inevitably follow a traffic accident where drivers and their passengers are injured or killed. So, for example, you can claim loss of earnings and the equivalent of damages for pain and suffering. Where the driver dies, funeral expenses are also recoverable. Such policies are standard in the no-fault states. It’s expected claims will be settled without having to prove negligence, so you claim all your losses from your own insurer. Even in the at-fault states, holding a version of PIP, e.g. Auto Medical Payment cover, gives peace of mind, leaving it to the insurance company to sue in your name if the driver at-fault refuses to reimburse your insurer. Note that PIP cover is mandatory in 14 states, but the terms differ in their detail between those states. You should check through the small print before making a final decision on which policy to buy.

Such policies are supposed to make everyone’s life easier if they are injured, so it’s sad to see one insurer consistently refuse or reduce its customers’ legitimate claims. USAA is now facing its third class action law suit alleging a formal strategy to collect in the premiums and then refuse claims. In one sense, this is extraordinary given ASAA’s focus on the families of both serving and honorably retired members of our armed forces. A company that prides itself on looking after the interests of those defending our shores should offer top-class service. Instead, this latest law suit alleges the company is more interested in its bottom line, in effect cheating service personnel and their families.

The Plaintiff alleges USAA conspired with a second company, Auto Injury Solutions (AIS), to carry out a fraudulent cost containment program. Although the pleadings are quite general, it seems AIS produced dishonest reviews of medical claims which USAA then relied on in denying legitimate claims. What makes this particularly egregious is that this is the third law suit alleging a formal strategy not to pay out on medical claims. The first two suits were settled by USAA paying large sums in compensation. Under such circumstances, there’s a good case to be made for stripping USAA of its license to sell insurance. more…

Insuring a vehicle is probably one of the least pleasant aspects of owning a car. And because it’s required by law you just can’t do anything about it. Most people choose going with the flow when it comes to car insurance and simply take the first policy they come across. Others, however, take the time to learn what can be done to lower the costs and still get sufficient coverage. If you are one of those inquisitive people there’s good news for you – this way you have a much higher chance of getting inexpensive car insurance. But before you will be able to shop around effectively you should first learn what actually affects car insurance rates and why they tend to differ between various customers.

First of all you have to understand that the insurance company sets individual rates for each customer based on a set of different factors. These factors help the company determine the actual risk of a particular person to file an insurance claim. And the combination of these variables is what determines the final auto insurance quotes you get when simply trying to learn how much the policy would cost you. Moreover, each company uses the same factors in different formulas when calculating the customer’s premiums so there’s usually a fluctuation in rates even if you’re trying to get the very same policy from two different providers.

So what does affect your insurance rates? The following factors have a certain influence on how much it will cost you to insure your vehicle: car make and model, engine volume, top speed, repair costs, theft rates, driving record, credit score, place of residence, marital status, education and some less important things. Now, as you see the list isn’t very small and there are a lot of things that can make your car insurance cheap or expensive. And as mentioned previously each company uses its own methods for calculating rates and this means that you can get a totally different result when the same data is being used by two different providers. more…

Economics forecasters on cable television seem to be of two minds ever since Standard and Poor’s downgraded the US debt rating from AAA to AA+. Some sound more like doomsday prophets, claiming the American economy is due to crash into a smoldering sea of ash and brimstone. Others, such as the stocks and investing specialists on Fox and MSNBC, come across as hype men for Wall Street, claiming that S&P are simply playing politics and that the US is still the champ and can take on all challengers.
Nobody is answering the question most Americans are asking:
How does this downgrade impact me now and in the near future?

REAL EFFECTS OF THE US DEBT DOWNGRADE

The hype men at Fox and MSNBC and the doomsdayers both look pretty wrong, as it turns out. The market has continued on as before, gaining a bit some days and losing others. Actually, this is exactly what several prominent academic and foreign economists expected.

The downgrade is largely misunderstood amongst the public, because people on television are trying to make sure you are not informed! Debt downgrades are not actually catalysts for economic change – they are symptoms. It’s just like a report card. You don’t do poorly in class because you got a bad grade. You get a bad grade because you were doing poorly in class. The United States was rated too highly, so S&P gave them a new report card.

In the short term, the real effect of the downgrade is small. Over the next few years, everything should continue as normal. However, if the US is not upgraded or is downgraded again, it will be a sign that the US economy is really ailing.

One sign of this is the continuing increase in the value of gold and silver, which are setting all-time highs right now. Because the trustworthiness of the US dollar has been falling, more banks are trading in gold and silver. The bank of South Korea has actually changed all its holdings from US dollars to gold and is storing them in the UK.

MORE PRESSING FEARS

You should be more worried about the trading value of US currency than our country’s debt rating. The US economy has largely been artificially stable because the dollar has a privileged status as trading currency. If that goes, then the US economy will come down to earth. But it won’t happen overnight.

We will probably see steady market decline, say the academic economists at leading institutions in the US. Derivatives are built with triggers tied to debt. If financial institutions are downgraded as well, banks will demand more collateral and the market will begin to decline with falling derivatives. more…

We need to go back to basics to understand what the decision really means on the deductible. The idea of insurance is very simple. If you don’t have a policy, you carry all the cost of loss. That means, if anything goes wrong, you pay out of your own pocket. Think of this as self-insurance. But, if you belong to a group that shares the cost of loss, this can save you money. Let’s say you insure your vehicle along with several thousand other people. Not everyone will have an accident so, when it comes to dividing up the cost of replacement or repair among all the members of the group, you all pay less than if you were uninsured and had an accident. Everyone pays a little, but the unlucky ones claim back a lot. This is a great system. For those of you who like politics, it’s a perfect example of socialism in action. It redistributes money collected by the group to those who need it most.

For those of a libertarian persuasion, belonging to a communist conspiracy like this is outrageous. But then consider the reality. In all but three states, it’s mandatory for all drivers to carry insurance. The politicians in these states have insulted the people by forcing a socialist plan on to them. Worse, these politicians do it in the name of financial responsibility. The argument goes as follows. In our great country, we have a rule that if you are at fault, the courts can order you to pay compensation to everyone you have injured. As a government, we discussed whether to pass a law forcing you to save money just in case you get sued. That would mean, every year, you have to produce your bank account to show a minimum amount in place. The government decided this infringed your liberty. Everyone should be free to spend as much of their money as possible. But you would be financially irresponsible if you do not have some money available just in case you’re sued. So making you pay a few dollars a year to carry insurance is the least invasive way of protecting your privacy. more…

One of the ways we deal with the uncertainties of life is to assume none of the bad stuff will happen to us. This is reassuring until it’s put to the test. Then we can find we’ve run out of luck and the bad stuff is happening to us. So, when it comes to insurance, it’s as well to know where potholes are and how to drive safely round them. That way, you can assume none of the bad stuff will happen to you and be right!

Let’s start with the simple rule. You have to accept the insurers are in business to make a profit. That means they will put terms into the policy to limit or exclude their liability. If insurers gave you a blank check and said they would pay for all your losses, no matter how they were caused, they would be throwing gas over their business and driving it into a burning building. So before you buy a policy, make sure you understand exactly what cover is on offer and what specific situations are excluded. If may be you can’t afford anything better, but you should at least know how to protect yourself.

One of the standard exclusions is for intentional damage. Notice this is not “intended” damage. This is not you taking a baseball bat to the bodywork. It’s damage caused by anything you do or fail to do where there’s an element of intention. Take those road rage situations as an example. Another driver rubs you up the wrong way and you get competitive. Perhaps you tailgate and flash your lights. If it goes a tad too far and there’s contact between the two vehicles, you cannot claim. Your driving was intentional. You did not have to drive so close. The fact you thought there would be no damage is no defense. You have to take responsibility for your actions and pay for all the damage resulting.

Then there are the exceptions that deal with “livery”. There’s no problem if you occasionally give a ride to other people or move their property around. But if this gets to be a regular thing or you start taking money to cover the cost of the gas, your policies all lapse. Even though you are not running a business, the exceptions cover any voluntary use of your vehicle to benefit others. Look honestly at what you do. If anyone would think your use was starting to look more professional, you should buy a commercial policy. For the record, most policies cover car pools, but even this is not guaranteed if you take money to cover your costs. more…