What is a term life insurance policy or life insurance generally? A life insurance coverage offers financial safety to your family in the unfortunate occurrence of your death. At a standard level, it involves paying small sums every month (called premiums) to cover the risk of your unforeseen demise during the tenure of the policy. In such an occasion, your loved ones (or the beneficiaries you have named in the policy) will get a lump sum payment amount. In case you live till the maturity of the policy, depending on the type of life insurance coverage you have chosen, you will get returns the policy may have earned over the years. Today, there are lots of variations to this basic concept, and insurance plans focus on a wide array of needs.
Permanent insurance is a life insurance that delivers coverage throughout the insured’s lifetime and may include an element that builds cash value. Permanent life insurance offers lifelong protection. This kind of life insurance policy never stops as long as the premiums are paid. In addition, permanent life insurance coverage gives a cost savings element that accumulates a cash value over a long period of time. There are numerous kinds of permanent insurance. Below are the examples.
Traditional Whole Life stays in force during the insured’s entire lifetime, provided premiums are paid as specified by the plan. Life insurance coverage may also have an aspect for accumulating growth called cash value. Universal life insurance coverage is characterized by its flexible premiums, flexible face amounts, and unbundled pricing factors. Variable life insurance is a form of whole life insurance under which the death benefit and the cash value of the policy vary according to the investment performance of separate account investment options.
Term Insurance is a life insurance under which the death benefit is payable only if the insured dies during a specified period. Listed below are various types of term insurance. Term life insurance is the most affordable kind of life insurance available. It is designed to meet temporary life insurance needs; providing protection for a specified time period, the term which for example, is a term of 10, 20 or 30 years. This kind of life insurance makes sense if you have financial needs that will diminish as time passes, such as a home loan or a child’s tuition.
There are different types of term life insurance. One is level term which is a fixed amount of coverage with premiums that are set over a certain period of time, usually in 10-year increments. Second is increasing/decreasing term wherein the amount of coverage increases or decreases throughout the term, premiums typically remains level. Third is renewable term which includes a renewal provision that gives the policy owner the right to renew the insurance plan at the end of the specified term without submitting proof of insurability. Fourth is convertible term that gives the policyholder the right to convert the term policy to a permanent policy. Last one is group term insurance bought typically by an employer or professional organization that is intended to cover several people, usually leading to reduced premiums.
Term Life Insurance is the most preferred form of Life Insurance today which gives protection for a certain number of years. After all, that is what insurance is for: Protection for yourself and your family.
Michigan has the fourth least competitive health insurance market in the country, meaning consumers and employers have fewer choices for health insurance than in most other states, according to a report by the American Medical Association.
Only Alabama, Alaska and Delaware had worse markets for health insurance competition, according to the report that used 2009 enrollment in health maintenance organizations and preferred provider organizations from 368 metropolitan areas and 48 states to come up with its findings.
In Michigan, the nonprofit Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan — the state's insurer of last resort — controls 71 percent of the state's commercial health insurance market, the association found.
The Blues control two-thirds or more of the commercial health insurance market in 13 of 15 metro areas surveyed across the state. In the Jackson area, the Blues had an 85 percent market share, marking the state's least competitive health insurance market, the report said.
In the Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn area, the Blues have a 55 percent market share, followed by Detroit-based Health Alliance Plan with 26 percent. The Blues have a 69 percent market share in the Warren-Farmington Hills-Troy area, while HAP has a 16 percent share there.
Blues spokeswoman Helen Stojic, however, cited two studies that point to a competitive insurance environment in Michigan.
A September 2009 report from the White House found Michigan's employer-sponsored insurance coverage for families had the lowest premium increases in the nation at 88 percent over a 10-year period.
A May 2010 report by Ken Ross, former Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation commissioner, found that while the Blues is the dominant carrier in the small employer market, there is a "reasonable degree of competition" in that market statewide and the Blues' size hasn't prevented other insurers from entering the market.
A June report from current OFIR Commissioner R. Kevin Clinton essentially came to the same conclusion.
But the Michigan Association of Health Plans, which represents 17 health plans with 2.1 million members, argues that the size of the Blues needs to be looked at during the review of the Blues' 31-year-old statute by the Snyder administration and Legislature.
Last month, Gov. Rick Snyder called for a "fresh look" at Blue Cross' unique legal and regulatory requirements to encourage competition, lower rates and provide access to high-quality care.
Nationally, the medical association found four of five metro areas have an anti-competitive commercial health insurance market.
"Our new report is intended to help regulators, lawmakers, researchers and policymakers identify markets where mergers among health insurers may cause competitive harm to patients, physicians and employers," Dr. Peter W. Carmel, American Medical Association president, said in a statement.
Selective Insurance Group (SIGI) announced its quarterly results on Wednesday. The company reported ($0.34) earnings per share for the quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate of ($0.45) by $0.11. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 1.1% on a year-over-year basis.
On a related note, analysts at Piper Jaffray (NYSE: PJC) cut their price target on shares of Selective Insurance Group to $16.00 in a research note to investors on Tuesday, October 11st. Analysts at Zacks Investment Research downgraded shares of Selective Insurance Group from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating in a research note to investors on Tuesday, October 11st. Also, analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch upgraded shares of Selective Insurance Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note to investors on Friday, October 7th.
Shares of Selective Insurance Group (SIGI) traded up 3.15% during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $15.74. Selective Insurance Group (SIGI) has a 52 week low of $12.34 and a 52 week high of $18.97. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $13.72 and its 200-day moving average is $15.58. The company has a market cap of $852.5 million and a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.97.
Selective Insurance Group, Inc. is a holding company of seven insurance subsidiaries. The Company, through its subsidiaries, offers property and casualty insurance products and services in the East and Midwest of the United States. The Company operates through two segments: Insurance Operations, which sells property and casualty insurance policies and products, and Investment Operations, which invests the premiums collected by the Insurance Operations. During the year ended December 31, 2009, the Company realigned its federal flood insurance administrative services (Flood) business into Insurance Operations. In addition, in 2009, the Company disposed of Selective HR, which comprised its HR Outsourcing segment
Pastoralists whose herds have been decimated by drought receive first payments under innovative new scheme
About 650 herders in the vast arid area of Marsabit in northern Kenya last week received the first insurance payouts from an unusual project designed to cushion the impact of drought on pastoralists.
Payouts have averaged 3,000 Kenyan shillings (£18), with a maximum of 37,000 Ksh. Developed by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi and US universities – and backed by USAid, the Department for International Development and the World Bank – the scheme was launched last year in Marsabit, where pastoralists keep 86,000 cattle and 2m goats and sheep. The livestock generate millions of dollars in milk and other products, and serve as the main source of sustenance and income. But ILRI estimates that up to one-third of all livestock in the region have perished during the current drought, which has left 12 million people in need of help.
In east Africa, an estimated 70 million people live in the drylands, many of them herders. In Kenya, the pastoral livestock sector is estimated to be worth $800m, while regional authorities estimate that more than 90% of the meat consumed in east Africa comes from pastoral herds.
Under the scheme, payouts are triggered when satellite images show that grazing lands in the region have deteriorated to the point where herders are expected to lose more than 15% of their herd (with the 15% threshold acting as a sort of deductible). Using satellites to track forage cover – rather than the number of dead animals – circumvents claims being made for animals that have died of disease or neglect rather than drought. Previously, insuring livestock for pastoralists has proved near impossible due to the difficulty of verifying the death of animals over a wide and remote area.
So far, the livestock mortality index at the heart of the programme appears to be working. The fatality rate predicted by the satellite assessments of forage loss chimes very closely with surveys of animal deaths on the ground.
To build the insurance model, ILRI researchers used the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index, a global database updated by Nasa, and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to collect satellite images of plant growth in Marsabit since 1981. The information was combined with data on livestock deaths in Marsabit since 2000 to produce a programme that could reliably predict when a reduction in grazing will lead to animal deaths.
So, for example, a cattle herder in an area with a livestock mortality rate of 33% receives a payout covering 18% of his or her animals. With cattle valued at about 15,000 Ksh a head, an insurance policy covering 10 animals, or 150,000 Ksh in cattle, would pay out at about 27,000 Ksh. To date, the policies cover about 1,100 animals – mostly cattle, but also some goats and sheep, and a few camels.
There are two potential payouts each year. They are based on satellite images at the end of the long dry season in September and the short dry season in February. The payments last week – to farmers who had lost up to a third of their herds – were the first under the scheme.
Andrew Mude, the index based livestock insurance project leader at ILRI, said the 15% threshold for livestock losses was the result of discussions between ILRI researchers and two local firms, Equity Bank and UAP Insurance. A threshold below 15% would have made the premium too expensive for herders. On average, herders paid a premium of 1,150 Ksh, with a maximum of 12,000 Ksh and a minimum of 195 Ksh for the annual policy.
Mude acknowledges that insurance by itself is not sufficient, but must be accompanied by other measures such as better access to grazing lands and watering areas.
"Then the pastoralist approach, which some people dismiss as a backward lifestyle of the past, emerges as a very effective way to meet future food needs," he says.
Mude also calls the insurance scheme a work in progress; herders insisted on cash rather than livestock as payment, and the manner in which they spend it will be monitored.
"How will they use these funds?" asks Mude. "Spend on livestock, diversify or squander it?"
Mude said policy governments and donors will later have to decide whether to subsidise herders to buy insurance or stick to current schemes for helping pastoralists, which involve cash payments or food aid.
Jeremy Lind, a research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex, says a two-track approach was needed to deal with shocks such as the drought: insurance for those with assets such as livestock, and social protection and livelihood-building programmes for the poorest groups, who lack assets.
"Where the two – social protection and insurance – might meet is in terms of more appropriate aid responses to problems of vulnerability and weakened livelihoods in pastoral areas," says Lind. "Rather than blanket food distributions following droughts [which tended to be the response to drought crises in the past], this two-track approach – providing direct support or public works payments (social protection) to the poorest, and insurance for those who have lost livestock during a drought – is a more appropriate way of responding to different types of vulnerability within pastoral societies."
A man who is wanted in Britain for allegedly faking his own death and collecting £1.25m in insurance payouts has been found living in Sydney with his four children.
Alfredo Sanchez was accused of massive fraud after police claimed to have found his own fingerprints on his death certificate after he was supposedly cremated.
Since his purported death, British police had been unable to find him, although they suspected that the Sanchez family was living somewhere in Australia.
His wife, Sophie Sanchez, who helped him plan the fraud to pay off the couple's huge credit card debts, was arrested last year at Heathrow when she visited the UK to attend her sister's wedding. She pleaded guilty to the scam and is now serving two years in jail.
But Mr Sanchez, who now goes by the name Hugo, has denied he is the wanted man and said he had "no knowledge" that police in Britain were looking for him.
Speaking to the Sydney Daily Telegraph, which tracked him down to a hair salon in the city's southern suburb of Hurstville, Mr Sanchez said he was "innocent until proven guilty."
He denied his wife was in jail, saying she was staying with relatives in Britain, and said his name was Hugo and "it's always been Hugo."
"I don't deny anything and I don't accept anything," he said.
"My wife is not in jail. It's all lies it's not true."
After speaking to the newspaper, Ecuadorean-born Mr Sanchez was spotted leaving his house with his children and a number of suitcases.
Mr Sanchez, 47, came to the attention of police after a staff card from music shop HMV, where he used to work, was used several times following his death.
When they started to investigate, Mrs Sanchez told authorities that her husband had died while on holiday in Ecuador in January 2005 and that his body was cremated two days later.
But while examining his death certificate, officers allegedly found Mr Sanchez's own fingerprints, leading them to believe he was still alive.
At the trial of Mrs Sanchez, a London court was told that the couple, from Surrey, got into serious financial difficulties after they opened seven credit accounts and took out several loans. At one point they moved to South America, taking out a loan for £65,000. But they were soon back in the UK.
Mr Sanchez also took out a £500,000 life insurance policy, which his wife claimed on as soon as she got his death certificate.
But far from being dead, it has been alleged that Mr Sanchez was in Australia, getting his Ecuadorean passport renewed and opening a tattoo parlour in Sydney.
Australian police would not comment on the case, saying it was a matter for UK authorities and that they would "act appropriately in response to any lawful process initiated by overseas law enforcement authorities."
