Archive for October, 2011
Your credit card company may use different names to refer to credit card insurance: “payment protection”; “credit shield”; “credit card protection insurance”; “credit safeguard”. It’s important to check what kind of coverage is implied in your insurance plan since it varies from company to company. Here are a few things that may get covered by credit card insurance policy:
Credit Life Insurance will pay off your credit card balance if you die. The one necessary condition is you need to make the credit card company the beneficiary on your insurance policy.
Credit Disability Insurance offers coverage of minimum payments on your credit card if you are unable to make them due to a temporary disability. The coverage is only valid for a specified period of time.
Credit Unemployment Insurance will pay minimum amount on your card every month if you incur involuntary unemployment (for example you were laid off due to downsizing of your firm).
Credit Property Insurance will pay for damaged or lost items that you purchased using your credit card.
Credit Liability Insurance offers protection against your liability if your credit card got stolen or misused.
It may sound good and provide some peace of mind, however enrolling in a credit card protection plan is frequently an unnecessary expense. Credit card insurance policy is costly and rarely pays off. Thus, even if your card gets stolen, by law your liability is limited to just $50, which most credit card companies won’t even bother to collect from you. Credit Life Insurance will relieve your family members from the obligation to pay off your credit card debt in case of your death, however it’s usually limited to a certain amount ($5,000 to $20,000), so it doesn’t provide full protection. The limitation of Credit Disability Insurance is pretty obvious: it will only cover your minimum monthly payments for a specified period of time. Yet even with a high balance on a credit card, many people with short-term medical disability are still able to make minimum monthly payments using their savings.  Most financial advisers agree that purchasing credit card insurance is a poor investment and barely ever pays off, so it should be avoided all together.
Traveling overseas is usually a fun, safe activity that broadens your horizons in a way no other activity can. Unfortunately, unforeseen illnesses and accidents can strike even the most prepared travelers. To guard against this, on every trip you take overseas you should consider purchasing travel medical insurance.
Who Needs Travel Health Insurance
Your need for international travel insurance will depend on your insurance provider back home and where you are traveling to. First, you will need to check with your current health plan to see if you are covered overseas and what countries you are covered for. Some insurers will cover you, while others, like Medicare, won’t cover any overseas expenses. The country you are traveling to will matter as well, since many countries rated as high-risk by the U.S. State Department will not be covered under any healthcare plans.
Even if you’re young and healthy and you’re planning a visit to a country where health care costs are low, travel medical insurance is still an important part about planning your trip. A few cuts and bruises won’t set you back much, but in the event of a catastrophic accident or even death, the hospital and other costs can spiral out of control quickly. Even a bare-bones plan will benefit nearly every international traveler.
The Nuts and Bolts
Most travel health insurance is reimbursement only. This means that you will have to pay out of pocket for your expenses and then submit paperwork to the insurance company. However, this isn’t always true. Some companies will require you to contact them before seeking treatment; others will be more hands off. Make sure that you know all the benefit caps, deductibles, other benefits, and fine print associated with your insurance plan before you go overseas so you know what to expect if the worst should happen. Some of the well-known established providers of medical travel insurance coverage are Gateway Insurance, HTH Worldwide, and Travel Guard.
International travel insurance is an important part of planning any trip abroad. Just because you’re overseas doesn’t mean you should leave your family saddled with medical or burial costs. You wouldn’t do it at home, so don’t make the mistake of doing it abroad.
With the high payouts for medical bills and car repairs, auto insurance scams are becoming more and more of a problem. This is especially true with smaller accidents under $1,000, which auto insurance companies don’t investigate well. Have you been victimized by one? These are a few of the most common insurance scams you might run into.
The Fake Wave
We’ve all waved someone into traffic at a heavy merge before. These direct scam artists pose as the same well-meaning individuals that let you into traffic, except when you do acknowledge the wave and start to merge, they accelerate and smash into your car. If this happens to you, immediately look for witnesses who can verify that the person did indeed wave and gave up the right of way to you.
The T-Bone
These scams usually staged at a lonely intersection where there are no cameras or witnesses. The scammer will lie in wait at the stop sign for your car to drive by and as soon as it does will crash into the side of your car. When they report the accident, they will tell the police that the scam victims ran a stop sign or red light and they couldn’t stop before hitting you. Sometimes more well organized scammers will have their own planted witnesses at the crime scene to back their version of the story up.
The Swoop and Squat
Perhaps the most common type of accident scam is the swoop and squat. In this, the scammers work in teams with one or two cars boxing you in to prevent you from swerving and another car that will cut you off and slam on the brakes. The car involved in the collision will then likely have several people who claim massive damages from whiplash related injuries.
These are just a few of the auto insurance scams that you can run into from forced accidents. Always be careful and if an accident looks fishy, make sure that you call the police.
 Please also read our Direct Buy Scam article.
