The idea of paying for your insurance by the mile is not new. MileMeter, in Texas, offers pay-as-you-drive (PAYD) rates and California has been using mileage brackets to set insurance rates for years. A new, more precise PAYD system is under discussion in California that would give people who drive less a financial incentive to do keep doing so – and maybe convince people on the fence to find an alternative when possible.

State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner recently issued regulations on what PAYD mileage verification plans could look like. It’s likely that people with PAYD would think twice when getting behind the wheel and combine trips when possible. The Brookings Institution studied PAYD last year and found that driving would drop by eight percent if all U.S. drivers were under a PAYD system. Also, two-thirds of U.S. households would save an average of $270.

MileMeter is looking to expand to California, and MileMeter founder and CEO Chris Gay told the Sacramento Bee that, “Our take is that half the market out there is being overcharged and underserved – and that’s who we aim to address.” The bigger insurance companies are looking into PAYD, but have not yet decided to offer it in California. This is an idea that easy to implement and, in lieu of higher gasoline taxes, could have a dramatic impact.

[Source: green.autoblog.com]

If you are currently looking for a life insurance policy, then you are aware that it plays an important role in our life. You know that you cannot just select any plan that is presented to you by any company or some agent. There is a wide range of selections out there and you must be careful in deciding what to purchase. So to help you find the most affordable and beneficial plan available, below are some guidelines for you to take note of:

* On many occasions you may come across insurance companies that have certain ambiguous criterions that may not be well understood at first. For instance, there could be a distinction made on the basis of how frequently you smoke. On certain occasions, this may just be a formality, but there are several insurance companies that provide higher incentives to people who are not habitual smokers. For such people the life insurance leads are priced at much lower points.

* While deciding upon which life insurance leads are most beneficial, it is important to make sure that your needs are the priority. It would thus, be wise to keep the eyes and ears open and make a choice that would ultimately benefit you and not your insurance agent who earns a commission.

* These are all about mathematics, therefore one needs to be very sharp while calculating which coverage fetches best results. Hidden costs and similar expenses must be carefully and thoroughly understood to derive maximum benefits.

* Every intelligent life insurance policy buyer devotes adequate time on comparing the life insurance quotes available in the market. Comparisons between the various insurance leads provide a better idea to the potential buyer on the prevailing prices in the market and what to expect from the insurance company.

* It is also important to negotiate prices as much possible to make sure that the benefits are high. As most insurance companies aggressively scout for new clients, they will try their best to add you to their client list. Hence, you can be in a win-win situation by pushing for lower life insurance leads.

While it is very important to get affordable plans, one must not compromise the quality of service or the benefits you need to have. You have to be aware of the company’s reputation to ensure that you are dealing with a reliable provider.

Owning a house is a dream for all of us. But a good house is a costly affair these days. Purchasing a house thus requires a lot of borrowed money. If you are a borrower, you need mortgage insurance if your down payment is less than 20% of appraised market value or purchase value of the property you are purchasing. The mortgage insurance does not protect you. It protects your lender from the risk of your defaulting on the payment to him. Mortgage insurance can be availed of from both the government and the private players, government providing mortgage insurance even at less than 3% down payment.

Life insurance on the other hand is an altogether different proposition. A life insurer insures the ‘life’ of a person for a certain length of his life span or even for whole life  and in the unfortunate event of death of the insured, the insurer pays the insured amount (called ‘sum assured’ in insurance parlance) to the nominee or legal heir of the insured. Life insurance premiums are required to be paid at agreed intervals for whole of the period of life risk coverage.

The difference between mortgage insurance and life insurance are given below to give you a better overview of both type of insurances.

1. Mortgage insurance is normally taken by the borrower to protect the lender against any default in payment by him. So it is a case of ‘I pay for insurance to protect you from me.’ Life insurance on the other hand is taken by the ‘insured’ on his own life to protect his own family in the event of his untimely death.
2. Mortgage insurance premium payment can be stopped by the borrower once the loan to value ratio of the property mortgaged hits the 80% mark in case of private mortgage insurance (in case of government mortgage insurance, the premium payment may have to be continued for life of the loan). Premium payment for life insurance product is to be continued for the entire period of insurance coverage.
3. In mortgage insurance three parties are involved, viz, the borrower, the lender and the insurer whereas the life insurance is essentially a contract between the insurer and the insured.
4. Life insurance policy is taken on the life of the insured. The payment by insurer in case of life insurance is almost always substantially more than the total amount of premium paid to the insurer by the insured. In mortgage insurance there is absolutely no refund of premium when the mortgage insurance is terminated.
5. Mortgage insurance premium may or may not be tax deductible, but life insurance premium is almost always tax deductible.

Summary
1. Mortgage insurance is insurance on property purchased by the borrower whereas life insurance is insurance on life of the insurer.
2. Premium for life insurance is to be paid for entire period of policy term, but the mortgage insurance can be terminated after the loan-to-value ratio of the property hits 80% mark.

If you are like most people, you talk about all the things you need to do like get life insurance to protect your loved ones in case of a tragedy, but with a busy life style it is easy to procrastinate. (After all, there is always tomorrow, right?)

The truth of the matter is that you DO need life insurance, and tomorrow may not be soon enough if something horrible happens to you and your loved ones are left without a security blanket (to pay off your real estate investments, mortgage and other liabilities). There are two main types of life insurance, whole life and term life. The less expensive of the two is term life insurance.

Term life insurance is meant to provide insurance for a specified period of time, for example, during the time when the children are still dependent on you. Term life insurance generally the least expensive form of life insurance, term life insurance covers an individual for a nominated period of time (term). If the person insured dies while covered, the designated beneficiaries will collect a death benefit. There are no other associated benefits.

Whole life insurance, or Whole of Life Assurance, refers to a policy that pays a lump sum on death or, in some cases, the earlier diagnosis of a critical illness whenever it occurs provided the contract is kept in force through the required payments being made. Life insurance that remains in force during the insured’s entire lifetime, provided premiums are paid as specified in the policy. Whole life insurance also builds a savings elements: called the cash value as a result of the level premium approach to funding the death benefit.

You will have to talk to a financial advisor to see what life insurance policy will be best for yourself and your family. You can also check out Google News for the latest information about what is happening in the insurance industry.

The basics of insurance are simple – one company offers a guaranteed future payment for a contracted event. The company offering the guarantee charges a premium for insuring against the event’s occurence – in doing so, the insurance company is protecting the client against certain circumstances, say physical capital loss due to a natural disaster. The insurance company assumes all financial responsibility associated with the client’s losses.

Where the business gets complicated is in the calculations of premiums. This involves the use of complex stochastic probabilty models meant to simulate the likelihood of a given event’s occurrence. Not all events are created equal, from an insurance perspective – for some types of insurance a company can accurately predict the probability of occurence (say, automobile insurance, which has such a large sample to study that companies can make accurate predictions and judgments about demographic groups). For events that are harder to predict (say, the future value a Mortgage-Backed Security (MBS)) insurance companies take on greater risk when they issue policies.

The insurance sector itself is segmented into four distinct sub-sectors: Life Insurance, Property & Casualty Insurance, Accident & Health Insurance, and Miscellaneous Insurance.