Getting Affordable Rates For Van Insurance

By John Hill

Getting quotes for van insurance from different companies is critical if one wishes to get the best rate for their insurance. Many companies offer different levels of insurance that contains different provisions for varying rates. When one knows what types of coverage they need and requests quotes based on those needs, they will get more reliable quotes than when given a general purpose quote that may not contain the provisions requested.

An individual who will be using their van for business purposes will need more coverage than an individual that will be using their van for family and recreation purposes. When getting quotes on a van that will be used for business purposes it is important that one let the insurance provider know this information.

In many cases insurance companies will provide discounts and rebates if the vehicle is going to be used for business. In most cases there is no minimum number of vehicles required to be used by the business in order to get the discount. This is especially beneficial for a home business that is using the van for dual purposes.

In some cases an individual will need a business license to get the business discount for van insurance. There are many advantages for a home business owner having a business license. Getting a discount on vehicle insurance is just one of the advantages.

Van insurance coverage that will be needed in addition to basic coverage will be the same for personal or business use. One will want to have roadside assistance, theft protection, and replacement provisions. These enhancements on a policy will protect any items that are in a vehicle. With roadside assistance, one will not be stuck on the road without means to get assistance.

During the holidays, vans are broken into more than other vehicles. Most of the time vans are carrying valuable tools or personal items that are especially attractive to thieves during the holiday season. By including replacement provisions in a van insurance policy, one will be able to replace the items taken from the van with little distress.

Gap insurance is another provision that can prove extremely valuable. Many insurance providers offer gap insurance, but it is rarely mentioned in a quote unless it is asked for. If an individual owes money on a vehicle, gap insurance will pay the difference to the loan company if the van is totaled in an accident. For people who pay a high interest rate and owe more for their van than the blue-book value, this can be a significant amount of money.

There are many ways to get quotes for insurance. One may choose to contact each insurance provider individually and repeat the information of what insurance provisions are required. This can be time consuming and one will find that they are talking to a lot of sales people who will not know about other insurance companies rates. Or, one may choose to visit a website or company that provides several quotes from various companies using one form that is completed by the customer and submitted to the insurance companies for a quote.

Once quotes are received for the van insurance it will be important to review the details of each quote to be sure that all of the coverage that was requested is included in the quote. One will also want to follow-up with the companies that have the best quotes to find out about any rebates or discounts that are provided, but were not mentioned in the quote given. Often a person will receive a discount for various factors such as a good driver discount, having more than one vehicle insured with the company, etc. By securing the best quote one can get the affordable rate that is needed for the van insurance that they want. - 23211

About the Author:

You may be thinking to hire a van you have to make sure that you are going to take out van insurance. Now, there is no need to worry, because you will be able to find cheap van insurance.

Do You Need Forex Signals?

By Walter Tanchel

With the technology that we have in the world today, it is no wonder that we have so many forex strategies at our disposal. You can use expert advisors, scripts, manual strategies, or forex signals. While no one could try every strategy out there, you know some of them are good. Are forex signals worth trying? Do you really need them?

Lets first discuss what forex signals are. Imagine yourself sitting down at your computer watching the market shifts and you receive an email telling you that the time to buy a currency pair is coming up. You put in the trade and wait until the next message arrives telling you to close it out. Following the signal you see a profit and you do it without much prior experience in the market.

Forex signals are with out a doubt extremely powerful but do you need them? Well it will definitely save you time. You won't have to go out and research everything for years before jumping in. It allows the beginner to start trading and learn as he/she goes. It also allows you to learn from a veteran trader. After using the signals for a while and seeing how they work you can begin to develop your own strategies.

Do your research and find a company with some track record. If you use a provider that does not understand the market any better than you do you can probably imagine how useful their forex signals would be. You want a veteran trader that consistently profits in the market. They spent all their time and money developing a winning strategy and now you get to ride in their wake.

Now the beginner has several options. Study, research, and learn the forex market, which can take years. Or study the strategies of the already successful forex signals. Use them not only to profit but to understand the system behind them. Using the forex signals immediately catapults you to the level of the experienced trader. The key is learning the facts behind the signals.

The benefits of forex signals are easy to list even for the beginner but which service to use? I find forex ambush to be effective and they back up their very bold claims. They consider themselves to have 100% correct signals all the time and with 30 top traders running the system behind the scenes you can see they have a winning game plan going.

So how can they be right a majority of the time? Well it all comes down to the timing of the trade. All trades can be successful if you get in and out at the proper time. This may require you to roll with a large account but the key is money management. Bottom line is with proper management we are not looking for 100% perfect trades every time. We are more concerned with just winning more than we are losing.

Forex signals are a great way to get into the market and start learning. You don't need to be a pro to make a little money trading currency. Let the experience and and learned mistakes of a veteran trader guide you along your way of a successful forex journey. - 23211

About the Author:

Looking for great forex signals, Jim Sullivan's blog is the place for the latest and greatest info. http://tradingforexblog.com

The Phenomenon Of Rising Health Care Costs

By Britt Lynn

The phenomenon of rising health care costs has been more and more in the news lately. It certainly is a matter of extreme interest to many people around the country these last several months, as has been amply demonstrated at a number of health care reform debates and legislator town halls. The concern over health care costs cuts across all socioeconomic and political affinity groups, too.

As a matter of interest, there are several reasons given as to why medical costs seem to be rising faster than inflation or other consumer indexes. For one, many people have come to expect the latest and greatest in medical technologies and other therapies which has caused a distortion in supply and a consequent rise in the cost of certain medical treatments and therapies.

Many experts who have studied health care administration and other facets of medicine believe that is possible to get control of rising health care costs through a few relatively simple legislative and policy changes. Most believe that some sort of lawsuit reform that can be implemented and that addresses suits brought against medical care providers could be a good first step.

Unfortunately, there are a number of constitutional questions about such a move, in addition to the fact that trial attorneys are very powerful contributors to various politicians and are themselves a very strong lobbying group. Another quick fix would be to allow health insurance companies to compete freely across the country without regard to state lines. Currently, the each state sets its own laws and rules for the regulation of health insurance.

And because each state regulates health insurance from a different perspective, it seems that unavoidable distortions in the market tend to occur and which have the effect of artificially depressing competition that could result in lower costs. For example, the cost of insurance in New York may be much higher than the cost of insurance in Wyoming. Allowing insurers to compete head-to-head seems to make a lot of sense.

Each of the states must also share in the blame, as legislators and others responsible for creating law have looked to forcing insurers to offer gold plated health insurance coverage regardless of the need for certain portions of such insurance policies by certain consumers. This tends to increase the cost of a health insurance policy across the whole group instead of where it belongs, which is on the individual purchaser of the insurance.

The phenomenon of rising healthcare costs shows no signs of going away anytime soon. For sure, it is becoming ever more crucial that some sort of reform of health care takes place sooner rather than later. Also for sure, there are a number of simple fixes that could result in appreciable drops in the cost of healthcare in both the short and long terms and which would gladden any family on a budget. - 23211

About the Author:

For more information on how Long Term Care Insurance can help prepare us as we age. Also you can get a long term care insurance quote. We represent 20 of the top LTCi providers. This gives you tremendous options.

How To Make Aging Health Good Health

By Charles Reinhurst

Everyone ages and everyone wants to know the secret to aging gracefully. If you want to maintain good aging health, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. Certain activities and elements can all combine to help maintain your health and keep you capable of independence for a longer period of time.

You need to think about the health of your body and your mind, and use nutrition to bring them into line. The good news is that since these are important at any age, if you are younger you can get a jump on the situation.

Aging brings about many different physical changes. They can include chronic health conditions such as arthritis or heart disease and a loss of muscle tissue and even bone density. These last two health conditions can be caused by dropping hormone levels. Muscle loss is often caused by a drop in a man's testosterone levels and a woman may lose bone strength and density from a loss of estrogen. There are medications which can help to slow down these processes but they can have side effects that many people would like to avoid.

Exercise can be an amazing way to boost energy levels, increase muscle mass and build bone. The best exercises are those that are weight bearing, such as walking. You may even be interested in lifting weights and many people of all ages use weightlifting as a way to safeguard good health. If you suffer from arthritis, you may need to look at modified exercises. Swimming is always an amazing way to stay healthy and happy and is easy on joints and muscles affected by arthritis or other illnesses.

Diet is critical both before you age and once you have grown older. You should include items rich in natural anti-oxidants such as fruits and vegetables. You should also make sure that you are taking vitamin supplements to ensure you are getting the proper levels of critical vitamins and minerals. There are specific formulas which are created specifically for people over the age of 60 which can help support your immune system and keep you in optimum health. A good balanced diet will also help you because you will have the energy to remain active and fit.

One thing that many people underestimate is the importance of staying active mentally. If you do not keep learning, your brain will get stale and you can begin to lose memory and other mental functions. If you are affected by a disease such as dementia, it can be a challenge to work with declining memory and an impaired mental state. You need to stay positive and not allow yourself to fall prey to depression and loneliness. If you are affected by the loss of a spouse or partner it is especially critical to stay active and make sure you have some interpersonal contact rather than refusing to live your life.

There are certain challenges that aging health can present but by keeping on top of the specific issues you face you can continue enjoying good health no matter how old you are. - 23211

About the Author:

For more information on how Long Term Care Insurance can help prepare us as we age. Also you can get a long term care insurance quote. We represent 20 of the top LTCi providers. This gives you tremendous options.

On the Trading Floor

By Zeke Lee

Have you ever seen a trading floor?

No, were not talking Liars Poker here

Weve all seen the so-called pit traders on CNBC yelling and screaming at each other. But whats it like on a typical trading floor at a large bank that you might work at?

Usually, youll see one large open room " no cubicles. On the outskirts of the trading floor youll see meeting rooms and occasionally the offices of the Managing Directors.

On the floor itself, youll see rows of really long desks that are sectioned off per person. Traders within the same group will naturally sit close to each other. So you might see the foreign exchange group in one area, the credit group in another, and the equity guys somewhere else.

But youll notice something unique about each traders desk: the computer screens. No, not that they are eco-friendly and conserve energy " but that there are so many monitors on each desk and that some of them are blinking constantly.

Got Monitors?

If youve never worked in trading before, you might think theres no reason you would actually need between 3 and 8 monitors " the other 7 must be for playing World of Warcraft or catching up on 24, right?

Wrong.

Partly, its for showing off: some traders view the number of monitors they have as a status symbol on the trading floor. Hey, even if you cant see my BMW, my 8 monitors mean that I own a really expensive car, right? Or at least that our P...L is higher than that of the other group over there with only 2 monitors.

The actual rationale " status symbols aside " is that speed is extremely important in trading, and you dont want to waste time switching between windows. Alt + Tab is for bankers.

If Apple stock has been moving quickly, you need to be able to look up and know by how much it moved. You need to be able to look at a screen that calculates your risk exposure real-time.

Then you need to monitor the market news and major headlines coming in through Bloomberg " is Steve Jobs OK? Is some analyst raising his/her prediction for the number of iPhones sold? Was there an news release that just came out regarding Apples contract with AT...T or talks with Verizon? Did consumer spending numbers just come out?

As an active prop trader, youre multi-tasking all the time and constantly thinking about these kinds of questions, assessing risk, and making quick decisions.

Bloomberg

Bloomberg is an expensive news/finance information service that all banks and trading firms have access to.

Beyond just watching the news, you also need to track stocks youre interested in and see their prices updated in real-time " so you use another monitor for that. These screens are constantly blinking as the prices of securities are changing every second.

Bloomberg has a price feature that lets you organize and track stocks by sector (Technology, Financials, Energy, etc.) and lets you see where everything is trading.

You can also get a real-time heat map of the market, so you can see which sub-sectors of the S...P are up, and by how much.

Trading Platform

Next, you use another screen to actually make your trades " this might be Merrills MLX platform, Goldmans REDIPlus platform, FlexTrade, Fidessa, or anything else.

If youre trading equity derivatives, you need to enter your orders for stocks, puts, and calls quickly and monitor any pending orders that are waiting to be filled.

Why do you need an entire monitor just for making trades?

Because you be managing a HUGE portfolio of securities and each of these securities could have various derivative products attached to them. For example, a list of a hundred stocks could each have derivatives like calls and puts with various maturities and strike prices.

Depending on what youre trading, you might actually need 2 monitors to track everything.

Option Valuations / Other Calculations

If youre not trading derivatives, you wont need to value options " but you may well have to make other calculations, whether youre valuing bonds, analyzing the yield curve, or back-testing a trading strategy.

While the math itself is not quite rocket science, it goes beyond what most bankers deal with: simple arithmetic. While investment bankers may come from liberal arts, finance, or engineering backgrounds, derivatives traders primarily come from mathematical / engineering backgrounds.

Your firm might have a proprietary way of valuing options, developed by a senior IT programmer (see, the back office may have some merits after all) " and depending on what youre trading, it might be very complex.

Getting these programs working properly can be difficult because they need to be synced up with other programs you use. Getting the # of shares and contracts held, exposure to risk, and other variables linked together dynamically rarely works perfectly " and this complexity means youll be calling the back-office tech guy or floor IT guy to fix technical issues quite frequently.

Messages

Of course, youll also need a monitor for Outlook " the standard email program at any bank " to handle email and see incoming emails from brokers and the rest of your team.

The Rest of Your Desk

So what else is on your desk?

Just like at a bank, you get a phone terminal along with a headset and regular phone " but be careful about the conversations you have, because anything between brokers and clients is recorded.

Talking about bottles may not get you fired " but you probably want to postpone talking with your model(s) until later. Even if its not recorded, everyone else on the desk will hear what youre saying.

The phones are also connected to CNBC audio, so you can listen to whats going on in the news throughout the day.

So What Else Do You Do On the Phone Besides Chatting with Models?

For one, the phone actually rings quite often " especially between the trading hours of 9:30 AM and 4:00 PM.

Most of the time, brokers call to tell you what their clients are looking to buy and sell and see if you have any interest. Some of this is shifting to online chat instead, but its still common for brokers to call to get your attention on larger orders.

Junior traders will have often help deal with the influx of phone calls by screening the phone calls and taking down broker quotes.

Forget About the Bathroom " or Trips to Starbucks

This also brings up another key point and a major difference between banking and trading: most traders hate leaving their desks for fear of missing out on something important.

Lunch breaks are limited to 15 minutes (and often the junior guys or interns will go get the food for them). Bathroom breaks are rare unless you really need to go. Forget about 10 trips to Starbucks during the day: bankers can do that only because they have so much down time. No friendly chats with the cute marketing intern " at least not until the market is closed. This also means that its common for traders to gain weight: they pretty much just sit there all day, eyes glued to the monitors, only taking the occasional break to eat.

If you walk up and try to talk to a trader, half the time he wont even look at you: this might seem rude to you, but to him not paying attention for even a few seconds might result in a loss of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

And part of it is just habit: theyre so used to having their eyes glued on the screen that its almost weird to look away from it.

Hey, if you had that much money on the line constantly, you probably wouldnt give the time of day to bright-eyed interns or newbie traders either - 23211

About the Author:

This text was guest-written by Zeke Lee, a Stanford graduate, former management consultant with Booz Allen, and current derivatives trader on Wall Street. He founded the GMAT Pill (GMAT Prep course) based on his experience scoring in the 98th %ile on the GMAT in just 2 weeks with a special study method.