Elsie asked:


My husband and I both work; our income split is about 60/40, he being the higher paid.

We will both turn 50 within the next year.

No children living at home.

No substantial debt:
Car loan: $185 monthly
Student loan: $102 monthly

Mortgage: $2,000 monthly

No other debt. We never carry a credit card balance.

We have about 3 months worth of savings in the bank.

Should I base our life insurance on how much we make, how much we have in debt or both? We are living paycheck to paycheck, and if either one of us were to die suddenly, the other would only have a few months to sell the house before we could no longer make the payments. In this market, I don’t think that’s realistic.

I was thinking that we would need enough to pay for a funeral, pay off the smaller two loans, and still have enough to live on for at least a year if the house doesn’t sell. Does that sound right? Or should we not worry about paying off the loans…just calculate enough to replace the other’s income for XX many months? If so, how many months should we plan for?

Finally, at what rate is life insurance taxed? Is it added to your income and then taxed at the rate for your total income for the year? or is there a flat rate tax? (I think I know the answer to this one, but I want to make sure).

M curious asked:


There is no question the economic cycle affects insurance companies. When there’s less money around like now in the early 2009, insurance companies suffer.

But I learned that the more uncertainty about things, the better insurance firms perform, because they capitalize on uncertainties about the future. whether it’s a person’s life or natural hazards.

So my best guess for the question is a lot of cash flow in the market and a lot of uncertainty and fear about things for which they can be insured. Am I missing any thing else?

What can you say are optimal conditions for insurance companies to grow???

RYAN asked:


what would be a great incentive to offer to insurance agents who qualify for certain promotions I’ll run in the future. I’m looking for new and creative ideas and not the same old trips to somewhere, gift cards, branded company clothing/etc, or comission incentives. I’m looking for new ideas that are relatively gender neutral and would like to run more frequent promotions with less expensive items vs. prior years. So, I would like to focus on items ranging from $25 for smaller promotions to around $300 for my larger ones….items or services that are useful or handy around home or office, items that get used and don’t collect dust. They get enough of those things.

I’m considering Little Giant ladder systems or dash mounted GPS for vehicles but I’m not sure that women would respond to these as well as men. Men seem to be drawn to gadgets.

Any help is appreciated.

♥NICOLE♥ asked:


for getting new business? i work in auto insurance and need to make quota for this month…

__A_YAHOO_USER__ asked:


I paid cash for my house 6 years ago. Was going to buy insurance but they wanted to UP charge me because I didn’t have insurance in the apt I lived in. (Which didn’t make sense because I was worth far more than my belongings)

So, Ive went without. Saved roughly $3200-3800 over the years. But, my hot water heater went out and ruined my foyer wood floor.

Haven’t bothered to replace it. I figure I will have it tiled and my tile man said it would be best to do it AFTER I put new carpet down.

And Ive put off putting new carpet down because my stocks went down so much. (Up some, but still down from the peak)

Just curious how many others go without ?

Am I crazy ?

I figure its a good wager for me. If it burns down, I will just have to accept the loss and buy another. (Lost more in the market)

I figure my house is worth somewhere between $75-95k.
What are the odds that someone walks on my property withOUT permission, hurts themselves, sues me AND WINS ?

Isnt that about as small as my house burning down ?

Id say theres less than a 2% chance of either happening so the expected value of $600+ per year for 25 years into the future has to be greater than the potential loss multipled by the chance of that happening.

I realize that everyone cannot do it.

But not everyone worth what I am lives in such a modest house.
Deth,
I DID pay cash for the house. And I have saved over $3000 over the last 6 years. The foyer floor would have been under my $1000 deductable (If I would have bought insurance) so it wouldnt have been covered anyway.

And if the house burned down, I wouldnt HAVE to rebuild. I could just buy another house with the cash I have in savings. (Or stocks)

Sounds like you just cant imagine someone living below their means.

Yes, I could live in a $400,000 house.

In that case, I would HAVE to have insurance because a $400k loss would be much more bothersome than a $75-100k loss.

Rise Above asked:


Personally I’d rather see a system more like Singapore has. It wouldn’t make me popular in conservative circles but I’d like everyone (and I do mean everyone) to have a basic government run catastrophic health insurance policy. Everyone would have a health savings account. People who want better coverage could buy it in the open market and from any company that chose ot offer it. Private companies could offer the basic plan also but at the same cost and benefit level as the govt. plan. The basic system would have copays that would be subsidized for people or families below a certain income level. Hospitals and doctors would be required to publish prices. Healthcare providers would be protected by clamping down on frivolous lawsuits. Obviously since everyone is covered there are no issues with pre-existing conditions.
Did I miss anything (besides cost and how to pay)? I’d like some constructive criticism.
and…. If Congress wrote a plan like this, how many pages would it take? 1000? 1500? 2000?
James, that’s truly funny!
O baa maa, if private companies figured they could administer the plans more efficiently and make money on the they should be allowed to.
This would mean that the govt. plan would have to pay for itself and not be subsidized by the general fund. I tried not to get too much more involved in the initial question for fear of making it waay too long. It’s already long enough that people’s eyes probably glaze over halfway through.
jehen, try to rise above the stupid ideological rhetoric. If you claim that conservatives want people to die and go bankrupt, you’ll be countered by people who rightfully say that the current proposals will ration healthcare, reduce medicare benefits and cause even more deaths. Getting into this argument is pointless. It doesn’t get us anywhere so unless you have something constructive to add, please move on to the next question.
rotorhead, I think you might be confusing Singapore with Thailand but I’m no expert.
Patriot, thanks for the response but laying blame on the insurance companies for blaming hospitals doesn’t really address the issue. Your cut and paste job is impressive too but I don’t see where it’s at all related to my question. I’m actually advocating a universal plan. What’s the point of trying to sell me on a plan when I’m already sold?
I will check out your links later when I have time.

Here’s a question for you. Why does the US have a higher death rate for younger children? Reading and regurgitating statistics doesn’t necessarily prove anything if you don’t know the details behind the stats.
O baa maa, paying would be the sticking point but when I read how economical the Singaporean plan is, I can’t help but think that we could cover everyone and save money. This is what we are being pitched now but I don’t think what’s being proposed it going to achieve that. The govt. is legislating mandatory care, not making people be directly responsible for costs and leaving out tort reform to save costs and allow more doctors to afford their insurance.
I have a basic plan that costs about $200.00 and month. I’m healthy and 48y.o. Younger people would be cheaper but jus like S.S. the system would be dependent on people paying all through their life not just to spread costs to all citizens but to spread the costx vs. benefits across ones whole life.
I haven’t put a great amount of though into it but people who can pay the minimum would pay. People who cannot would be subsidized. People who can afford better plans would pay for the basic plan and the premium plans would be taxed.
OB, I agree with your points but lately I’ve been swayed by logical arguments that show other countries have done this effectively.
It once seemed that we were going to have this shoved down out throats but now that seems doubtful.
I think that if this was tweaked and pitched properly it could pass and be a benefit. I suppose we will eventually have something like this forced upon us so my intent was to find something more palatable. My plan should satisfy public option proponents but they’d have to accept tort reform. Covering everyone would take away concern about pre-existing conditions, etc.
What I lack is hard number. How much do we spend yearly on insurance, care and drugs. How much on Medicare, medicaid and the VA. Lump that together, calculate savings from efficiency and tort reform and divide by the number of citizens.
If someone could put numbers to the proposals it would show how feasible these plans are.
Thanks for all you input.
jehen, thanks for the response. I agree with most of what you say but in one breath you say the current proposals are not adequate and in the next you say they won’t pass because people oppose them. Well if they’re not sufficient, we should all oppose them until something better is proposed. If you’re going to condemn Republicans and healthcare lobbyists don’t forget to include some Democrats and the legal lobby. If it’s only Republicans voting no to preserve healthcare lobby dollars, the measures would have passed long ago. If you’re going to ask to ***** the healthcare lobby the attorneys have to get it also.
If we had the right compromise I believe that it could be passed.

oldsouldier asked:


A man who has failed in restarting the economy (look at the massive unemployment, not he inflated market), violently overthrown major car companies, banks, insurance agencies. Wrecked small business opportunities, all the while increasing the payroll and size of he bloated over-centralized federal government.

Isn’t it odd seeing this man who has sent our country to the constitutional boneyard stand up there and try to make up for losing the olympic bid only HE cared about?

Idris S asked:


I went and got 4 estimates average price came around 3000$. The appraiser from progresive came and saw my car yesterday and wrote a estimate for 1280!!! I have a 2007 toyota matrix with 45000miles on it..He is putting after markets parts on in cuz its high miles,along with a used Rim from a junkyard for 95$…I called the manager and told him that your estimate is too low he said to take the car to a repair facility and have them fix it…My question is that I dont want to fix my car right now but i want to be paid fair price for the damages the it has caused. So how should I go about doing this. should I get a appraiser from my insurance company and have him appraise it…I basically want to keep the money that i deserve and fix the damages at some other time…

Joe asked:


…. paid for by the insurance company and HIS SISTER testified in front on Congress that the man lived an extra 3 1/2 years?

The stemcell-related procedure was done by one of the best doctors in the world. The man did not die because of waiting.

Why did 0bama lie to his supporters and America?

Also, 0bama says Alabama’s Blue Cross has 90% market share. Actually, it’s 75% (still big) BUT they have one of the highest customer satisfactions in the country AND they only made $0.60 on each $100 in premiums over the past decades. That is NOT outrageous.

They have some of the lowest administrative costs of any Blue Cross in America.

They have a large market share because they are EFFICIENT… just like when Bank of America and Citibank have large parts of the credit card market—- once you build the structure, processing more claims at that firm is more efficient than building another big company with the same computers.

aabdis asked:


I am trying to find out what the legislation is (preferably with a bill number i could look up) that limited the health-insurance agency so that we only get a small handful of plans from an even smaller handful of providers and leaving them the effective monopoly-style market we currently have.
Wow, quick answers! Never used Y!A before.

Anyway, I’m from NY. I’m primarily asking as someplace to start understanding the current state of health insurance, and the public debate over options.

I’m curious where the limit comes from that prevents companies from selling different plans in different states. That is a state thing, not federal?

I understand economies of scale and all… reduced costs with increased production, minimizing overhead.
But it seems to me a large part of our current problem is that we have really no options, due to limited sales (whoever’s doing the limiting). Since we have no real ability to shop around right now, there is no incentive for companies to try to meet customer needs and desires, and so we just get stuck with whatever craptastic plans they want to offer us.

I’m just trying to start to put together a better understanding of the current relevant legislation and the situation.