Archive for October 30th, 2009
Home Inventory For Insurance Purposes
Home Inventory For Insurance Purposes
Nomoredeductibles.com recommends you inventory all the items in your home and the home itself once a year. We have found the best time to do this is right after the holidays. The house is clean and well decorated, and a lot of the items from the attic are already out on display. The fastest way to inventory your home is with video. Walk from room to room recording each room; open drawers and closets, as you record your items talk in to the video about when you bought the bigger and more expensive items and what you paid for them. Video your jewelry and silver service. If you can record the serial numbers and model numbers of your items, this will help verify exactly which model of the item you had for the insurance adjuster. If you are the victim of a burglary, the police can verify these items are yours if they are recovered. Once your inventory is completed, we recommend making a copy of the video, or burn it to a cd or dvd, and keep a copy off site. Keep it at the office, at a parent’s home, a safe deposit box, anywhere where it can’t inadvertently be thrown away, or lost in a fire at your own home. After the inventory is completed, verify that the coverage on your homeowner, renter, or condo insurance policy has enough coverage to replace all of your items. When you inventory the inside of the home, take pictures or video the outside of the home as well to document the condition and features of the home. One idea I heard about to protect your jewelry is to hide them in a pot in the kitchen cabinets. I was told by a jeweler that many burglars are now using metal detectors to find hidden metal items in peoples drawers and or mattresses. The kitchen has too many metal items for a metal detector to work efficiently. Unfortunately no one is completely safe from a thief. The truth is that if a thief really wants an item you have, they will find a way to take it. Our best advice is to insure the items and know they can be replaced. You can download a free home inventory from www.nomoredeductibles.com. While you are there, take a look at how you can get rid of your auto, homeowners, and health insurance deductibles!
Source: www.ArticlePros.com
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
