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Personal Finance From a Biblical Perspective

A Few Things To Keep In Mind When Trying To Save Money On Car Insurance

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Throughout life, you will come to points where you have to insure various items to protect their value in the case of an accident. Of all the insurance payments, you will have to make. Auto insurance will be one of the largest and most financially demanding options you must decide upon. Here are a couple of things that we might not normally consider when trying to save money on car insurance.

Simple Tips To Save Money On Car Insurance

Go With A Proven Car Insurance Provider

When choosing an auto insurance policy, look into the quality of the company. The company that holds your policy should be able to back it up, click here to get car quotes online. It is good to know if the company that holds your policy will be around to take care of any claims you may have.

You can take a look at the Better Business Bureau’s or Consumer Affairs websites in order to check for complaints against your top choices. Asking your friends, coworkers, family members, and even neighbors about their experience with certain auto insurance providers can also help you to narrow down your choices and find a reputable company.

Save Money on Car Insurance

Buy Only What You Need

Don’t fall prey to buying insurance coverage that you do not need. Research your needs on your own, or ask the insurer if it is a must that you purchase all coverage they mention to you.

One example of this would be roadside assistance coverage. If you have roadside help through some other means such as your credit card (one of many credit card benefits) or through some sort of membership elsewhere, you do not need to purchase it from your insurer.

If you own a small business requiring the use of company automobiles, vans, or trucks; business auto coverage is a must. Business auto insurance coverage can usually be added to a business insurance package made available by insurance companies. If you or your employers are driving company vehicles, it is critical that you are covered in case one of them gets into an accident.

Handling Teens and Multiple Drivers

Your teenage driver’s insurance will cost you much more than yours for a while, but if they took any formalized driving instruction, be sure to mention it when shopping for a quote or adding them to your policy. Discounts are frequently available for driving instruction, but you can get even bigger discounts if your teen took a defensive driving class or other specialized driving instruction course.

If your car is insured with multiple drivers and one of them stops using the car, notify your insurance company immediately. It can reduce your premiums significantly in many cases. Young drivers, old drivers, and drivers with bad records all boost your premium. Get them removed from your policy as soon as you can.

Using The Internet, and Trimming Coverage

Usually, you can find some of the best insurance deals on the web. This is because selling directly to customers cuts out costs, like an agent or having a ton of local offices; so the insurance companies get to keep a little more for themselves. This also will trickle down to you in the form of a small discount. There are even some companies and/or that will perform car insurance comparisons on your behalf.

Consider suspending coverage on a vehicle you are not actively driving to reduce your premium payments. Often, you can suspend coverage except comprehensive on a vehicle not being driven, which still provides protection should the vehicle be damaged while garaged or parked – although, if it is not being driven, it may not be worth the extra cost of comprehensive coverage.

However, check with any lienholder or your state to make sure you are adequately covered and complying with loan requirements before suspending coverage.

Consider A Hybrid

Hybrid vehicles are really underrated in terms of insurance prices. So if you want to save money on car insurance, you might want to look at purchasing some type of hybrid vehicle (such as the Honda NSX). Apart from the great tax savings, you will also stand out as a low-risk driver in a hybrid, and thus your insurance premiums will ultimately drop.

When it comes to purchasing a hybrid, just make sure that the added cost will be worth it when considering lower fuel costs, any tax credits you may receive, and paying less for your car insurance.

Though simple, the tips listed above could save hundreds of dollars per year on expensive auto insurance payments. The point is, take your time and calculate your costs carefully. Get ahead of the curve and be prepared for what you will need to pay before you even go to get your vehicle. Knowledge and research is the key to saving.

photo credit: Freedigitalphotos.net

Top Five Professional Indemnity Insurance Facts

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[The following is a guest post by Construct A Quote]

Professional indemnity insurance is a must for people in business – selling either their skills or knowledge. Also known as PI insurance, it protects a business against claims made by a third party or client, for damage or loss. This might happen if the business owner was found to be negligent in some (or all) of the services the business provided, or if the individual made mistakes in their work.

Top Five Professional Indemnity Insurance Facts

Professional Indemnity Insurance Is A Legal Requirement For Many Businesses

In fact, professional indemnity insurance is a legal prerequisite for many professions, to carry out their business legally. This includes accountants, solicitors, mortgage intermediaries, brokers, financial advisers and insurance advisers.

Increasingly, many consultants and agencies are choosing to take out professional indemnity insurance to protect their business, along with designers. This can include those in the contingent workforce, as well as those who are responsible for paying self employment tax.

Customers And Premises Both Need Cover

Another valuable type of business cover is public liability insurance, which covers the legal costs and any resulting damages from cases arising from death, injury or damage to property, on your business activity premises.

Public liability insurance is essential if you have customers on your premises, for example if you run a shop. Again, public liability insurance is a legal requirement for some businesses, including sports centers and riding stables.

Employees Must Be Covered As Well

Employers liability insurance works in a similar way, but helping businesses meet costs for legal fees and damages for employees who are hurt or made ill at work, when the employer is at fault. One fact many people don’t realize, is that employees can still claim for compensation if the business has gone into receivership or liquidation. This makes employers liability insurance compulsory, for at least £5 million of cover, although many insurance providers will offer employers liability insurance automatically for £10 million or more.

There are cases for exemption – if the business isn’t limited, if you just employ close family or are the only employee – the insurance is no longer legal.

You’ll Need To Show Risk Management

Before an insurance company will grant coverage, they will expect to see that the business has processes and guidelines in place to reduce the risk of a claim. Your insurance adviser can give advice on what these processes should look like and there are specialists who can help you present your risk correctly.

Good project documentation is an ideal way to manage risk of claims. Set out terms in contracts with clients, keep a comprehensive incident ledger and deal with any complaints fully as they arise, according to a policy.

Your Business Must Be Properly Covered

With all professional indemnity insurance, cover is granted on a claims made basis. So this means the policy will only cover those claims made whilst it’s live. This means that you should continue with a ‘run off’ cover after you plan to retire or close your business, in case any claims relating to the business operation are made by customers or employees at a later date.

Similarly, if you are looking to change your insurance provider, you’ll need to get agreement from the new provider that they’ll accept any claims from prior incidents, or arrange run off cover.

Remember too, that this is a specialist area of insurance and as such it may be valuable to go through a specialist advisor who can help you ascertain the correct requirements for your business and organize appropriate cover amounts.

In the field of insurance, there is no saving to be made from cutting corners – the legal and financial implications of inadequate insurance are too grave. Speak to an advisor with demonstrable qualifications in the field, ideally registered with professional bodies in the field and recommended.

photo by jscreationzs

Social Welfare Program Payments Account For Over One Third Of U.S. Wages!

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According to a recent article by CNBC, various government welfare payments account for more than a third of all salaries and wages across the entire population of the United States! That is an amazing statistic when you stop to think about it what a social welfare program really is.

Welfare Payments Gone Wild

Now, when I speak of welfare payments, I am not just referring to payments made to the poor. Social Security, Medicare, and another popular social welfare program – unemployment – are all included! Here is what the article had to say about the numbers:

Even as the economy has recovered, social welfare benefits make up 35 percent of wages and salaries this year, up from 21 percent in 2000 and 10 percent in 1960, according to TrimTabs Investment Research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data.

So 35% of total wages and salaries will be nothing more than government handouts! The fact that this number was only 10% just a mere 40 years ago should alarm many!

What this means is that if you are in a room with 99 other people (say at a supermarket), 35 of them would completely rely on a social welfare program for their wages! There is no way that this nation can continue to function in this state for much longer!

“The U.S. economy has become alarmingly dependent on government stimulus,” said Madeline Schnapp, director of Macroeconomic Research at TrimTabs, in a note to clients.

Instead of being a nation of people who worked as hard as we could in order to support ourselves, and making sacrifices whenever needed, we are now people who depend on the government to support us, without any real effort on our part! I would say that we are not just dependent on government support, but we actually feel entitled to it.

Now, obviously Social Security is different because most of the people who are collecting benefits are retired and are receiving income based on contributions they made while working. The system is set up so that current workers support those who are retired, so this assessment doesn’t really apply to them.

A Social Welfare Program In Trouble

Even though I stated that Social Security should be seen in a different light than the other welfare payments, the thought of it should immediately bring to mind all of the baby boomers that plan to retire within the next decade or so!

Many people are simply not prepared for retirement, which means that they will depend even more heavily on Social Security to support even the most basic needs. Whether you are a baby boomer or not, take a look at the current IRA contribution limits and 401k contribution limits, and prepare yourself for retirement!

One of the proposed ways to fix this problem has been to reduce either Social Security or Medicare…or both! Unfortunately, most people are blindly hoping for another way…

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released last week showed that  less than a quarter of Americans supported making cuts to Social Security or Medicare in order to reign in the mounting budget deficit.

Those poll numbers may be skewed by a demographic shift the likes of which the nation has never seen. Only this year has the first round of baby boomers begun collecting Medicare benefits—and here comes 78 million more.

So, we are already at 35% of the population receiving welfare payments, and now we are expecting about 78 million more retired baby boomers!?!? I honestly don’t know if there is anything that can be done to turn this around – unless we make some major changes to how our economy functions!

Most people are aware of the fact that we won’t collect enough in Social Security taxes to cover outgoing benefits in the future (and the current payroll tax holiday sure isn’t helping)! Here is how the article summarizes our current crisis:

Social welfare benefits have increased by $514 billion over the last two years, according to TrimTabs figures, in part because of measures implemented to fight the financial crisis. Government spending normally takes on a larger part of the spending pie during economic calamities but how can the country change this make-up with the root of the crisis (housing) still on shaky ground, benchmark interest rates already cut to zero, and a demographic shift that calls for an increase in subsidies?

That’s the key question! Not only will we have a huge surge in the amount of retirees looking for government benefits, but because of the tremendously weak (and it will weaken more in the future) housing market, high unemployment and underemployment, and increasing public healthcare costs, we will surely face an unprecedented amount of citizens looking for complete government support!

Unfortunately, most politicians are only interested in the short term, so the future looks pretty bleak! What’s even worse is that many of the developed nations are facing the same problem! Here is another quote from the article:

At the very least, we can take solace in the fact that we’re not quite at the state welfare levels of Europe. In the U.K., social welfare benefits make up 44 percent of wages and salaries, according to TrimTabs’ Schnapp.

“No matter how bad the situation is in the US, we stand far better on these issues (debt, demographics, entrepreneurship) than other countries,” said Steve Cortes of Veracruz Research. “On a relative basis, America remains the world leader and, as such, will also remain the world’s reserve currency.”

If we existed in a vacuum, then maybe we could feel good about our nightmare not being as scary as others. However, since many of the world economies are so connected, this means trouble for the entire world population! So while we are focusing only on ourselves – thinking about various credit card benefits, finding a cosigner for our loans, and identity theft – the economy could very well be crumbling before our eyes.

photo by renjith krishnan

Join The Discussion:

  1. Are you shocked that 35% of all wages are based on payments from a social welfare program?

  2. Do you think that there should be a limit to these welfare payments?

  3. Do you find comfort in the fact that other nations are doing worse?

  4. How do you think we can return to being a nation full of people who support themselves?

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Do I Need To File An Income Tax Return?

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By this time, most people should have received all of the necessary tax forms in order to prepare their income tax return. Many people have questions about various deductions, credits, and exemptions. However, there are a large number of people who never get that far, because they have one major question: Do I need to file an income tax return?

Well, the IRS has provided a couple of resources to help you understand if you need to prepare a tax return.

What Determines If I Need To File An Income Tax Return?

According to the IRS, “you must file a federal income tax return if your income is above a certain level”. How do you know what that “certain” level is? Well, that varies depending on a few factors:

  • Your Filing Status

  • Your Age at the End of the Tax Year

  • The Type of Income You Receive

Is There An Easy Way To Determine If I Need To File An Income Tax Return?

There are two main methods that the IRS lists that you can use to figure out if you must prepare a return:

  1. Check the Individuals section of the IRS website or consult the instructions for Form 1040 (opens PDF), 1040A (opens PDF), or 1040EZ (opens PDF) for specific details that may help you determine if you need to file a tax return with the IRS this year.

  2. Use the Interactive Tax Assistant available on the IRS website to determine if you need to file. The ITA tool is a tax law resource that takes you through a series of questions and provides you with responses to tax law questions.

If you have determined that you have to prepare a return, then be sure to contact us to set up an appointment for tax preparation. If you decide to file your own taxes, we recommend using TurboTax to do so. Also, keep in mind that there are many benefits when you file a tax return, even when you are not required to do so.

Be sure you are aware of the tax filing delay, as well as the fact that the tax filing deadline has been extended this year. Also, you should know the IRA Contribution Limits, 401k Contribution Limits, and the Income Tax Rates for 2011!

photo by JD Hancock

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