Surprises of Credit and What it Means to You #2 – Best Car Insurance Rates
It is important to shop when you are looking for the best deals on car insurance. Some companies can offer you a cheaper rate but others may be a little more expensive but give you better coverage. It can take days to find the best deal, but that will be time well spent if you are ever in a situation where you need to use it. When you are trying to get the best deal you also need to take into account what type of car you have. If you have a new or used one that is paid for you have some say over what type of coverage you want. If you are financing a car and still making payments you have to have full coverage on it and that makes things more expensive. The more options and coverage you want the more expensive the deal will get the same goes for your actual driving record. If you have a clean record with new tickets or incidents you are probably going to save a lot of money.
Have you ever wondered how someone who has a bad driving record, a more expensive car than you have, has a better deal than you do? It doesn’t make sense does it? Well the problem with car insurance is that there are a few things they do not tell you that have an impact on your rates and one of those are your actual credit score. Auto insurance companies check your score to determine your rate along with other things and it is a shame they do that. Rather than taking into account how good a driver you are they base your rate on whether or not you have a good history of paying your bills on time. Well you can change that problem and others that are created when you have a low score by using credit repair to fix it. Credit repair can fix your score in weeks and at an affordable price.
Credit Protection Insurance – Just Another Consumer Rip-Off
Credit protection insurance is a good example of a consumer rip-off that affects millions of people, yet gets little attention in the financial media. Simply stated, you should NEVER buy “credit protection insurance,” or a “payment protection plan” or any other similar type of credit-related insurance. Let’s take a look at how these programs work and why they are a bad deal for the average consumer.
First, let’s dispense with the scam version of this insurance. With identity theft in the news so much lately, con artists have set up telemarketing boiler rooms to call people and try to scare them into buying worthless credit insurance products. Representatives will try to convince you that you’re at risk if someone gets hold of your card and starts making fraudulent purchases in your name. When they call, they may even pretend to be from the “security department” of your bank. In fact, they may actually be part of an identify theft ring, with the goal of getting you to disclose personal information over the phone. Or they may simply be trying to make a fast buck by selling you an insurance policy that you absolutely don’t need.
Under Federal law, you are limited to a maximum of $50 liability for unauthorized use of your credit card. If you didn’t authorize a charge, don’t pay it! Follow your credit card bank’s procedure for disputing bogus charges. You simply don’t need insurance to protect yourself from a situation that is already covered by Federal law!
Now, what about those “payment protection plans” offered directly by the big credit card banks? These are plans that promise to cover your minimum monthly payments for an extended period of time (usually 12-24 months) if you get laid off from your job, become hospitalized due to accident or illness, or become disabled. On the surface, a plan like this sounds like a pretty good idea. After all, how could you keep up with your payments if you suddenly lost your job or became too ill to work?
Of course, you should not be carrying balances on your credit cards anyway. If everyone paid their balances every month in full, then credit protection insurance would not even exist in its current form. You are charged for the insurance based on the amount of debt you’re carrying on the card, so if the balance is zero, then there is no fee. In fact, some bank representatives use this as part of the sales pitch when trying to entice people to sign up for that “free 3-month trial” on their payment protection plan! They attempt to talk you into adding the insurance now, while you don’t need it and when there is no cost, in the hope that one day you will start carrying a balance. By then, you’ll probably have forgotten you signed up, and you’ll wonder what those mysterious charges are on your statement every month.
If you do carry balances on your cards, credit protection insurance is still a very bad deal. To see why, let’s look at the math here. A typical loss protection plan costs $0.85 for every $100 of balance carried on the card. So if you’re carrying a debt of $5,000 on the credit card, it will cost you $42.50 per month to buy the insurance. Over the course of 12 months, you will spend $510 under this scenario. That’s equivalent to paying an extra 10% in annual interest!
A light bulb should be shining over your head right about now. Why not take that same $42.50 per month and use it to pay down the balance faster? Good question. When you consider that most consumers who have credit protection carry it year after year, without ever becoming eligible for a claim against the insurance policy, the amount of wasted money can add up to a truly staggering sum.
Continuing with our $5,000 example, with a typical minimum payment of $125/month, it will take more than 26 years to pay off the balance in full, at a cost of $7,115.42 in interest. By applying that extra $42.50 per month that would otherwise go toward the insurance, for a total monthly payment of $167.50, you’ll have the debt paid off in only 40 months! And you’ll have saved $5,435.22 in interest charges. It simply makes no sense to waste this money , especially when you consider that the credit protection plan is normally only good for 12-24 months anyway.
There’s another important factor involved here. Credit protection is also a bad deal because the eligibility requirements are so very restrictive. When you read the fine print, you’ll realize that there are all kinds of situations that aren’t covered. Let’s say, for example, that you’ve been fighting a medical condition for some time. So you buy the insurance thinking it’s a good idea. Eventually, you end up in the hospital for treatment and recovery. Can you breathe a little easier knowing your credit card payments are covered? Nope. Most of these policies have exclusions for pre-existing conditions. And there are numerous other loopholes that allow the bank to deny your claim under the policy. In view of the lousy math and the restrictive nature of this type of insurance, these programs should really be named “bank profit protection” instead of “credit protection insurance.” Instead of spending good money on an insurance plan that you will probably never use, you’re far better off applying that same amount toward paying off the debt early.
Secured Debt Consolidation Loans: Bringing Down Your Debt Count to Zero
It is unlikely that while growing up you would not have heard that there is strength in unity. Well since this age old saying has braved the test of time, there must be truth in it. It is interesting that the validity of this statement is applicable to repayment of loans also. Secured debt consolidation is a type of debt repayment plan which give you an open invitation of becoming debt free at your terms.
Secured debt consolidation is a way to consolidate debt when you have security to pay for the loan you are borrowing. When it comes to secured debt consolidation loans there is no single scenario which can work for everyone. Since the debts you owe might not be the one that someone else owes. Secured debt consolidation loans are possible for every borrower who has multiple debts like credit card debts, medical bills, unsecured loans etc.
Secured debt consolidation loans would require a security in the form of real estate (like home or any other property), car, stocks and bonds, and any other acceptable collateral. Loan amounts above
Why Self Employed Liability Insurance is Important
Once you take action and start your own business you realize just what is required by being self employed, and eventually getting self employed liability insurance is one of them. Let’s talk about why this is important.
When you are just starting out you realize how much work it takes to build a client list, or to match products to what your customers want, and as you grow the potential for small mishap or accident is always there, but you can take this as an out of pocket expense.
Once your small business has grown into a full time income for you and your family, the reality sets in about all that you could lose with a major accident or incident.
Let’s use the example of a full time, self employed, lawn maintenance business owner. The small business owner takes his zero-turn 44′ riding mower and as he is cutting the grass in the backyard, he run’s over a small object and breaks a small window in the garage, this only cost $20, but what if he had hit a car and caused major damage into the $1000′s.
This incident becomes more than an out of pocket expense, and shows where liability insurance comes in. The self employed owner would be liable for repairs, and this could damage or even cause the small business to shut down.
Talking to your insurance agent, or researching online about the different types of liability coverage should help you realize that the cost of an annual policy would be easier to handle, than all of those sleepless nights wondering about what you would do if something happened where you are liable, and could be facing a potential lawsuit.
Once you have made your business successful and you know that you can build something that can sustain you a full time income is very rewarding, and wanting to protect this asset is only natural. That is self employed liability insurance should be important to you and your family.
The benefits of being properly insured far outweigh any costs that go against your bottom line, and liability insurance is one of them. Most people know the importance of health insurance and auto insurance coverage, but do not fully understand why they should be covered for any incident or accident they may be liable for that does not get covered by these standard plans.
The example I used of the Lawn Maintenance should help you better understand the potential risks of owning your small business, and why you need the protection of this insurance.
Corporate Credit Funding Business Credit Cards – Small Business Credit NO PG
Money, money, money! We all want some of it, especially if you are a small business, have bad credit or just in need to establish business credit funding without a personal guarantor. If you haven’t been in business very long then your chances of getting the corporate credit you need is not very likely to happen.
You need to find a guru, like Powerful Credit, who can help raise you the corporate funding without any personal guarantee. Corporate credit funding is available 24/7 for everyone without having to access any personal credit scores or a personal guarantor. Even if your personal credit scores are less than stellar there are a few companies that will get you the small business credit, business credit cards and unsecured business lines of credit you need to start or grow your business.
Some business credit consulting companies will tell you to buy a shelf corporation or tell you that your credit score has to be in the top echelons of the universe but they are very wrong. But again there are few that knows the legal loopholes and the credit pattern to raise you the corporate credit without the risk of buying an old company or using your own and having it get flagged for not understanding a certain credit behavior..
There are many shelf corporation resellers out there, but there is a small number of corporate credit funding consulting companies on the Internet. VERY few companies will get you $300k in 12 months. Most other companies will tell you they possibly can get you $50,000-$75,000 in that amount of time with absolutely no guarantees at all. Think about it, which would you rather have, $75k or $300k in a year if you had to pay taxes and keep activity on each company?
The small business credit that some companies are able to get does not happen overnight if you are do not have a good personal credit. It will take some time, hard work and effort on your part as well. There are certain things to help your corporate credit portfolio and ability to continue receiving corporate financing and a business line of credit in the future. These steps that you are asked are important to ensure that you receive the corporate funding available. Business lines of credit and business credit cards will take your business to another level.
You should be spending your valuable time doing what you enjoy and working your business not it working you. If you are ready to take the next step in receiving the small business credit you want, then check out these consulting companies. There are limited amount of companies who will tell you the truth about business credit and hold your hand.
Major Bank Offers an Alternative to Payment Protection Insurance on Their Credit Cards
Britain’s biggest credit card company is behind a new idea to give the holders of its credit card the option to stop making repayments if their income is drastically cut. In practice, it’s a form of payment protection insurance (PPI) which lenders have been barred from selling alongside forms of credit but the bank claims that its debt suspension option is not an insurance policy.