As a parent the two most important things you can do for your children is love them unconditionally and provide for them as best as you can. Of course there are a million other things that are important in the life of a family and sometimes it is hard to decipher how best to provide for children.

An interesting topic that I have been reading about is the issue of life insurance for children. I, like many parents, was under the impression that purchasing life insurance was a responsible parenting decision. No one ever wants to think of the unthinkable, such as how to pay for the funeral of a child but the decision to purchase life insurance seemed like the right thing to do, or so I thought.

There have been a lot of different views discussed around the internet about buying your kids life insurance and I was stunned to learn that many leading financial experts consider the purchase a waste of money. Essentially, these experts agree that since the purpose of having life insurance is to protect a person in the event of a loss of income, it is pointless for a child to have a policy since a child does not have a job. Many feel that the only reasons a life insurance policy should be purchased for a child is if there is a family history of health issues that could result in difficulties getting insurance later in life. In such a case, insurance experts recommend finding a policy that is renewable and gives the option of converting to a whole life insurance policy.

So what to do? Those who say that insurance policies for children are a waste of money suggest that money be instead deposited into a savings plan, such as a 529 plan or an Education IRA. There is a small percent chance that a child will grow to be uninsurable as an adult and the money saved in an interest-baring account will generate more cash value than the value of the insurance policy.  It is also important that parents understand how essential it is to have adequate insurance on themselves before a policy for a child is even considered. 

Sadly, there are many unscrupulous agents and insurance companies use scare tactics to get parents to purchase policies, such as questioning their love for their children or their responsibilities as a good parent. Ultimately, the decision that is right is the decision that works best for your family and your finances. There are many choices and options regarding financial stability for your children and what works for one family, may not work for others. I feel confident in keeping the policy for my child to ensure that she will grow up to have insurance that she can increase as needed.

Health insurance is a very tricky business. Policies are often dozens of pages long spelling out exactly what is and what isn’t covered in a version of English that can be described as nothing but legalese. When medical insurance claims get denied, most people just give up because it’s such a mess to deal with the system, but there are proactive steps that you can take to ease the burden on you, make sure everything was done properly, and possibly get the claim paid.

The first thing you need to do is just don’t give up. Insurance companies know that a large percentage of people will just give up rather than dealing with the insurance company. Be persistent and diligent in your actions and fight to get your claim paid.

When you do make the first contact with the insurance company, be polite and professional. Yelling and screaming at them for not paying your claim will likely not result in having your claim paid. Be sure to make your contact in writing, telephone calls mean almost nothing in the insurance world. If it’s not documented on paper, it’s almost like it never happened. The insurance company can simply deny that the call occurred and there’s really not much you can do about it.

When you write your first letter, request a copy of the policy. You can’t make smart decisions if you don’t know what rights and responsibilities you have as laid out by your insurance policy. Read them and find out whether or not you have a valid reason to appeal the rejected claim. In that letter, also ask for details as to why your claim was rejected. Ask them for the provision under the policy that you were excluded by, a specific reason why the claim was denied, the name and license number of the person who decided to deny your claim, a list of any alternative treatment that the policy does cover, instructions for initiating an appeal, and instructions for filing an external appeal if the internal appeal was rejected.

Be diligent, most health insurance companies only allow you to appeal the decision within a short amount of time, often as low as 60 days. So make sure that you start following up immediately after the claim was denied.

If the claim is for more than a few hundred dollars, it’s definitely worth visiting an attorney that specializes in health care or insurance. Have them review your claim and determine whether or not there’s merit to your case or if there’s anything else that you can do. Sometimes an experienced attorney can help solve your problem with a couple of letters. It’s not always the case, but it’s well worth it to have an expert on your side fighting for you.

Dealing with insurance companies is certainly not the most fun thing to do in the world, that’s granted, but don’t give up. Be professional, firm and diligent in your actions and make sure that if your claim is ultimately rejected that it is done so for a valid and legitimate reason.

If you’re under the age of 25, finding affordable car insurance can be a very difficult task. It’s ironic that those with likely the least ability to pay for car insurance are charged the most, but insurance quotes are generally based on actuarial tables that estimate risk, and those statistics indicate that younger drivers, especially in urban areas or college towns, have a relatively high likelihood of getting in an accident. The statistics which are used to calculate insurance quotes are working against you, however there are still steps that young people can take to lower their car insurance costs.

Get Good Grades – Insurance companies have found that responsible students are often better drivers, so if you can shower your insurance company that you have a B average or above, are on any sort of honor roll, or are in the top 20% of your class, you can usually get a very good discount on your car insurance.

Have a Safe Driving Record – Drive Defensively, avoid accidents and tickets. Students with a track record of safe driving will be considered lower risk and won’t have to pay as much for car insurance.
Take a Driver’s Ed Class – Many insurance companies will offer discounts to drivers to take some sort of community drive, driver’s education, or defensive driving class. If you take one of these classes, you’ll be better informed has to how to handle unsafe road conditions, and deal with heavy traffic. This means you’re less likely to get in an accident and insurance companies know that.

Consider Getting On Your Parent’s Insurance – In some instances, it will be cheaper to be on your parent’s insurance rather than your own. If your parents are willing to have you on their insurance, get quotes from your parent’s company while being on their insurance and compare them to other rates that you can find on an open market.

Take Advantage of Low Mileage Discounts – For individuals who don’t drive that much or have very short commutes, insurance companies often offer some sort of discount because there’s less risk to insure someone who doesn’t have a long commute. If you’re a student that lives a few blocks from campus, or lives on campus and walks most everywhere, you may qualify for this discount.

Choose Your Vehicle Wisely – When purchasing your next vehicle, take into account the amount of money that it will cost to insure the vehicle. Sports cars are perhaps the most expensive type of vehicle to insure. Your best bet is to get a 5-10 year old sedan or coupe.

Buy a “Beater” - If you’re not particularly picky about what you drive, consider picking up a $3000-$5000 vehicle and only carrying liability insurance. It’s much more affordable than also having to pay collision and comprehensive insurance. You’ll have the added risk in your life of having to pay for all repairs, but it still can be a great deal for those with low incomes.

Life insurance is the one policy that you should happily pay even though you hope that the policy never pays off. Having good quality life insurance will make sure that your family and loved ones aren’t in a dire financial situation in the event that you pass away. It may cost a little bit of money, but the peace of mind knowing that your family is taken care of in the event of your death is well worth it. You can now have that peace of mind for half of what you could have a decade ago.

Allentown Morning Call recently performed a study on the cost of term life insurance and found that the average price of a term life insurance policy has dropped by 50% of what you would have paid 10 years ago for the same amount of coverage. This means that if you purchased a level-term life insurance policy a decade ago, chances are you can find a new life insurance policy that will provide the same amount of coverage and you’ll be writing much smaller checks each month.

The reason for this dramatic decrease in prices is two-fold. The first is that the internet has made it much easier for consumers to find the lowest prices and allowed companies to create policies and sell them with a lot lower overhead. The second reason that prices are decreasing is that people are living longer and out-living the term of their policies, meaning that insurance companies are paying out less meaning that they can pass those savings on to their customers.

In order to re-shop your policy, the best place to look is online. A simple Google search will reveal a number of different tools which will compare life insurance companies. It’s okay to go with the cheapest, but make sure it’s on the up and up. A company called AM Best rates insurance policies and other financial institutions and informs consumers as to which companies offer the best deals and are the most financially sound. You’ll want to make sure the company that you are considering is rated A+ or A++ by AM best.

When searching for insurance, make sure that you get level-term insurance over a period of 20 or 30 years. If someone offers you universal life, whole life, or variable life insurance and provides you a pitch about how your policy will be an investment and build you a cash value, just say no. These policies are much more expensive than traditional term insurance and you will end up paying a very-high fee to invest your money inside of your life insurance policy. In addition, if you were to die, your loved ones would lose all of the cash value inside of the policy and only be paid the face amount.

If a senior has an extended stay in a nursing home, it can financially devastate them and suck up all of their assets. Living in a nursing home costs tens of thousands of dollars a year, and it’s not getting any cheaper. Fortunately you can hedge against this cost by purchasing some quality long term care insurance and keep your inheritance in place for your children, and your children’s children.

Long term care insurance does not make sense for everyone. If you’re under the age of 50, there’s no reason to get long term care insurance. People under the age of 50 are usually still in relatively good health and the likelihood of them needing to be in a nursing home is very unlikely. Even if your work is offering it at very inexpensive rates, just don’t bother. It would be like buying hurricane insurance in rural South Dakota, you just don’t need it.

Another case where long term care insurance doesn’t make a lot of sense is if you’re either extremely wealthy, or are as close to broke as one can be. If you have a lot of assets, say several million dollars, you’ll easily be able to absorb the cost of a nursing home. If you’re dirt broke, you don’t really have any assets to protect and you’ll qualify for a Medicaid or Medicare paid stay.

Purchasing long term care insurance makes great sense for their people in their late fifties and sixties. This is the age that you can buy it at where you’ll get a great deal and start having any sort of real need for long term care insurance. If you wait until your 70’s or even 80’s, you’ll have to pay much higher premiums for long term care insurance.

Make sure you go with a quality company. There are some less than stellar companies which make it very hard for you to get paid if you’re in a situation where you need long term care. AM Best has rated the following companies with an A++ rating: John Hancock Life Insurance Co, MassMutual Financial Group, State Farm Life Insurance, USAA Life Insurance, Northwestern Mutual Life, and New York Life. Any of these companies would be great to go with for long term care insurance. You’ll want to get a few different quotes to make sure that you’re getting the best deal, but these are all quality companies in terms of the long term care products offered.

If you are a self employed individual, a business owner, or someone who doesn’t receive health benefits as part of group coverage at work, you probably know that buying insurance on the open market is a very expensive proposition. Usually self employed individuals have to accept reduced coverage or accept very high premiums to get themselves and their family health insurance. Now there’s a new health insurance option provided by out all places, Sam’s Club, which is affordable way to get health insurance for a lot less money than if you just went out and shopped out prices.

Sam’s club is now launching its own health program in just about all of the 50 states. Their health plans are a fraction of what you’d be able to get on the open market, even cheaper than Costco’s health program. The reason Sam’s Club is offering such a deep discount, is because they want you to sign up for their “Plus” membership. Even after you pay for the premium membership, the amount of money you save on the health plan is still far worth the cost. In addition, you’ll get all of the other great benefits and inexpensive prices of being a member of Sam’s Club.

The information that is provided on the Sam’s Club website is a bit confusing, but if you can manage to get through all of the paperwork and figure out which plan makes the most sense for you, you’ll still get a bunch of money back. They’re currently offering a high-deductible health-plan with a $10,000 deductible, which is quite high, but if you’re in good shape and can match that with a tax-free health savings account and are a healthy person, you’re saving a ton of money in wasted premiums. Most plans for self employed individuals are very similar to this with high-deductibles and relatively low premiums anyway, but the Sam’s Club plan is much cheaper.

When all is said and done, you’ll be able to save about 25% compared to what you would pay on the open market. If you’re a Sam’s club member, you can also make use of their very inexpensive pharmacies and get many home health products for a fraction of what you would pay in a traditional big box retailer. In order to get more information about Sam’s healthcare programs, you can go to their website and click on “Services” and then “Healthcare Services.” You’ll have to do a bit of reading to fully understand the plan, but that’s true with almost any health care plan being offered today.

Recently I was in an Alltel store helping my mother purchase a new phone since her contract was up for renewal. The clerk at the counter asked her if she would like insurance for her cell-phone. The deal was that she could pay $4.95 per month and if her cell-phone was ever broken, lost, stolen, or dropped in a toilet, they would take care of it.

The idea sounded quite nice, and the clerk made it a point to tell us that he had purchased the insurance and thought it was a really good idea. He said it was a “smart move” and has saved him money in the past. The sales-pitch sounded quite nice, but after digging into the numbers, it’s not hard to figure out that cell phone insurance rarely makes sense.

Let’s first take a look at what you get for this $4.95 per month fee Alltel would be charging us. The contract stated there would be a $50 deductible. This means that if she were to lose or damage her phone and needed a new one, she would still have to pay at minimum $50.00 towards a new phone.

The contract also stated that the company could replace her current phone with a refurbished phone of the same or similar make and model. This means she could get a used, beaten-up phone from Alltel after paying $4.95 per month and a $50.00 deductible.

Since she had a pretty-basic Motorola Razr that could be replaced by purchasing a new one on eBay for around $75.00, her phone would need to break within a period of five months for this insurance to make sense, even then she wouldn’t be getting a new phone.

Most consumer advocacy groups, including Consumer Reports, agree that cell-phone insurance isn’t a good buy. In a recent MSNBC article, Consumer Reports Editor-At-Large Greg Daugherty, stated “We think it’s almost always a waste of money. You can insure every gadget in your life if you want these days. We think all this little insurance is just adding up to too much in many cases. People really ought to be focusing on the big risks”

There are also many “gotcha’s” that the phone companies will use which will make it so that they do not have to honor claims. Most of these contracts will say that “normal wear and tear” is not covered, and they often do not cover cracked screens. These contracts will also typically state there is no guarantee that you will get a phone with the same or similar features, so they could legally send you an old monochrome Nokia phone and be well within the bounds of their contractual obligations.

Any way that you put it, cell-phone insurance is almost never a good deal. There may be a few exceptions when it comes to individuals with expensive smart-phones that are in situations where their phone could be lost or stolen pretty easily, but by in large they are just not a good deal. When you purchase your next phone and the clerk asks you if you are interested in getting cell-phone insurance, respond with a resounding “No!”