Thursday, July 11, 2013

3 Ways Your Life Insurance Company Is Scamming You

Although it makes sense to get in touch with a life insurance company to cover your dependents in the eventuality of your untimely death, there are integrity issues surrounding the insurance companies and agents. Broadly there can be 3 ways your life insurance company is scamming you. We have enlisted them for your benefit.


Selling Coverage that you don’t need!
The insurance companies thrive on the fact that most people don’t understand their life insurance needs. With standard products, they try to sell you coverage that you might not need, but, which are lucrative for them. The insurance agents expedite the process so that you skip the fine print and sign up for a coverage that is ill-suited to your needs. The trick is to play on your fear factor and sell you heavy insurance, even if you don’t have dependents.


Coaxing you to pay ‘Cash’
We strongly suggest, do not pay your premium through cash to an agent. Further, do ensure that you get a receipt for the payment. There are numerous fraudulent entities posing as genuine insurance agencies that extract hard cash from you in lieu of insurance premium. They ask you to sign at blank spaces in a form, assuring you that it is just a formality. Once you have fallen for their trick, you are left without an insurance coverage. The worst part is that most victims only come to know of this scam, when they have met with some mishap and there is not insurance to cover them.


Luring you with benefits!
Insurance agencies and agents have a way of promising you unbelievable benefits out a life insurance policy. Life insurance agents might offer you plans, with a guarantee that the policy would run premium-free for a specific period. Some agents play it smart and offer you great discounts for signing you up for a new policy, while replacing an old policy. The trick is that the old coverage gets terminated and new coverage does not get initiated due to the cumbersome procedural bottlenecks. Thus, exposing you to risk without cover. 5 Basic Facts About Health Insurance Policies In A Bad Economy

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

According to a FDIC report, 478 banks have failed since 2007. In 2012 there were 51 USA bank failures (actual count was 50). 45 of those banks had less than $500MM in assets and 50% of them were located in three states, i.e. GA, FL and IL. 42 of the failed banks had 5 branches or less. In just 4 months of 2013, 10 banks have failed. The economy and real estate meltdown continue to take the blame while lending mediocrity solders on. The other most common and obvious reason attributed to bank failure is severe undercapitalization. True, but that is the last straw! Several months and possibly years before failing, a bank will have gone through lengthy and painful processes dealing with delinquent or bad loans - endless credit meetings, examinations audits, numerous reports, collections, write-offs etc. But what are the underlying causes of capital depletion? Capital depletion is caused by a number of events. Top on the list is poor underwriting and credit administration which lead to bad loans. Bad loans don't pay interest as scheduled. Consequently, interest income decreases as allowances for loan loss increase. Other reasons are credit concentration; aggressive organic growth; loss on investment securities; undue reliance on volatile liability; out-of-territory lending; risky participation, fraud; liquidity failure and sustained losses among others. Let me examine these reasons briefly and hopefully some of you will make genuine attempts to avoid capital erosion of your bank's capital:

Are You Struggling With the Dilemma of Refinancing?

In today's market, it is certainly not uncommon to hear about homes being foreclosed or short-saled. It is an unfortunate situation but in some cases, homeowners can avoid that nightmare by refinancing their home. It is not an easy process or a quick-fix, but there is definite potential. Many folks just aren't sure if refinancing is the best decision for their family's home. Refinancing a mortgage, whether equitable or not, is one of the most important things that some of us will have to do at least once in our lives. It is a demanding task that requires a lot of thinking and presence of mind. Full appraisal for the exterior matters and interior matters is very much essential while refinancing a loan. It is essential for determining the value of any kind of property that you own. There are many licensed appraisers who are very good at this job so it's up to you when it comes to selection. Whenever an appraiser visits a place for evaluation purposes, he or she needs to determine the value of that property as efficiently as possible. Any necessary upgrades or repairs will be taken into consideration. There can be some deficiencies, but in many cases, a negative evaluation from an appraiser can hit you very hard and result in serious consequences.

How to Compute the Loan-To-Value Ratio of Your Property

The computation of loan-to-value ratios is important to banking and finance organizations. Banks rarely lend money that's equal to the amount needed by borrowers to buy real property or construct a house. Most financial institution prefer to give an amount that's equal to or less than 80% of the property's actual value, which is the agreed selling price between buyer and seller, or the recent market value of the property. Even when the loan is way below the required percentage, lenders prefer to use the lowest value between the property value and the purchase price when calculating home loan ratios.