How Many New Cell Phones Have You Had Since You Last Updated Your Life Insurance Policy?

All of us who are old enough to remember the days before cell phones, will probably agree that how they have evolved over that time is nothing short of miraculous.  If I showed a person from 1982 what I can now do with my phone, they would think I was a magician.  Think back to the early days of cell phones when they were huge, clunky, expensive devices that could really only accomplish one task – making a phone call.  Similarly, the lowly life insurance policy has been evolving on an equally dynamic path, however fewer people have taken notice of these changes.  And as you read on, you will see that it has been in the best interest of the life insurance industry not to tell you quite as much about these changes.   But there is no doubt about it, if you have an old life insurance policy, and if you are also healthy, then you might benefit greatly from an upgrade.

One of the biggest revolutions in the life insurance industry began in the early 1980’s, with a brand new product called Universal Life Insurance.  Universal life policies had an advantage over traditional cash value policies in that they were much more flexible.  For instance, with a universal life policy you could allow the cash value build up to take the place of the death benefit or you could even let it pay your premiums for you for a while if you had enough cash value in your policy.   The next evolution of this tool allowed for the cash value to be invested in funds that mirrored the stock market, generating huge returns in bull markets but of course creating problems for policy holders in bear markets.

If you have a cash value life insurance policy in force, whether it is fully paid up or even if you are still paying premiums each month, please read on, this article could make you a lot of money.   Let’s take a look at some of the issues that make a switch to a more modern policy an important issue for you to consider.

A good place to begin would be with mortality tables.  These are tables which attempt to predict how long the average person will live given their current age. These tables are used to develop the rate you will pay for your life insurance protection. Now, when you purchased your cash value life insurance policy, it is more than probable that your insurance company calculated the premium that they charge you each month using mortality tables that are now out of date.   People are living longer now than they were just a few years ago and longer lifespans will generate lower life insurance rates.  But if your policy is locked in to an old mortality table, then you paying rates that anticipate that you will live a shorter lifespan than now may be the case. If you were to replace that policy with one just like it that used more modern mortality tables then you should see a reduction in your cost of life insurance even though you are older now.

Administrative costs – People who own cash value life insurance policies that are 15 years old or older may be paying for clerical workers who have long since been sent home.  Let me explain.  Older life insurance policies have built in administrative costs to cover the clerical costs of maintaining those policies.   You see, back then life insurance companies, which were very slow to automate operations and embrace computer technology, had not automated a number of their clerical functions, even simple ones like adjusting the growth or interest on the cash value of your account.  Using hundreds and even thousands of clerical persons to handle this was very expensive.  With all of those clerical employees they had to rent office space and maintain premises as well as offer benefit programs to keep these employees.  Most of that is all gone now and computers have taken on these tasks.  But, if you have an older policy, those expenses are still built into your rates and you are now paying for ghost employees and empty office buildings. And these expenses are pure profit to your life insurance company.  I hope your life insurance company is sending you a nice gift each Christmas because they have to love you for hanging on to that expensive policy which has huge profits built into it for them.   A new policy will save you from this expense.

Indexing – the new way to grow your money.  Most of the older, cash value life insurance policies have very rigid investment plan that severely limit how your money can grow.  Indexing, in the context of life insurance, refers to a technique where your money is invested in very safe, low yielding investments for the most part, while the insurance company purchases options on stock market indexes with a small portion of your funds.  When the stock market goes up, they can convert these and capture a nice percentage of the stock market gains.  What this means for you in general terms is that your cash value can now earn a large percentage of any stock market gains while avoiding any losses when the market goes down. When it comes to long term investments like the cash value in your life insurance policy, avoiding losses is often more important to long term success than capturing gains.  Indexing is a powerful tool that can help you end up with a lot more money in the long term inside your life policy.

Long Term Care – some cash value life insurance policies can now allow you to use a portion or even all of your life insurance death benefit before you die to use on long term care for yourself as you age and become unable to care for yourself.  This is a powerful feature because it does not require you to move to a long term care facility to collect the funds.  You can use your life insurance death benefit before you die to help allow you to continue to live in your own home and hire care givers to help you stay there as long as you are comfortable with that.  When you need to move to a long term care facility you can use the money for that as well.  Most long term care policies are not this flexible and besides, their cost is very high.  Here you are just using your death benefit as a living benefit for yourself.

Retirement Distribution Option – this new feature is found on fewer new policies but is catching on and may soon be very much more common.  Some of these new cash value life insurance policies let you to create a bucket where you can dump in money for your retirement, either from a 401k or from non tax deferred funds, for instance if you sell your home or inherit money.  Either way, the advantage is that you will be able to create a lifetime income that you can’t outlive.  This means that as long as you are alive you will receive monthly payments no matter how much that adds up to over your life time.  And the real power of this bucket is that you will be able to generate a much higher monthly dollar amount than any other method of distribution will allow.  This could make a big difference in your retirement lifestyle.

Clinard Insurance Group, located in lovely Winston Salem NC is dedicated to helping all insurance buyers become better informed consumers.  We insure thousands of families all across North Carolina.  If you would like help with your home insurance, your auto insurance, your life insurance or even your business insurance, please call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557.

Your Life Insurance Premiums – Are You Paying The Salaries of Workers Who Have Already Been Fired?

Most people who are still paying premiums on older life insurance policies are paying for long gone data entry workers. When I first entered the insurance business, back in the early 80’s, one of the truths that was preached by the older guys was that everyone should purchase as much life insurance as they can afford and do it as soon as possible and then plan to hang on to that policy for the life. The reasons were that you never know when you might die or get sick and become uninsurable of course, but the other reason was because life insurance rates were always going to be more expensive the older you got. This makes good sense, even now, I mean the older you get the more likely you are to die.

But a strange thing occurred in the life insurance industry over the past 30 years that no one ever considered back then. It turns out, that for most people who are in good health; life insurance rates may actually be going down as they get older. Now this seems counterintuitive but there are a couple of reasons for this. I’ll explain them for you

Life insurance rates are driven by lots of things but mostly there are two important factors. The two things that have a huge impact on life insurance rates and which have changed dramatically in the recent past are mortality tables and the expected expenses in the policy. Let’s take a quick look at each of these and how changes in them might now represent a huge opportunity for you save some money on your current life insurance policies.

Life expectancy has been increasing steadily with improving safety, medical technology and patient care and preventative medicine. As this changes, we see corresponding changes in the mortality tables that used to calculate the rates on life insurance policies. But remember, since a life insurance contract by nature is a long term contract, all the calculations have to be done at the beginning of the policy and these remain unchanged over the life of that policy. So, if 15 years ago your life expectancy was 2 years less than it is today, this means that your 15 year old life insurance policy rates are based on old data. A similar new life insurance policy, with rates based on an updated mortality table, would likely cost you less money each year for the same or better protection.

Now let’s look at how technology changes life insurance rates. Thirty years ago, when I first got into the insurance business, life insurance companies employed vast numbers of data entry clerical staff to make calculations and updates on life policies regarding their cash values, surrender values and other features that change over time. Today, those same calculations are done in seconds by computers. Close your eyes for a moment and just envision floor after floor of empty desks and cubicles in the buildings of these large life insurance companies. Yeah, those workers are gone and have been gone for nearly a decade but you are still paying for them. Remember who earlier I explained that life insurance contracts, because of their long term nature, have to include all of the expected expenses from the beginning for the life of the policy. The longer you hang on to these older policies, the more money the life insurance company makes and the more you spend over and above what you might need to spend on a newer, more modern life insurance contract. Makes no sense for you to continue to do this does it?

So what do I see from day to day from my vantage point in this business? Well, usually, people in good health who come to us and want us to update their older life insurance policies end up with several options, all of which are good. In most cases they can reduce or eliminate their life insurance premiums, or keep on paying the same premium but let their new policy build up a much larger cash value. Also, in most cases they can add a long term care rider to a new life insurance policy for free.

The take away message here for you is that if you have a life insurance policy that is 10 or more years old, you really should take 5 minutes of your time and give us a call and let us take a look at your situation. It is unusual when we are unable to provide better coverage at a lower cost. I know that messing with life insurance is boring and paperwork seems like a hassle, but the next time you worry about how much of your money is burning away with these increasing gas prices, I want you to remember this easy way to perhaps put some money back in your pocket. For more help with your life insurance needs, please call Clinard Insurance Group, toll free, at 877-687-7557. Or you can visit us on the web at www.ClinardInsurance.com. We will be more than happy to help you figure out if you are still paying the salaries of workers who were fired years ago.

You Just Erased Your Memory Card – Relax, All Is Not Lost

Uh Oh, I just accidentally erased my photos on my memory card. I had this experience recently and I want you to know that you can probably still recover your photos. In my case my wife and I had driven over to my daughter’s friend’s house where 7 teenage couples were gathered in full evening dress for their prom. An entire row of parents stood in front of the kids for 15 minutes cameras clicking and flashes going off. If you have had teenagers you probably know the ritual. So wiping out these photos is pretty bad. You’re not going to get those teenage boys to dress up in suits and stand in front of the camera again for you. But if you know what to do and in the right order, you can usually recover your lost photos.

A week or so later my came to me distraught that she had accidentally erased all the photos on her camera memory card, including these precious prom photos. I searched the internet and found to my surprise that these photos were not lost forever.

To understand why you just need to understand how the memory space on these cards works. Generally, when you delete a photo or file from a memory card, the space is made available for another photo or file to be stored there. But, until you take more photos to cover over this space, you can still recover those deleted files and photos. To do so, you will need to purchase a software program on the internet and download it to your computer. There are many services out there and below I have listed some web sites that I found that sell these programs. The one I used was Card Recovery which is the first on this list but you may find one that does the job better and is cheaper. In our case we saved the prom photos and since that time my daughter has made the same mistake with her camera memory card and she was astonished that Dad could miraculously save the day for her. It’s good to be the hero every now and again, especially with teenagers.

Here are a few sites that can help you recover erased files from a memory disk.

www.CardRecovery.com
www.pctools.com
http://www.powerdatarecovery.com

At Clinard insurance we love to help make our client heroes and this is why we offer this type of information. You can find our full lifestyle tips and tricks blog online at http://www.clinardinsurance.com/lifestyle/tabid/32965/default.aspx . If you would like any help at all with your insurance policies, please call us toll free at 877-687-7557 or visit us on the web at http://www.ClinardInsurance.com. We can give you expert help with your home insurance, your auto insurance, your life insurance or even you business insurance coverage. Whether you are a small contractor or a used car dealer or a auto repair shop owner or vitually any other business, you can find the help you need at Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, North Carolina.
The source information for this article was pulled from the Clinard Insurance Group tips and tricks blog.

Coupon Clipping Is Going High Tech, Forget About Scissors

With the recession in full swing, most of us are looking for ways to save a little money. And one of the old tried and true methods, coupons, is getting a real makeover.

These days you can scour the internet for coupons before you go shopping and print them out on your printer, or better yet, have them added to your grocery store shopping card or your smart phone.

Currently online coupons account for 1% of all coupons offered nationwide, but their use is growing at an astronomical rate. Manufacturers love them because they have a 13% redemption rate compared to just 1% for printed coupons. And now large grocery chains are getting in on the act. In January, Kroger announced that it would be rolling its free text messaging coupon program out nationally. Each Sunday, members enrolled in this program can view coupons on their phone and click on the ones that they want added to their Kroger loyalty card. When they purchase the product in the coupon, the register automatically applies the coupon to that sale.

If you still like to put your hands on the coupons, try www.coupons.com, a site that lets you print out online coupons from large food manufacturers and national grocery chains. Last year people printed coupons worth over $300 million from this site alone.

Word to the wise. Coupon deals have got chintzier over the past several decades. In 1990 the average expiration date on coupons was 4.9 months, while the average now is only 2.5 months. Also, in 1995 only 13% of coupons required shoppers to purchase two or more items while in 2008 that number jumped up to 27%.

Check with your local grocery store chain to see what types of paperless coupon options they are offering. You just might find an easy way to get your piece of that $300 million pie.

At Clinard Insurance Group in Winston Salem, NC, we want to help our clients and others as much as possible. If you would like help with your insurance policies, please give us a call, toll free at 877-687-7557 or visit us on the web at www.clinardinsurance.com. We specialize in personalized insurance programs for your auto insurance, home insurance, life insurance as well as business insurance for used car dealers, garage and repair shops, small contractors and other small businesses. We’d love to help you, please give us a call.


The source information for this article was pulled from the Clinard Insurance Group tips and tricks blog.