How To Lower Your 4x4 Insurance Premiums

By Susan Reynolds

4x4 vehicles are notorious for having higher insurance premiums than other vehicles. Although it may come as a surprise at first, 4x4 are considered by many insurance companies as a higher risk vehicle. To counter these hazards insurance companies charge higher premiums. There are several things you can do to avoid these higher rates and obtain a more manageable monthly insurance premium. While using these techniques, it is still very important that you shop around for the best quotes you can find.

Your first goal should be to assure your insurance agent that your 4x4 will be kept safe and out of site while it is parked at home. One of the biggest risks with these trucks and SUVs is that they will be stolen or vandalized. Keep your 4x4 either in a garage or behind the house where it will not be seen. While acknowledging that your vehicle is at lower risk for these occurrences you may get lower rates.

Drivers looking for lower insurance rates should also try to get some experience by driving a 4x4 beforehand. Luckily this does not necessarily mean you have to own one before you get insurance. Try driving around a friend or family member?s car for a bit to become familiar with the specific type of handling required. While sitting down with your agent you can tell them that you already have experience with such vehicles and are less likely to get into an accident.

If you are a new driver then you should expect to have higher than normal rates as you are a higher risk as you have less time and experience on the road. However if you do have a history you will want it to be as clean as possible. The less tickets and incidences that you have on your record the better driver the insurance company will figure you to be. Insurance agents may look to see if you have gotten any claims bonuses. These are awarded to you after having insurance for a certain period of time without having any claims. A claims bonus will discount your insurance rates, and can be helpful in negotiating lower 4x4 insurance rates. In some cases it may be better not to file a small claim that you can pay for yourself, therefore avoiding the higher costs of insurance rates and deductibles.

By getting a 4x4 with a category 1 or 2 security rating you may end up getting lower rates as well. These categories indicate that your 4x4 is equipped with the finest safety features, making it harder to steal and safer in accidents. Your agents will look for these extra features while gauging your insurance premiums to determine the risk of your vehicle. Opt for the best security possible when choosing your vehicle.

Last but not least, military personal are among the few who receive top notch 4x4 auto insurance rates. These special rates include the National Guard and will deduct a percentage of the costs. Those who are not in the military have to find the best rates by looking around as much as possible. Before going to companies check online to discover what your quote is. This saves you the time of driving around to every individual insurance company. - 23211

About the Author:

Susan Reynolds is the webmaster for a leading South African Insurance provider who specialises in Car Insurance.

Knowing How To Process An Insurance Claim

By Graham McKenzie

Improper processing of a life insurance claim will affect the amount of time that it takes for you or your family to receive the funds that you're entitled to. This can cause a bad situation as you may not be able to pay for a proper funeral or burial without this money. If you understand the process then you may not only be able to secure the money faster but you may be able to negotiate various arrangements for the payment of the money if you need to.

The life insurance company should be contacted within 24 hours of death. While this is not necessary it will help in speeding up the claim so that the funds arrive in time. If you are not sure if the person had a life insurance policy then you will have to talk to the person that's in charge of the affair and possibly other family members. In some cases no one may know if the deceased person had a life insurance policy. If this is the case then you will need to do some investigating to find out. The best way to go about this is to call all of the local life insurance companies and find out if the person had a policy with them.

After you've notified the agent that the person has passed away you will then have paperwork sent to you or that you can pick up that needs to be filled out. The beneficiary doesn't have to be the person to fill out the paperwork. However the beneficiary will need to be there to get the payment as well as to verify the claim. If any questions arise during the process of filling out the paperwork you should immediately contact the agent and get an answer so that you don't delay the funds further.

The next step is for you to collect the certificate of death. You may be able to get this directly from the funeral director. If you are unable to get it from the funeral director then you will have to go to the coroner's office to get it. The first thing you should do upon getting the death certificate is to make copies of it. You will need to send these copies out to the insurance company. Be sure to create enough copies of the death certificate in case the person had multiple life insurance plans. Each company will need to have at least one copy of the certificate. Be sure not to send out the original document to the insurance company unless they need it for a special situation. In most cases your copy will be acceptable for the insurance policy.

You will then want to ask the life insurance company how the payment is going to be made. Each policy is different. Some policies will have a lump sum payment while others will be set up to distribute the money in payments. While this may be more convenient for the company it may hurt your ability to pay for the funeral. Most funerals are held within a week of the person's passing. If the insurance company has not given the money from the plan before then you should get in contact with them and find out the status of the account. - 23211

About the Author:

Graham McKenzie is the syndication coordinator a leading South African Insurance information portal, which amongst others specialises in Household Insurance .

The Benefits of Life Insurance

By Susan Reynolds

Life insurance provides you with two major benefits. First, it protects loved ones against the financial consequences of your death. Second, it offers living benefits.

The financial effects of death can be devastating. When you lose a spouse, parent, child, sibling or grandparent, the emotional turmoil can be extremely severe. Yet, the financial repercussions can be even more overwhelming than the loss itself. With no life insurance, surviving family members are often thrust into a position of acute financial hardship. Not only are they are left dealing with the loss of a future income, but they must also handle the immediate outlay of finances demanded by the death and burial expenses that have been unexpectedly generated.

Mortality statistics show that a significant number of people die, every year, before they reach their normal life expectancy. If the deceased person happens to have been a breadwinner, the consequences of their premature death can be extremely tragic, in many ways. The survivors are not only dealing with personal grief, but they must also find a way to deal with the financial consequences. There are still daily living expenses, even though one income is now missing.

Of course, the cost of a funeral can be heavy, but there are other expenses to consider, as well. An executor's fees and expenditures involved with estate administration, for one. Outstanding debts such as car loans, mortgages, credit card balances, promissory notes, medical expenses, death taxes, and federal taxes, must still be paid.

The future security of loved ones is something else to consider. Living expenses, mortgage payments, and children to raise and educate are important considerations. It can be an overwhelming burden, and it really does not matter what financial obligations are left behind. There is only one thing that can resolve them, and that is money. If you want to ensure your family does not deal with the financial devastation a premature death can produce, you need to arrange to provide sufficient monies to cover their needs.

There could well be a time during which it may be difficult for the surviving spouse to work. Survivor's blackout period is also a consideration. This is the time during which social security stops paying the surviving spouse, because dependent children are no longer a factor. The surviving spouse's retirement is also something that needs to be factored into the equation. Actually, life insurance is a way of estate building, because it can generate an immediate estate at a time when it is most needed.

An added advantage of life insurance is its living benefits. Some permanent policies provide policyholders with a cash benefit, in addition to the death settlement. This cash value belongs to the policyholder. Insurance companies allow the policyholder to make withdrawals from the cash benefit, which can then be used by the policyholder for any reason. The policyholder can also take out loans from their insurance company, and they use the policy's cash value as their collateral. - 23211

About the Author:

Susan Reynolds is a content coordinator for a leading South African Insurance Provider that specialises in Life Insurance Policies.

Intro To Trading Systems

By Maclin Vestor

A good trading system is about much more than just selecting stocks. Certainly that is important as well. However, a good trading system will provide the ability for you to protect against losses, manage your money, add proper leverage when necessary, and also select a stock selection maximizing your reward and minimizing your risk.

The guess work is taken out of the way for you. The stock is purchased when criteria is met, the amount of stock purchased is also based on certain criteria. The stock is sold when criteria met, and there are protective measures against a stock's demise, and where possible and appropriate leverage is created to maximize the returns without taking on more risk than you can handle.

This trading system will be talked about in 5 additional parts in addition to this intro. This post is designed to explain the trading system, its functions and how it operates.

1) Exit strategy. Every good system trader will first know the exit strategy. It doesn't matter what vehicle selection you use, if you have no exit strategy, you're stuck. The trick is to understand that unless you want to get trapped in an investment you have to know when you're getting out.

A good exit strategy has both loss protection, and profit taking, and sometimes even a 3rd stop. The first 2 might be a maximum loss, and a maximum gain before taking profits, while the 3rd one will be a trailing stop that rides the gains up, and will sell the remaining shares. There are other exit strategies such as hold forever and write covered calls against it to collect income, or protective puts in place of a stop-loss.

2) Protection. Although #1 covers most of the protection, there are several other ways to protect yourself. Protection is vital to allow you to stay in the game. Many people know that if you lose 20% you need a 25% gain to make up for it. Losses not only can result in a series of losses that wipe you out, but they also hinder your ability to gain in the future. a 95% loss for example requires a 2000% nearly impossible goal to make up for this loss. So even if you flip a coin and have a 50% chance of gaining 200% or 50% chance of losing 95% of it, you should probably not take it if all your money is at risk, because it doesn't have the downside protection A series of wins followed by 1 loss would prevent your ability to stay in the game. Even though those odds SEEM fair, they are not without proper protection. Protection ensures that you won't have that 95% loss, and it absolutely restricts that loss to a fixed amount, rather than take 100% risk.

Such forms of protections are writing calls, in this situation you are given a premium so if the stock tanks to zero in a worst case scenario you'd still end up with the premium, this is minimal protection, and only protects a marginal amount of decline before the losses continue. The other form of protection would be buying a protective put. This actually in fact does protect against catastrophic losses. The lower your stock goes if/when it crashes, the more you make from your put or puts. You are the one paying a small amount in order to protect against any sort of decline below the designated price. The lower this price, the cheaper the option. If a stock is at $50 and you buy a protective put at a strike price of 40, you will NOT be protected against losses from 50 to 40, but beyond that you will be protected to the downside.

These are somewhat more sophisticated forms of protection. Basic forms of protection are diversifying, and perhaps being short. If you buy a stock at $100, and you short one in the same sector at $100, if the whole sector goes up, you are betting not that the market will go up, not that the sector will go up, but that stock A that you are long will outperform stock B in a bull market, and stock B will under perform stock A in a down market. This offers protection although it may limit the gains as well, Plus, you actually have to be right in your thesis.

In addition, if you are short, and the stock market booms, you may get a margin call and be forced to sell. Also, if you do not use money management, you are at risk of a short term swing requiring you to sell all of your shares of the stock that went up, in order to pay for those that you were short that went up, and if you can't cover your short, your entire account is in jeopardy of being wiped out.

So rather than being short, I recommend replacing it with buying put options, although this has lots of risks involving time decay as well that you must understand before investing. Using a business entity such as a C Corp or a LLC is another form of protection that can protect you potentially against higher taxes, and personal financial trouble such as a bankruptcy on your record if you intend on using forms of leverage such as loans.

3) Money Management and Control. A good trading system will have a form of control. it will allow you to not give up that control when things go bad. In other words, it allows you to manage your money. Money management is very important. Perhaps one of the most important things is position sizing. If you buy $10,00 of stock for one stock when you only have $10,000 in your account this is very poor money management. Continue to do this, and eventually you will suffer a large loss which will be great, and it will be very difficult to gain enough to make up for it. In addition, if the price goes lower depending on your system, you may want to give yourself flexibility. Extra cash on the sides is another form of money management. It doesn't have to be cash per say, but some form of safety. Various forms of currency, sometimes some gold, bonds, and money market accounts that are all fairly liquid would be a few examples.

4) Leverage Leverage is about using your abilities to gain, the strength of your trading system and various tools to minimize risk, and increase gain. When you take on leverage, you should be able to reduce your position size in comparison to your capital, and still have a similar reward or gain.

Forms of leverage include options, the further out of money option you purchase, the more leverage you have if that stock does make a strong move. You can also sell options to raise capital to invest in some cases.

Another from of leverage is a loan. Whether it's a credit card, a home equity loan, going on margin, or a business loan for an asset holding company, or even taking a company public and using the capital to invest, the idea is to gain money at x% and to invest it and make a greater return than x%. if you can do this, and manage money well, and protect yourself, Your gain is only limited to the amount of capital you can borrow at the maximum of slightly less than what you expect to gain. Generally however, if you use a loan, you should have a form of cash flow or income that will cover the costs of the loan just in case your investment goes wrong. That's another form of money management while using leverage. Money management should be treated much differently under different forms of leverage.

5) Finally, the stock selection vehicle. You need some method to select your vehicle, based on this and your other factors you will determine time horizon and a methodology of trading. The system will help you choose your trading stocks, and exactly what to do with them. You can play around with different trading systems, but generally you should first attempt a good exit strategy and make sure your controls on parts 1-4 of your trading system are sound, and try tweaking them

Stock Trading Systems that are well defined will leave very little room for error. If you learn to use a trading system, you can choose to enhance the essential skills it takes to making your trading system better.

Unfortunately, many day traders are slaves to the computer screen and can miss a moment. Focus on building the better trading system, and not placing the better trade, and you will give yourself some valuable time. If you are really using a system, you don't need to be the one to place the trades, and can instead higher someone to do the work for you. You can use that extra time to improve your system, or find new ways to invest, or learn how to become a better trader.

You can learn other tips like this at the System Trading|Stocks Trading Systems blog, which is full of tips for day trading, options, swing trading, momentum trading, and advice on building a trading system. - 23211

About the Author:

Maclin Vestor teaches about varioustrading systems. You can even learn about gold trading systems, and buying Krugerrand at his blog.

Other Factors To Consider Beyond Insurance Rates

By Amy Nutt

Many people make the mistake of purchasing an insurance policy based on a cheap price. Although a cheap policy may seem like a good deal, there are a number of policy issues that must be taken into consideration before you purchase insurance. Consumers have to make sure that the policy not only meets their financial needs, but also their personal needs.

Factors to consider beyond insurance rates include:

Customer Service: The customer service department is usually the department a person contacts if they have questions about their policy, or they have a problem. If the company provides substandard customer service, this can lead to a frustrating experience and you may not get the answers you are looking for. Quality customer care consists of a friendly and knowledgeable representative who is ready to help you with any issue.

Policy Claims Department: The claims department is the department a driver contacts in the event of an accident, theft, or damage. A substandard claims department could keep you on hold for a long time, result in a delay in compensation, or even no compensation. You don't want to have to go through the frustration experience of finding a new insurer because you are dissatisfied with the current insurance provider.

Accident Forgiveness: If you are involved in an at-fault accident, accident forgiveness is designed to protect your driving record from dropping drastically in the insurer's rating system. Insurance companies will offer accident forgiveness as promotional tool to acquire customers. By having accidental forgiveness, you will be protected from a significant increase in your insurance premium. It is beneficial for a driver to go with an insurance company that offers accident forgiveness.

Liability Insurance: Liability insurance protects you if another person is injured and you are at-fault. You should know what situations you are covered for and how much coverage is provided. Without enough liability insurance or you are not completely covered, you could end up in a devastating financial crisis

Financial Stability of Insurer: An insurance company that is financially unstable and has a poor rating may not have the ability to pay out in the event a claim is filed. It is important to check the insurers rating as this will tell you if they are capable of paying out for claims.

Policy Clauses and Fine Print: In an insurer's policy, you will normally find policy exclusions in the fine print. It is important to read the policy before signing the agreement so you are aware of any policy clauses and exclusions. Many experts recommend that you don't buy a policy which does not have a ten day recession clause so you can review everything before you make a final commitment.

Claim Procedures: You should know the steps to filing a claim so you know how complicated it will be and what possible impediments there may be to receiving compensation. You will then know if it is the right policy procedure for you.

Low insurance premiums can be a great way to save money. However, you should know all of the "ins and outs" of the insurance policy and the insurer to make sure you are getting the best value for your money. - 23211

About the Author:

It is required by law to have car insurance for driving. When it comes to finding auto insurance quotes, you will need to provide a lot of information.