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Let’s leave the politics of healthcare reform to one side and focus on a proposal to change the law to allow free market competition between insurers in different states. A policy consistently mentioned by the Republican party is to break the state monopolies in the insurance market. Since the 1800’s, the individual states have claimed the sole right to regulate the sale of insurance within their own borders. Each state has asserted the right to license insurance companies and to set the terms on which they can conduct business. This has led to a patchwork of different sets of regulations with each state creating unique laws. In turn, this forces an insurance company to set up separate subsidiaries to trade in each state. No licensed company can sell a policy to someone who has a residence in another state. There was a brief moment in 1944 when a decision of the Supreme Court allowed the possibility of federal supervision. But the lawmakers in Washington immediately changed the law to retain state control. Why is this a bad thing? The national insurance companies have divided up the states between them and choose not to compete against each other. This keeps the number of insurance companies in each state artificially low and, because there is no real competition, premium rates are higher than they should be for weak policy terms.

You are reading this article on the internet. When online, you can buy more or less any product or service across state or national boundaries. Although there are some restrictions, e.g. some states limit your right to import drugs from foreign countries, there is an almost free market where you can search for the cheapest price and buy whatever you need. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking around the news in United States, there is a story that the insurance regulators from five US states have just agreed a $2 million settlement with two Nationwide Life companies for failing to properly supervise the sale of annuities through one of their agents. This raises two questions. What exactly are annuities? and What can go wrong with them? An annuity is a variation on the traditional life insurance policy. As with any permanent policy, you pay a premium which is invested to build up a cash value. But, depending on the terms of the contract, you can receive payment of a lump sum or, more usually, a regular income from the insurance company before your death.

For most people it’s the same as saving for retirement, except you buy a pension that pays out after you retire. To ensure the maximum control over annuities, they can only be bought through life insurance companies. In every US state, there is a Department or Office of Insurance to regulate local insurance companies. Read the rest of this entry »

More or less every site offers advice on saving money when buying insurance. One of the standard tips is bundling auto and homeowners policies with the same insurance company. If you check around the companies, the discount varies between 10 and 15% and, if you agree an increase in the deductible from $500 to $1,000 this increases the discount to 25%. At this point, many people are sold on the idea. A saving of up to 25% looks like a good deal and frees up cash in the family budgets for a whole range of other basic necessities. So is it worth it?

The first question is whether you are getting the standard auto and homeowners policies. If you are starting off in the same position as the stand-alone policyholders, you have more protection. But there can be problems with limitations and exclusions if the company produces a single policy to cover both home and vehicle. You must read such a policy very carefully before deciding whether it represents good value for money.

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Depending on the breed of your dog, you may either not qualify to receive insurance from certain companies or you may face a significantly higher home insurance premium. Many insurers believe certain types of dog to be dangerous and therefore high-risk. So although dog owners consider their pet to be as much as family-member as anybody else, they must also be considered expensive assets in terms of homeowner insurance.

There is a debate raging between dog owners, organizations and home insurance companies around the topic of breed discrimination. As the temperament of dogs can vary greatly even within a breed, it is controversial to consider any one breed more high-risk than another. Read the rest of this entry »

What is a 1040EZ Form?

The 1040EZ or the “Income Tax Return for Single and Joint Fillers with No Dependents”, as officially called, is a less complicated form for Federal income tax return issued by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Who can use the 1040EZ form?

This is meant to help those who have a rudimentary tax situation – less than $100,000 as a taxable income, less than $1,500 as an interest income, no dependents and fulfill some further conditions set by the IRS.

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There are many different types of policy you can buy when insuring your vehicle. Because of the rapidly rising cost of the premiums, many more people are driving either underinsured or uninsured. It’s therefore wise to add the relevant coverage. In most clauses you can expect to see a promise to pay the damages for bodily injury or property damage which a covered person can recover from whoever owns or drives an uninsured motor vehicle. For these purposes, a “covered person” is you, a family member or anyone else inside your vehicle when the accident occurs. If you have the right to sue the owner or driver of the other vehicle, your own insurance company will pay the damages you recover (assuming that owner or driver does not have the money to pay you in full). The key consideration is the limit on the amount you can recover. All insurers put a limit on liability. This is usually a maximum and a provision to prevent you from being paid twice. So, if there’s another possible claim you could make under a workers’ compensation law or something similar, you must use that remedy first and only claim the additional amount from your own insurer.

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