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If you are a wage earner and someone depends on you, life insurance is a vehicle to protect the financial well being of that individual.
During your lifetime you have certain financial goals. Life insurance is a way to achieve those goals for those you leave behind.
If you are in debt, life insurance is used to protect the person you are indebted to.
If you are a key person in a company, your loss could mean a real financial loss to that company. Life insurance insures that potential loss.
If you are a partner in a business, if you were to die, life insurance allows the partner to buy your share of the business from your heirs.
Life insurance could help pay estate taxes.
If you have a favorite charity, life insurance can help you give to that charity after you are gone.

How much Insurance should I have?
A simple formula that works is between 5 and 10 times your income. If you can afford 10 times, in our opinion, that is what you should have. If it is needed to protect your business, key person, or buy/sell agreements, then your accountant should be able to tell you.

What kind of Life Insurance should I buy?
Probably term, maybe some permanent. There are three factors to consider when purchasing life insurance: the amount purchased, the length of time needed for the coverage and affordability. The most important factor is the amount purchased. You should have the maximum coverage that is needed for protection. If you have less than is needed, when you die, whoever you are trying to protect will suffer a hardship.

What is a PPO?
A PPO is a Preferred Provider Organization. As a member of a PPO, you can use the doctors and hospitals within the PPO network or go outside of the network for care. You do not need a referral to see a specialist.

What is an HMO?
An HMO is a Health Maintenance Organization. As a member of an HMO, you select a primary care physician from a list of doctors in that HMO's network. Your primary care physician will be the first medical provider you call or see for a medical condition. He or she will make any needed referrals to a medical specialist. Typically, these specialists will be part of the HMO network.

What is a POS?
POS is a Point-of-Service Plan. POS is a type of managed care plan combining features of health maintenance organizations (HMO's) and preferred provider organizations (PPO's). You can decide whether to go to a network provider and pay a flat dollar or to an out-of-network provider and pay a deductible and/or a coinsurance charge.

What are out-of-pocket expenses?
Out-of-pocket expenses include your annual deductible, coinsurance amounts, and any expense deemed not to be "reasonable and customary".

What are preexisting conditions?
Preexisting conditions are conditions that are excluded from coverage under a health insurance policy. Examples are endless, but include things like knee injuries, back injuries, heart ailments, etc. Back To Top

Dental Insurance

What are Dental PPO, POS, and DHMO?
A Dental PPO (Preferred Provider Organization) provides dental care to its members through a network of dentists who offer discounted fees to its plan members. You can typically use dentists out of the PPO's network, but you will only be reimbursed the discounted fee for the services rendered - you will need to pay any additional amount yourself.

A DHMO (Dental Health Maintenance Organization) provides you dental services through a network of providers in exchange for some form of prepayment. If you use a dentist out of the established network of providers, you may be responsible for paying the entire bill.

A Dental POS (Point of Service) plan allows a member to use either a DHMO network dentist or to seek care from a dentist not in the HMO network. Members choose in-network care or out-of-network care at the time they make their dental appointment and usually incur higher out-of-pocket costs for out-of-network care.

What are Indemnity Plan?
An indemnity plan is commonly known as a fee for service or traditional plan. If you select an Indemnity plan you have the freedom to visit any dentist. You do not need referrals or authorizations; however, some plans may require you to pre-certify for certain procedures. Most indemnity plans require you to pay a deductible. After you have paid your deductible, indemnity policies typically pay a percentage of "usual and customary" charges for covered services. Many dental indemnity plans also require a waiting period before covering certain services.

What is a deductible?
A deductible is the amount of annual dental expenses that a dental plan member must pay before the plan will begin to cover expenses. For example, if your plan has a $50 deductible, you will pay the first $50 of your dental expenses before your dental plan begins paying the expenses. Only expenses for covered services apply towards the deductible. For example, if you paid $1,000 for orthodontic work that was not an expense covered by the plan, then the $1,000 will not apply toward your annual deductible. Back To Top

Long Term Care Insurance

What is long term care?
Long term care is the kind of care that you would need to help you perform daily activities if you had an ongoing illness or disability. It also includes the kind of care you would need if you had a severe cognitive illness like Alzheimer's disease or severe dementia. It is help with all the day to day things that could become difficult to do without assistance, such as eating, bathing, dressing, toileting, etc. This type of care isn't provided in a hospital they only provide acute care. It is chronic care that you might need for the rest of your life.

Is long term care expensive?
Yes, long term care can be very costly. It can easily deplete a persons savings, which is the major reason why people decide on long term care insurance you might decide to buy long term care insurance.

Won't my current health plan cover my long term care, if needed?
No, in most cases it does not. Health plans may cover some of the skilled medical services you may need when you cannot care for yourself after an illness or injury, but usually for a limited period and only as long as you are showing improvement. Health plans typically don't cover ongoing chronic care.

But won't Medicare cover long term care?
No, in most cases it will not. Medicare, which is primarily for those 65 and over, generally pays limited amounts for skilled care following a hospital stay. It does not cover custodial care which assists people with the activities of daily living over a long period of time - usually 90 days or more. In fact, the majority of people requiring long term care need custodial care. Medicare will cover the first 100 days of care in a nursing home if: A) you are receiving skilled care, and B) you have a qualifying hospital stay of at least 3 days and enter the nursing home within 30 days of that hospital discharge. There are also some deductibles and co-pays. Back To Top

Auto Insurance

Why must I list all household members, when they do not drive my car?
Household residents that do not need to be included are non-family household residents who do not drive the vehicle.

What is your definition of an accident?
Accidents include at fault, not at fault, reported and unreported collisions that you as the driver were involved in. Not at fault occurrences where your parked vehicle was damaged in a collision are also considered accidents.

What do I do if I have an auto accident?
When you are in an accident. There are 4 steps to take: First, notify the police. Second, exchange information with the other driver(s) involved in the accident. Third, contact your insurance company as soon as you possibly can. Fourth, do all of the required steps your insurance company asks you to do. For more information about filing a car insurance claim, see our auto resources section.

How can I lower my car insurance premium?
There are a number of things you can do to lower your car insurance. They include, shopping around, asking for discounts on your current policy, holding multiple insurance policies with the same carrier, and raising your deductible. If you would like to get competitive quotes on your auto insurance use our auto insurance quote page. Back To Top

Homeowners Insurance

What does homeowners insurance cover?
Homeowners insurance provides protection for your home, personal property such as furniture, clothing, appliances as well as personal liability. It protects you from a variety of events: a fire, explosions, lightning, vandalism, burglary, storms, and more.

What's the right amount of insurance for my home?
Your coverage should match the value of your home. Homeowners insurance can not cover the land your home is on, only the structure. That means that the insurance amount could be less than the purchase price or loan amount.

What is replacement coverage?
Replacement coverage is in the event of a loss, the insurance company will pay what it costs to replace the property at the current market prices.

Does my homeowners insurance cover my personal property?
It will also cover the personal property you own as well as the structure. Your clothing, furniture, appliances, and other belongings will usually be insured up to a maximum amount.

What about special items such as artwork, jewelry, etc.?
A homeowners insurance policy will frequently limit coverage on some special items artwork, jewelry, coin collections, etc. Homeowners who need additional coverage for these types of items may purchase additional coverage.

What about flood insurance?
If your property is officially designated as being in a special flood hazard area, you must obtain flood insurance. While the federal government provides most flood protection, you are responsible for applying and obtaining this coverage. It's important to know that flood insurance is not included in a standard homeowners policy. Even if your home is not in a special flood hazard area, you may wish to consider whether you need flood insurance. Back To Top

Disability Insurance

What is disability income protection insurance?
How long do you think you would be able to maintain your present living standards without any income? For just about everyone who works for a living, a sudden loss of income would mean financial stress, and even financial disaster.

Disability income protection is designed to replace the income lost as a result of disability from illness or accident by protecting your earnings and your earning potential - perhaps your most valuable asset.

Why should you take out disability income protection insurance?
To guarantee income continually in the event of sickness or accident.
To avoid a company having to fund the continuing salary for a disabled employee longer than may be otherwise desirable.
To pay the expenses of the business which would continue to be payable in the event of a principal owners disability.

What Are Your Chances For Long-term Income Loss?
Unfortunately anyone can get sick or have an accident. Life is unpredictable, but it does allow preparedness. Today now more than ever, lives are saved from premature death caused by accidents or sickness. This causes an increase number of survivors that live on, but with impairments or limitations that mean they can't perform the major duties of their own occupation. In short, they lose their current income, but not their life.

Your Personal Savings May Not Be Enough:
If you're like most people, you have maybe two months income as savings in the bank as a protection against emergencies. Yet the average long-term loss of income due to disability is 5 1/2 years. Even if you save ten percent of your income for ten years, it may take only one year of mortgage payments and meeting other bills to deplete your savings completely. What would you live on for up to 5 1/2 years? Today, your income is doing a double job for you. It provides for today's necessities and helps you save for tomorrow's hopes! Back To Top

Annuity

What is an annuity?
An annuity is an interest-bearing contract between you and an insurance company in which your money accumulates and compounds, free of current income tax. This tax deferral feature can make annuities an ideal choice for retirement savings. Because you pay no taxes on your accumulated earnings until you actually take money out, your money can grow as much as 30% to 40% faster in an annuity than in a taxable investment earning the same rate of return. There are essentially three types of annuities: fixed, variable and immediate.

What is a fixed annuity?
A fixed annuity combines two of the most important features of a sound retirement plan -- security and predictability -- with the wealth-building power of tax-deferred compounding.

Some of the important features of a fixed annuity are:

Tax-deferred compounding of your interest earnings
Virtually no limit to the amount you can apply toward your purchase payment
Access to your funds should you need them
Competitive yields

What is a variable annuity?
A variable annuity allows you to maximize the growth opportunities of stocks, bonds and other securities by deferring any taxation of your potential gains. With a variable annuity, the insurance company offers you a range of portfolios, called sub accounts, which may vary from conservative to aggressive in their investment management style. Often there is also a fixed account option. The fixed account is part of the insurance company's general account. The sub accounts allow you to allocate your investment dollars among an array of portfolios that invest in U.S. and international stocks, bonds and other securities to help you create a portfolio that closely matches your tolerance for risk vs. reward.

Can I transfer my IRA, 401(k), Keogh, corporate pension or profit-sharing plans to an annuity?
Yes. Annuities are ideal for consolidating different retirement plans for simplified administration and easy tracking. You can roll your pension/retirement funds into an annuity without any federal income tax penalty, as long as you follow a few simple rules. At Annuity, we help policyholders with the transfer/rollover paperwork all the time, so feel free to ask for our help. Of course, you should always consult with your tax advisor about your particular situation.

What are the benefits of using an annuity in a retirement plan (like an IRA) that is already tax-deferred?
You could easily outlive and deplete the entire value of an IRA. Only an annuity can guarantee an income for life, regardless of how long you live. An annuity can even pay a guaranteed income to you and a survivor, such as your spouse, for both of your lifetimes. Not only does this option provide lifetime security, it can automatically satisfy minimum required distributions after reaching age 70½.

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