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The travel insurance experts at Gallagher Heath have provided this article about the serious problems that can arise from not having travel insurance.

Did you know that according to the Commonwealth and Foreign Office, nearly half of young people don’t buy any travel insurance before travelling?

In the current economic climate families are tightening their financial belts by not buying travel insurance I mean, what are the chances of you actually losing that camera that needed upgrading in any case? And it’s only a handful of holiday clothes that you won’t wear again, isn’t it?

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If you’re planning to climb Mt.

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You have submitted an application for life insurance and you have been told that the application is in underwriting.  I have found over my many years of selling life insurance that most people have no idea what occurs in this ominous-sounding process.  Most people I speak to wonder what could take so long  in approving an application.  So, in an effort to take the ominousness out of it, I will attempt to relay to you what exactly happens when you submit your application.

In the LifeInsure.com Glossary, we define Underwriting as the process of selecting risks and classifying them according to their degrees of insurability so that the appropriate rates may be assigned.  Th

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Justice minister Jonathan Djanogly has criticised the payment of referral fees in personal injury litigation, but stopped short of saying the government will ban it.

In an interview on Radio 4′s Today programme the minister said the referrals system gave people a “perverse incentive” to make unjustified claims. He said the government would be looking at several practices including referral fees, touting for business by text message, and garages selling lists of drivers involved in accidents, but added that these were the symptoms of a “rotten suing culture” rather than the cause.

Jack Straw has hit out at the practice of insurance companies selling the details of car accidents to personal injury lawyers, a business estimated to be worth £3bn a year and one which increases the price of every car insurance policy sold.

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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

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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.