Picking The Right Insurance Program
Most aspects of capitalism is win-win. If employers make a lot of money from workers due to increase of workers productivity, those employers will hire as many workers as possible — increasing workers’ salary.
Hence, in most aspects of capitalism, people try to profit from others in any way they can.
However, not all aspects are win-win. If same shops sell the same product at a different price, of course, you’ll pick the cheaper package. In this case, picking a package that makes the shop profit more will tend to hurt you.
The same thing works for insurance. A good rule of thumb on whether an insurance package is good for you or not is whether the insurance program makes a lot of money doing it or not.
No, I am not advocating that such huge profit should be prohibited. To the opposite, when an insurance company makes a lot of money, then they’ll invite competitors that’ll shift their profit back to you. Free market is still the best in this area. I am advocating that you don’t buy such insurances.
The same way, I am not advocating that merchants shouldn’t make a lot of money selling their products to you. I am advocating that you should buy from the business providing the best product, and service, at the least costs. That’s how capitalism works.
The following are insurance programs where insurance companies make a lot of money. Hence, avoid these programs like plague.
Flight Insurance
The safest way to travel is by airplane. There is a statistic that says that if you travel by airplane every day for 1000 years, you’ll probably get a plane crash once. Even then, you’ll survive. However, plane incidents are always reported on TV. That causes fear. Humans act based on emotions and feel that flights are much less safe. Not only that, you also have life insurance covering your life.
Mortgage Life Insurance
I have found out that you’re better off buying term life insurance. Again, in general, insurances that are mixed with something else, like mortgage, or savings, are usually bad ideas. The more things are mixed, the more consumers are confused. The more confused the consumer, the more money insurance companies make.
Credit Card Lost Prevention Insurance
By law, your lost is limited to $50. So don’t buy.
Accidental Death Insurance
Stick to regular good old term insurance. The probability that you’ll die due to accident is lower than you think.
Rental Car Insurance
This is also another rip off. Insurance companies make too much from this. Chances are, it’s already covered with your regular car insurance. Think of it this way, you use your car for a whole year. If you rent a car for 1 day, then the probability that you will have a car accident within that 1 day should be around 1/365 of your regular car insurance. However, rental car insurance is sold at much higher price than that.
Children Insurance
“Mommy, our kids are dead, I am so sad. But fortunately, we got them insured. So we got cash.” There are only two ways why you should buy children insurance. First if your child is the bread earner of the family. Second if you plan to hack them into pieces. I’ll explain more why when we understand the true nature of insurance on http://FasterFinancialFreedom.com/art.390.0.html.
Identity Theft Insurance
The hassle of going through claiming the insurance coverage is better spent on checking your free credit report.
Insurance, Risk, and Investments
Every time you put $1 in an insurance, you’ll probably get $.50. The other $.50 goes to the insurance companies and to their seller. Most of the time, the ratio is even higher.
For example, say you buy term insurance for $1 million. Say you paid $2000/year for that kind of insurance. Then I bet, the insurance companies know all along that the probability you’re going to die that year is only 1%. Hence, the insurance companies make $2 for every $1 they pay in claims.
The more complicated the insurance, the larger the ratio. In permanent insurance, for example, insurance companies probably make $5 every $1 they pay.
You can’t win in insurance by buying more insurance. Your true gain doesn’t come from the higher expected value of your return. Your gain comes from increased stability of your business. Say you have a lot of houses that’s all in the bank. Say one of them is on fire. Then a $100,000 lost can cost you way more than $100,000. Perhaps it’ll force you to fire sale your other houses at cheap price. You see how financial instability can knock you out of business? Insurance addresses this.
Also, with insurance, your income from year to year becomes smooth. Women like stable income. IRS are more lenient towards stable income too. You’ll pay less tax if you earn $50,000 per year for 10 consecutive years than if you earn $100,000 per year for 8 years and lost $150,000 per year the next 2 years. The former case will put you on lower income tax bracket and relieve you from paying the tax on the extra $50,000/year that you’re going to lose.
So what are the tips?
Do not over Insure
Remember, the benefit of insurance is stabilizing your income. If you over insure, your income will be instable again because you’ll actually make more money if your house is on fire than if it stays in charge.
Now, some people love to over insure. The only time this can be profitable is if you plan to burn your house. This is illegal, however. Insurance companies understand that those who are over insured are less likely to guard his house well, observe fire codes, and so on. So, they charge much higher premiums.
Keep the Co-payment Threshold High
In many insurances, you pay the first $10,000. The insurance pay in addition to that cost. Say you wreck your car. Say the cost is $5,000. You pay for it. However, if the cost is $100,000, then you pay the $10,000 of the cost, and the insurance pays $90,000.
Why is the co-payment high? First, insurance claiming is not easy. There’s a lot of fraud going on and there’s a lot of administrative processes that need to be done. If the insurance company puts the administrative cost to the claimant, they’ll lose customers.
“Oh I lost my house, but I have to cough up even more money to get money from my insurance.” Only governments can do such cruelty and stay in business.
So what do insurance companies do? They put the administrative cost in the premium.
So the premium becomes high. After all, if your loss is small, why not just pay for it? Saving the lesser premium in investments will be more than enough to pay small losses without losing your financial stability.
It’s also never a good idea to file a claim for small losses. Filing such claims will make insurance companies mark you as a high risk. Hence, they’ll raise the premium even more.
Sell Life Insurance Policy
The problem with term life insurance is you receive it after you’re dead. Well, sometimes you can get your money before you die. That process is called viatical settlement. It’ll only work for those whho are terminally ill. So an investor pays a reduced version of the coverage. After you die, the investor gets the coverage from the insurance company.
Jim Thio is a silver medalist in International Physics Olympiad. He uses his Math skills to provide free financial, business, and marketing advices in http://FasterFinancialFreedom.com/art.390.0.html