All Articles Tagged "life insurance"
Useless Insurance: What To Take OFF Your Plan
scottonmoney.com
Luggage we check, packages we mail, new phones—just about everything comes with insurance so, you may be a little uncomfortable with this concept: sometimes, you don’t need it.
What You Think You Know About Life Insurance
(Daily Finance) — There’s something about life insurance that just freaks some people out. For one thing, it forces them to confront the notion of dying. For another, it demands they think about tomorrow when they don’t know what to do about today. So instead, they stick their heads in the sand. It’s not surprising then, that according to the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education (LIFE), 40% of adults in the U.S. have no life insurance. ”People procrastinate,” says Georgette Geller, divisional executive vice president at Axa Advisers. “They are in denial about thinking about their future. Death is not on their minds, buying life insurance doesn’t give them an immediate tangible return and most people are undereducated about the topic.” Lack of knowledge fuels myths that take on a life of their own. September is life insurance awareness month, so let’s sort the fact from the fiction. Here are an even dozen myths and truths about life insurance.
Single or Not You Need Life Insurance
(Daily Finance) — Despite some common misconceptions, life insurance isn’t just for those of us who are married with children. If you’re a single, you can benefit from it, too, because being unmarried doesn’t necessarily mean being alone: In all likelihood, your death would have a financial impact on others. ”Some think that if you’re single and don’t have a spouse or children, then there’s no need for life insurance,” says Todd Laszewski, director of life product development at Northwestern Mutual. Then too, there’s the bravado of youth. “There is a feeling of invincibility: Young, single people are generally healthy and likely not concerned about the risk of an untimely death,” he says. “They simply don’t consider that there is a need, and in a fact, a long-term benefit, to considering how life insurance fits into their financial security planning early on.” ”Life insurance for a single person doesn’t always make sense,” points out Michael Wall, president of Wall Financial Group, “but sometimes it’s a perfect fit.” Who needs it, and how much, for the most part comes down to the goals of the person.
D.C. Govt. Failed to Pay $5.7m for Workers’ Insurance Premiums
(Washington Examiner) — The District failed to pay health and life insurance premiums for most city employees injured or killed on the job for nearly a decade and only recently forked over the $5.7 million it owed, officials said. It’s up to the Office of Risk Management to ensure the city pays the premiums, but according to a report by D.C. Auditor Deborah Nichols the agency stopped making most of the payments in 2001. When the error was discovered last spring, then-Mayor Adrian Fenty fired the agency’s director, who had been made aware of the problem six years earlier, according to the audit.
“In [fiscal year] 2004 ORM’s former director was made aware of ORM’s … failure to record and remit deducted insurance premiums but made no effort to correct the problem,” Nichols’ report said. “The long term failure to correct this significant deficiency has resulted in inaccurate, false, or misleading financial information and the exposure of the District to significant unrecognized financial liability.”
Read More…
Keep the Wrong Hands Off Your Money
(Yahoo News) — Which accounts need beneficiary designations? Any assets disbursed outside a will or not accounted for in a trust require a beneficiary designation. That list includes common kinds of accounts we all have, such as:
- Retirement accounts: IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, 457s, pensions, and self-employment retirement plans (e.g., Keoghs).
- Banking services: Credit unions, checking accounts, and savings accounts.
- Insurance proceeds: Disability and life insurance policies.
- Other stuff: Annuities and financial services products.
If you haven’t checked on your beneficiary form designations lately — and particularly if you’ve gotten married, unmarried, had kids, lost a spouse, etc. — put this on your must-do list.
Life Insurance Complicated By Minority Health Concerns
(NPR) — Getting life insurance is not easy for some ethnic populations. African-Americans and Latinos often have pre-existing medical conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure that may make it difficult for them to get coverage. Host Michel Martin speaks with financial advisor Louis Barajas for more on how to get the best life insurance policy.
D.C. Owes Millions in Missing, Unpaid Insurance Premiums
(Washington Examiner) — The cash-strapped District government will have to come up with as much as $6 million to cover the life insurance premiums the city collected from hundreds of disabled employees over seven years but didn’t pass along to the insurance companies, officials said Tuesday.
Mayor Adrian Fenty and Attorney General Peter Nickles said at a news conference that they had asked the city’s independent inspector general to investigate what happened to the money that had been collected by the city’s Office of Risk Management.
