National Health InsuranceIndividual Plans at Group Rates! Great Coverage/Options!

After the costly cold weather that struck the country last winter, Aviva is advising homeowners to give their properties a once over to help stave off burst pipes.

Last winter Aviva recorded sixfold the average number of claims related to winter weather, with 60% of claims for burst pipes.

As well as being greatly inconvenient, burst pipes are not cheap to fix and the average claim for them was around £8,000.

A single burst pipe can have a dramatic impact, even bringing down ceilings and causing months of repair and disruption.

Rob Townend, director of household claims at Aviva, advises those leaving the home for a few days or longer to keep their heating on at a low level to prevent pipes freezing.

Ensuring that proper lagging and insulation is in place can also help prevent burst pipes.

According to ABI figures, the December 2010 freeze saw 450,000 customers helped by insurers, with 103,000 claims for burst pipe damage.

Employers are offering voluntary benefits more to benefit their employees than to cut costs, n cost driven, according to new research.

The Gauging the Success of Voluntary Benefits, the second in a series of research briefs stemming from Prudential’s Sixth Annual Study of Employee Benefits: Today & Beyond, found that 75% of employers say their top reason for offering voluntary benefits is to expand the benefits options available to their employees, with 42% offering voluntary benefits to fulfill an employee need, and 30% offering them at their employees’ request.

Exactly 85% of employers say they offer one or more voluntary benefits including life insurance (63%), disability insurance (56%), and dental insurance (52%). Ran

Read more…

In learning about life insurance, it is important to know some key definitions.  By having some key terms well-defined, you wont get tripped up while reading your application or policy.  Most people never read their policies because they get tripped up on some of the terminology.  You can visit our Life Insurance Glossary where you will find definitions on many of the words you will come across in your life insurance application and policy.  Here are a few key words found in our glossary:

• Policy The written statement of the agreement between insurer and insured (or policy owner, if other than the insured), including all endorsements and attached papers, which constitutes the entire contract of insurance.  See contract and insurance policy.

• Death Benefit In life insurance, the face amount, as stated in the policy, to be paid upon proof of death of the insured.

• Beneficiary The person (or entity) to whom the proceeds of a life insurance policy are payable when the insured dies.  There are various types of beneficiaries (see primary, contingent or secondary and tertiary beneficiaries).

• Term Life Insurance Life insurance issued for a term of years, normally building up no cash value and expiring without value.  Typical term periods are 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years.

• Permanent Life Insurance A term loosely applied to cash value life insurance.  This type of policy is meant to last a whole life, as opposed to term, which is in force for a specified period of time or term.

• Whole Life Insurance A plan of insurance offering protection for the whole of life, proceeds being payable at death.  Premiums may be paid under a continuous premium arrangement or on a limited payment basis for virtually any desired period of years.

• Cash Value - In a life insurance policy, the amount available to the owner when a policy is surrendered to the company.  During the early policy years, the cash value is the reserve less a surrender charge.  in the later policy years, the cash surrender value usually equals or closely approximates the reserve value.

• Underwriting - The process of selecting risks and classifying them according to their degrees of insurability so that the appropriate rates may be assigned.  The process includes rejection of risks.

I pulled these few out of the Glossary, as I thought these would be a good place to start.  Visit the glossary when you get a chance and look up the definitions for any of the words that might have tripped you up previously.

We have 15 pairs of tickets for the inaugural Ideal Home Show at Christmas to giveaway. Be quick though, the first fifteen people to comment below with their top Christmas-related money saving tip will win a pair of tickets (only one entry per person).

For 5 days from the 16th-20th November 2011, the Ideal Home Show will be at London’s Earls Court, bringing more home ideas, DIY advice and interior inspiration to make every aspect of your home perfect this winter. <

Read more…

If you, as a physician, have shopped for disability insurance for doctors, you have probably been made aware of the key elements you should look for in a policy.  If you have spoken with an agent or broker who fully understands your needs, he/she has most probably presented you with quotes from several companies and emphasized these policy features:

• The policy should be non-cancellable and guaranteed renewable for the length of the policy (typically to age 65).  Make sure your policy has language that includes both.  If a policy is only guaranteed renewable, the insurance company can raise your premiums in the future.

• The definition of Total Disability should be a true Own-Occupation definition.  This means that if, due to illness or injury,  you cant perform the usual and customary duties of your occupation (specialty-specific in some policies), you will be considered totally disabled, even if you choose to work in another occupation (or specialty).

• The policy should have a strong Residual benefit, which will pay a partial benefit if your disability isnt total, but results in lost income due to you not being able to work full time or perform all the tasks of occupation.

• The policy should also have a Recovery benefit which, like the Residual benefit, would pay you a partial benefit based on the percentage of income you have lost due to disability, even if you are able to work full time and perform all the duties of your occupation.

• The benefits in the policy should keep up with inflation, if you are disabled.  Some policies offer a Cost of Living rider which adjusts the benefit on an annual basis, based either on a fixed percentage or tied to Consumer Price Index.  Look for compounded increase, rather than fixed.

While there are other benefits and riders available in disability insurance for doctors, the above are the main points to look for in a policy.  When a physician requests disability insurance quotes from our company, we provide quotes from multiple companies and show them together on our Comparison of Benefits, which allows you to compare these benefits offered by each company in an easy to read format.

If you would like a quote, please click the Get Disability Quotes on the top or bottom of this page.

With the Republican presidential debate heating up, frontrunners Mitt Romney, Herman Cain and Rick Perry are being scrutinized more than ever before, and Mitt Romney’s health care plan in Massachusetts has been widely criticized, with the LA Times printing a story Oct. 24 detailing how the plan would help illegal immigrants providing them affordable health insurance.

Illegal immigration is a big issue in the Republican Party. In the story out today, the LA Times said then-governor Romney signed the law into effect in Massachusetts in 2006. It provides for the health care of illegal immigrants if they don’t have insurance. Per

Read more…

House representatives are set to vote on a bill that will scale back theMedicaid expansion set forth in the health care reform law. Experts say scaling back the bill could prevent as many as 1 million middle-income Americans from qualifying forMedicaid coverage.

HIV/AIDS Doctors Raise Concerns over Medicaid Expansion

A new journal paper released at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America revealed that AIDS doctors and researchers are worried that the current successful model of care for AIDS may be threatened by fiscal pressures along with changes that have been brought forth by thehealth care reform overhaul.

Concerns have been raised that the progress reached in disease treatment in the United States could be threatened with the expansion as it would require public health funding be spread thinner than it already is.

Currently, only half of all patients have access to needed treatment. By

Read more…