Term life insurance policies can vary by 50 percent for the same coverage. That?s why it?s best to compare quotes at InsWeb to find both the rates and policy that is right for your personal situation. Term life insurance provides financial protection over a set “term” or period. Getting some term life insurance quotes might be the right step especially if you want coverage over a long period. Term life policies have no cash value of their own. They don’t accrue interest and you can’t borrow money against them.

Term life policies are generally tax-free and may even allow for a partial payout upon diagnosis of a terminal disease. Term life will cover you if you die in a plane crash, and health insurance should cover medical expenses. Term insurance provides protection for a defined period of time?from one to 10, 20, or even 30 years?and pays benefits only if you die during that period. Term insurance is often used to cover financial obligations that will disappear over time, such as tuition or mortgage payments.

Term life insurance is pure, unadulterated life insurance. It is called various things by various companies: “whole life”, “universal life”, and so on. Term life does not build up ” cash value “. Cash value policies are designed to be held for life , and hence often cost significantly more than term policies. Term insurance covers you and pays your designated beneficiary in the event of your death or certain other catastrophic events. It is not an investment policy; it has no cash value.

Cash value insurance is much more expensive than term (particularly at younger ages), but typically provides insurance throughout lifetime at a level premium. A policyholder normally can receive the benefit of these cash values during lifetime in one of two ways: (1) by taking a loan against them, or (2) by cashing in the policy (the policy will no longer be in force, but the policyholder will receive the cash surrender value). Cash values are predetermined and will not vary over the life of the policy based the insurance company’s experience. Whole life is often referred to as ordinary life or straight life. Cash values are accumulated by crediting premium payments and interest to a fund from which deductions are made for expenses and cost of insurance. Interest rates are linked to an external index such as Treasury bills.

Universal life insurance allows consumers flexibility in when premiums are to be paid and the amount that they would be. Universal life policies also allowed consumers to permanently withdraw cash from the policy without the interest associated with the loan provisions in whole life policies. University development offices and other prospective nonprofit beneficiaries are well aware of this, and many encourage gifts of policies. What they and prospective donors might be less sure of—and consequently need your help in deciding—is how to properly value donated life insurance interests for tax purposes. Universal life insurance policies also accumulate cash values on a tax-deferred basis.

Universal life insurance is also called adjustable life insurance. Remember that, with permanent life insurance, some of your premium is invested.

Premium rates for these smaller coverage amounts tend to be higher per unit than those of larger coverage amounts (a unit equals $1,000 of coverage). Therefore, consumers interested in smaller policies should also review quotes for policies at the $100,000 coverage amount. Premiums on Term Life policies often increase regularly as the insured ages. Premiums can vary widely between companies for the same policy and spending an hour or two shopping around could save you thousands of pounds. Shaving just ?10 a month off a twenty-five year policy would leave you with an extra ?3,000 in your pocket.

Premiums ranging from $0.05 to $0.65 were collected on a weekly basis, often by agents coming door-to-door, instead of on an annual, semi-annual, or quarterly basis by direct remittance to the company. Additionally, medical examinations were often not required and policies could be written to cover all members of the family instead of just the main breadwinner.

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- Whenever you submit  any kind of information online, make sure the url start with “https”.  This option makes sure that the information is only being exchanged between your computer and Insurance Quote provider.

- Also, look for “business reliability” seal like BBB on the site and check to verify the status of the company.

The companies that we have listed here for “free home Insurance quote”  are member of BBB and provide a secured means of communication.

You want to go in, but you know it might not be safe. That was the situation Monday at a home in Ballard.

“We can’t even salvage anything because if we go downstairs, we’ll get electrocuted,” said Shauna Eckhart. “And the lights are still on, so they didn’t pop a breaker. So we know there’s still electricity going there.”

It can be extremely dangerous to enter a flooded building, whether it’s a home, office or apartment. Especially if the utilities are still on.

“I would personally stay out of my basement if there’s flooding in it, until I had time to bring somebody in that knows what they’re doing, either an electrician or somebody else or til the water recedes,” said Chuck Clarke, with Seattle Public Utilities. “I just think being conservative at this point related to electric issues or gas issues or others is a prudent way to go.”

Here’s how to play it safe it your home is flooded:

- When re-entering the building, use flashlights instead of lanterns or candles, in case there’s a gas leak.

- If you know where your circuit breaker is, turn it off for the areas exposed to the flooding. If the electrical panel is threatened by flood waters, contact your power company.

- Call the gas company to turn the gas back on. Don’t try to do it yourself.

- Have a professional check your heating system and electrical system before using it.

A lot of people will need to deal with water-logged vehicles. If the water has reached the engine compartment, don’t start the vehicle. Instead, have it towed to a mechanic.

“Flood water is not only wet, it can be corrosive,” said AAA spokeswoman Janet Ray. “There is the moisture, the water certainly, but then dirt and gravel and other elements that are abrasive materials that could force their way into every seam and crevice in your automobile.

“So you want to make sure that you have a technician who will go through all of the systems.”

For many people, this flooding is going to financially devastating. Home owners insurance policies exclude flood damage so, unless you had flood insurance, you’re out of luck.

For car owners, insurance should cover the water damage if you have comprehensive coverage on the vehicle.

How to drive when the roads are flooding:

“Drive slowly but steadily. Hold on to your steering wheel with both hands so incase you get into an area where water is flowing a little more quickly you can guide your vehicle,” Ray said. ”

Don’t step on the brake when you’re in the middle of the flood waters, just keep driving steadily. Once you’re through then test your brakes, because your brake lining could have gotten wet and you want to make sure you allow that lining dry out. So just lightly put a little pressure on the brake pedal and give it a little chance to dry out an then test it so you’ll know it works when you want it to.

IF YOUR HOUSE IS FLOODED

TO PREVENT FUTURE PROBLEMS

For More Information:

Washington State Department of Health: Weathering Storms

City of Seattle Responds to Historic Rainfall

NW Insurance Council: Flood Insurance

And with enrollment season under way at businesses across the Valley, many employees are coming to grips with the fact that their health plans will cost more and deliver less in 2008.

In fact, more than half of U.S. companies, or 56 percent, plan to trim their health-care tabs next year by requiring that their employees make a larger premium contribution or pay higher deductibles, co-pays or out-of-pocket contributions, according to survey findings from the Mercer Health & Benefits report.

That means many workers will see a larger chunk of their pay docked up-front for health-care expenses.

It could also mean that they will have fewer options in the types of plans offered to them, or may have to enroll in high-deductible plans that substantially increase out-of-pocket costs.

“We certainly have reached the tipping point in regard to small- and mid-sized (companies’) ability to absorb the increasing costs of health care,” said Jim Hertel, publisher of the Arizona Managed Care Newsletter.

The exact amount employees will be required to pay varies depending on the size of the company, types of plans offered and other factors.

But health-care premium costs for large companies nationwide will jump an average of 8.7 percent per employee next year, according to a survey by Illinois-based Hewitt Associates. The survey predicts a similar premium increase next year for national companies with employees in the Phoenix area, but the survey does not measure smaller companies based in Phoenix.

Phoenix-area employees already tend to pay a higher portion of their health-care premiums than the national average, and that won’t change. Hewitt reported the average Phoenix worker next year would pay 25.3 percent of the premium, higher than the national employee contribution of 21.4 percent.

Stripped-down policies

Large companies, grasping for ways to keep costs down, are emphasizing preventive measures that keep employees fit and on the job, rather than at the doctor’s office or emergency room.

Salt River Project offers one of the most generous health-care plans in the Valley, covering 100 percent of premiums for its 4,500 workers and 75 percent for their dependents.

The power and water utility tries to keep its health bills under control by offering such things as free health screenings, and assessments such as blood-pressure and weight checks. It also provides workplace screening for prostate and breast cancer.

SRP also has established a disease-management program that provides education, care and prescription drugs to help people lose weight or quit smoking.

“All our plans face the same issues,” said Leo Elias, Salt River Project’s manager of benefits and health services. “With rising health-care costs, we’re certainly trying to help our employees stay healthy.”

Another popular option for businesses has been the use of high-deductible health plans combined with a health savings account.

These stripped-down policies are typically less expensive than more traditional health maintenance organizations, or HMOs, or preferred provider organizations, PPOs, but they require employees to pay more out-of-pocket costs.

A growing number of businesses are switching to these plans to cope with higher health costs. Both Blue Cross Blue Shield in Arizona and the Arizona Small Business Association unveiled versions of such high-deductible plans for small businesses in recent weeks.

Joan Koerber-Walker, chief executive officer of the Arizona small-business group, said she shopped for but could not find an affordable HMO-style plan to offer Arizona small businesses.

So the group negotiated a plan with Cigna that charges a $2,500 deductible for members for in-network doctors and health services.

Koerber-Walker believes that companies small and large increasingly will gravitate toward such plans.

“We need to drive health-care consumerism,” Koerber-Walker said. “We are seeing this not only in small businesses but big businesses as well.”

Mercer’s preliminary report found that 19 percent of companies with 500 or more employees signaled that they would “very likely” offer such a high-deductible plan next year. Mercer will release a final version of that report that will include figures for Arizona before the end of the year.

Patricia Larsen, a principal with Mercer in Arizona, said many companies are taking a wait-and-see approach to such high-deductible plans.

“They have adopted a consumerism approach . . . but not the ultimate step of a high-deductible HSA (health savings account),” she said.

Long-term concerns

While small- and mid-sized businesses have been quicker to shift costs to employees, some warn that such an approach can backfire if employees skip needed medical care.

A survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that more than 6 out of 10 Americans have been hit with higher expenses over the past year.

These people have adjusted to higher health-care bills by delaying doctor’s visits, skipping or reducing prescription drugs and discussing treatment plans with their doctors more thoroughly.

Jim Winkler, of Hewitt’s health-management consulting business, said companies need to strike a balance to ensure employees can afford and use health plans.

“Otherwise, they are essentially trading preventative care now for rescue care later,” Winkler said.

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The Employment Policies Institute, which sponsored research by two Cornell University economists, has released a report that’s sour on the concept of “pay or play” employer mandates, calling them “blunt instruments” to fund health insurance for the working poor.

Such laws, proposed in at least a dozen states, would require certain employers to provide health insurance to their employees or pay a fine.

Those laws may sound like a good idea to ensure low-wage workers get health insurance in jobs that don’t usually provide it, but Cornell researchers Richard Burkhauser and Kosali Simon discount that idea.

The sponsoring think tank agrees with their conclusions: “The cost of providing health insurance is so great that most businesses covered by ‘pay or play’ laws will be forced to cut back on hours and jobs just to stay afloat,” said Employment Policies Institute chief economist Jill Jenkins.

Based on a Towers Perrin estimate that the average per-employee cost for an employer to provide health insurance in 2008 will be $7,272 a year, the report says that some employers would lose money if forced to provide health insurance.

The report contends that many members of the “working poor” earn too much to qualify for and benefit from proposed laws that would mandate employer-sponsored coverage. Many other low-wage workers would get no benefit because they would no longer have a job, the researchers said.

The similarly named, but generally philosophically opposed, Economic Policy Institute presents another view on this issue.

The Economic Policy group, which advocates “shared prosperity,” suggests that it would be better to take health insurance out of the job market and put the responsibility in the public sector with mandated minimum coverage for all citizens.

The Employment Policies Institute-sponsored report is at www.epionline.org. The related Economic Policy Institute report is at www.epi.org.

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This is according to the Independent, which recently examined why females often receive cheaper car and life insurance policies than their male counterparts.

Men are more likely to be involved in serious or fatal accidents and therefore pay higher premiums, the publication states.

“What you’ll find is that men tend to have more high-value accidents, whereas women tend to have more bumps and scrapes – usually at lower speeds and closer to home – which is why their insurance is cheaper,” said Niki Bolton of Sheilas’ Wheels.

The publication goes on to cite government figures that 60 times as many men are convicted of motoring offences than women, meaning that females can save hundreds of pounds on their women’s car insurance.

Last month, the Mail on Sunday made a similar claim based on findings by comparison site uSwitch.com.

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Some agents therefore advise their clients to give notice anyway, in the worst-case scenario they can place insurance with the same insurance company again. Moreover, the threat of notice also results in discounts at some insurance companies. Though the discounts are not included in price lists, they can be arranged at individual branches under the title commercial or director’s bonus. It depends only on the insurance company again whether it is willing to provide discounts to some clients. However, some of them are against such a procedure. “We never agreed to dumping, even when we lost a part of our clientele as a result,” asserted Antonín Nekvinda, Director General of Česká poisťovňa – Slovensko.

The times when it was sufficient to opt for the cheapest offer are definitely over. The price lists have become more complicated. And the make of car has ceased to be the base according to which insurance premium prices are set. Logically, the dangerousness of a car largely depends on the driver.

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Just like mortgage brokers who search lenders to find the best rates, independent insurance brokers like Freed Insurance Agency find the lowest rates among insurance companies who are competing for your business.

“We look out for the clients’ best interest and work for the client,” says Steve Freed of the Freed Insurance Agency. “We don’t work for insurance companies.”

Here are 5 tips to finding affordable Arizona health insurance from the Freed Insurance Agency:

1. Shop an Independent Broker.
Independent brokers work for the consumer. They represent a variety of Arizona insurance carriers and can provide health care options. Brokers represent leading insurance carriers in the industry.

2. Go with Quality.
The trend in Arizona is to offer jobs that are full-time, but offer no benefits. Some companies will deny benefits to employees who have pre-existing health conditions. So when shopping, get the best coverage you can.

3. Keep Insurance Coverage for Life.
The good part about getting your own health insurance in Arizona is once you have it, it can’t be taken away from you—even if you fall ill.

4. Get Health Insurance Before Developing a Problem.
It’s less expensive when you lock in before you develop a health related issue. Some people who want to start their own small business simply can’t because of the cost of health insurance. So, if you’re thinking about doing that, do so before developing a health problem.

5. Have Reasonable Expectations.
A 40 year old with a family of four with no preexisting health conditions should expect to pay $600-$700 a month on a low deductible PPO plan with a doctor co-pay. However by raising the deductible to $2500 or $5000 it’s possible to cut that monthly premium in half and still maintain a $20 or $30 doctor co-pay, along with a first dollar Rx card.

“The deductible only comes into play when entering a hospital or need outpatient surgery or outpatient testing,” says Freed. “If you want affordable health insurance you may need to assume some of the risk.”

About Freed Insurance Agency: The Freed Insurance Agency is a leading health insurance broker in Arizona. The company works with customers to search for affordable Arizona health insurance. As a broker, the company works for the customer and not the Arizona health insurance companies.

Web site: www.FreedInsuranceAgency.com

Americans were taken in by health insurance industry foils Harry and Louise the first time Clinton offered this country decent health care reform, but they won’t be fooled again. If Giuliani wants to make this election a referendum on America’s health care system, he’s going to flame out faster than a hospital can dump an uninsured patient.
Polls regularly show that Americans are disgusted with the current state of affairs. In a 2007 CBS News/New York Times poll, nine in 10 respondents said the U.S. health care system needs fundamental changes and two-thirds said it was up to the federal government to guarantee that all Americans have health care coverage.
If the next president does nothing else but add this country to the pantheon of advanced nations that provide universal coverage, it will be a successful tenure, one that will be remembered fondly by generations to come, like that of FDR for Social Security and LBJ for Medicare.

But guaranteed health care will not only serve to relieve the anxieties of tens of millions of American families, it will also be a shot of adrenaline to our economy. Giuliani is so busy offering dissembled statistics on how lethal England’s health care system is to men with prostate cancer, he fails to see just how free-market-friendly universal coverage would be. (And as I was just in England, Mr. G., I can tell you that no one I asked would trade their national health service for America’s system.)

Economists and business leaders talk about a phenomenon called ”job lock,” when a person stays in a job primarily due to its attendant health benefits. Maybe they’re stuck because one of their children has a pre-existing condition that won’t be covered right away by a different insurer. Maybe it’s because they take expensive prescription drugs that may not be on the formulary of another employer’s plan.

Whatever the reason, this tethering of an employee to his job reduces job mobility by about 25 percent, says Brigitte Madrian, professor of public policy and corporate management at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

”The economic cost of job lock is that individuals do not move to jobs where they could be more productive,” Madrian says. ”Job change is part of the engine of economic growth.”

In a Business Week article earlier this year, Kelly Services Inc. chief executive Carl Camden echoed Madrian’s sentiments, saying that, increasingly, people ”don’t leave a job even though they’re unhappy and would be more productive somewhere else” because they feel they have to cling to their employer’s health coverage.
”Nobody worries when they leave one job to go to the next that their Social Security will be interrupted,” Camden told Business Week.

And then there is the entrepreneurial energy that would be unleashed if people felt free to leave their big company jobs in order to invest in their own ideas. A recent study conducted by Philip DeCicca, an assistant professor of economics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, suggests that there is pent-up entrepreneurialism in the U.S. that is being held back by the prohibitive cost and unavailability of individual health coverage.

DeCicca’s ”Health Insurance Availability and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from New Jersey” looked at the differing rates of self-employment among residents of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. New Jersey was of particular interest because in 1993 it established a program that guaranteed individuals access to renewable health insurance, with a community rating on premiums. The program allowed for a decoupling of employment and health coverage with rates based on a large group.

DeCicca found that New Jersey’s program increased self-employment among various populations ”by roughly 15 to 25 percent.”

Employer-sponsored health insurance is a historical accident that is now crippling American competitiveness. We’ve all heard by now that health care adds $1,500 to the cost of every General Motors car.

All this is to suggest that, from a macroeconomic perspective, universal coverage would not weaken the free market as Giuliani asserts, but rather bolster and energize just about every aspect of it.

And if you’re one of those employees stuck in a miserable job year after year for the health benefits, Giuliani has good new for you: At least you aren’t likely to die of prostate cancer.

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Kerry Weens, a senior official in the Department of Health led the US delegation. The Americans paid a visit to the kidney disease wing of the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC). Mr Weens said he was impressed with what he had seen. “We’re intrigued by many of the ideas that we see, such as moving toward more market based solutions. In general I think there’s a lot of consistency between the Dutch system and the US system.”Competition introduced
Mr Weens was referring to a recent overhaul in the way Dutch people purchase health insurance which have made the Dutch system more competitive. Two years ago, a new law went into effect requiring every resident of the Netherlands to purchase their own health insurance, while the insurance companies were forced to embrace open market laws and offer competitive prices for their insurances. But unlike in the United States, for those who can’t afford insurance, the Dutch state still chips in to cover part of the cost.

Insurance companies are required to provide coverage for anyone who applies for it, so no one can be refused due to pre-existing health problems. To help insurance companies cover some of the costs involved with selling coverage to all comers, the government has a formula in which it contributes to the cost incurred in certain cases.

So while competition has been introduced into the system, the Dutch system is not a completely market-based approach. The taxpayer still subsidizes a not insignificant percentage of care in the Netherlands. But competition helps keep overall costs down.

Confronting bills
Nolene Berkhout is a nurse practitioner, and served as one of the hosts of the American delegation at the LUMC. Referring to the new insurance arrangements here in the Netherlands, she pointed to the fact that

“We’re now being confronted with the bills, which is a good thing – this way, we know exactly what we’re paying for.”

Although, she quickly added, individuals don’t actually have to pay the bills themselves.

Ms Berkhout lamented the fact that in the US, more than 40 million people in are uninsured because they simply can’t afford it.

“We would never have that kind of situation here.” Prevention is important
Another major difference in the two systems, according to Ms Berkhout, is that “We pay a lot more attention to prevention – we have a coordinated, multidisciplinary approach. In Holland there’s quite a lot of proactive action attached to that aspect of health care.”
A number of recent changes are meant to improve the quality of care here in the Netherlands. Doctors and hospitals are now required to publish information every year about their performance. That information is available to the public on a website, but it is still too soon to see how much effect it has on patients’ choices.

Costs up, care down
Not everyone is happy with the changes. When the insurance market was liberalised, many complained that the cost of their insurance went up, while the care that was covered went down.

Kerry Weens, the US official, said several states in the US have already implemented a similar system, where individuals buy their own insurance. He sees it as an attractive option.

“I’m going back to the US with the message that the Dutch are solving some of the same problems that we’re solving in the United States, and we should closely cooperate with them, especially in the arena of quality.”

US election issue
Healthcare has become one of the issues in the US presidential campaign. As Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton promises to succeed in the White House where she failed as First Lady. Fifteen years ago she lead President Bill Clinton’s healthcare reform efforts. It was a fiasco. She says she’s learned a lot since then and will try again.

Some 47 million Americans do not have health insurance, 8 million of them children. Every four years presidential candidates offer ambitious plans to remedy this. It never happens. Hillary Clinton’s new plan will cost $110 billion, her experts estimate. It mandates health insurance coverage for everyone.

But it’s not a government-run health scheme. It offers incentives, carrots and sticks, for both individuals in need of insurance and private companies offering insurance to come together. Elements of her plan come from countries with universal healthcare coverage such as the Netherlands. She is very careful not to open herself up to the criticism of 15 years ago when her reform efforts failed partly because the insurance industry, hospitals and other players in the for-profit health business managed to label her plans socialized medicine, and thus un-American.

Republican policy
Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani takes up this point in his own campaign, by evoking the supposed horrors of socialized medicine in other countries and linking them to Hillary Clinton’s plans. Giuliani and other Republican presidential candidates use other countries’ health systems as bad examples.

Giuliani uses statistics, such as the prostate cancer survival rates in the US and the UK, to back up his case. But various doctors and independent experts have debunked the statistics he quotes in his campaign commercial. They insist that in comparable situations there is no significant difference in prostate cancer survival rates between the US and the UK.

The Republicans want market-based solutions with large tax credits for individuals to go out and buy their own health insurance. Hillary Clinton and the other Democratic candidates also stay away from a government-run health system and also want the private sector involved. But unlike the Republicans, they don’t believe that incorporating foreign examples in their health plans is un-American.

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