Often, when people are told they don’t have to carry their life insurance coverage anymore, they frequently say something like, “But I’ve invested into it all these years. I can’t just remove it. I didn’t have anything out of it yet.”

But the thing is we don’t state this about other insurances.

For instance, you have had this car you were driving ten whole years without a single accident and you sell it. You won’t say, “But I’ve invested into it all these years. I can’t just remove it.” Probably you would even feel kind of relieved that you had ten years without deductibles or dispatches.

Life coverage is different, because we’re all substantially partial to our lives.

It might seem strange, but you don’t buy life coverage to insure your life. It is meant to insure your financial losses that someone would undergo in case your life ends.

Below you have five questions that will help you define if you still need this insurance, what amount of it you might need, what kind of life coverage would be right for you.

Are you in need of life coverage?

Will anyone undergo financial loss if you die? If not, it means you don’t need to insure your life.

A great instance of this would be a superannuated couple with a stable source of pension income from their investments. Their income would go on in the same size, irrelevantly of either spouse’s death.Do you desire life insurance?

Even in case there won’t be essential financial loss undergone after your death, you might just prefer the idea of paying some income now to let your family or a favorite alms benefit after you die. Moreover, life coverage might be a great mode to return a little every month, and leave an essential money amount for charity.

What life coverage amount is right for you?

Think about your condition, and those who will undergo a financial loss in case you were to pass away today. What financial amount would let them to go on without undergoing such a disadvantage? This is the size of life coverage policy you need.

For how long will you need your life coverage?

Will that fiscal disadvantage always be there? Not actually. If you are in your best profitable years, and you are not around, it could be hard for your living spouse to save enough for a convenient pension.

But once superannuated, the family profit should be steady, in case the profit origin does not depend upon life of either. If this is your condition, you are only in need of insurance to cover the breach between present and pension.

What kind of life coverage is right for you?

Will the fiscal disadvantage after your death augment, or decline, with the lapse of time?

When the fiscal disadvantage is restricted to the breach years between present and pension, than the size of the loss declines every year as your pension savings get bigger. For such situation a temporary policy, or term insurance, is great.

But if you possess a prospering small business, your estate can be liable to estate taxes. As your estate’s value increases, the potential tax amenability gets greater. This fiscal disadvantage augments with the lapse time. If this is your situation, you should consider a permanent life insurance, like a universal policy.

Contact Elizabeth Carter, 336.973.5594 or Greg Stikeleather, Broker, 704.880.5247 or email eacarter@charter.net

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You will be surprised how the common and obvious driving distraction can increase your car insurance premiums. Your first accident will raise insurance rates by about 22 while the first ticket will boost them 13% higher. It’s a fact. And most drivers know that the most common reason for having trouble behind the wheel is being distracted.

And what are the most common distractions for a driver?

Eating, talking or using your phone are the most common distraction that take your eyes of the road and lead to crashes or near-miss situations. Most US drivers admit using their cell phones while driving and nearly 20% even manage to write text message while behind the wheel. This leads to the statistics, where about 45% percent of car owners who experienced an accident tell that either of the parties involved was using a cell phone during the crash.

Eating is not as frequently reported to cause an accident as cell phone use, but it definitely distracts the driver from what is going on the road. Some foods are more suitable for on-the-go situations, some are less, and some should be avoided initially:

• Hot drinks such as coffee or tea can spill over you and cause quite unpleasant sensations, which will definitely get you distracted, especially on high speeds.
• Greasy foods can be tasty but they will definitely make a mess out of your steering wheel, making it less comfortable to handle, which can be crucial in risky situations. Chicken wings and barbecue ribs are definitely not the type of food to eat while driving!
• Gooey things like jelly donuts or breakfast burritos can simply ruin your suit when they ooze down from your hands. And it definitely stresses and makes think of things different from what’s happening on the road.

What can you do to keep the distractions down?

First of all, if you want to eat really bad and didn’t resist the temptation of the drive-thru don’t eat on the go. Find a place to pull over and take a snack without driving. It will be also better to get out of the car if you can. If it’s a long drive you’re taking, you will be able to shoot two birds with one stone: eat and walk around a bit. Besides, you will keep your driver’s seat and steering wheel clean if there are any greasy substances.

Don’t use hand held cell phones while driving. Some states have already banned this practice and if you get caught using such a device behind the wheel, you can wave your cheap car insurance goodbye because you’ll get a ticket and your rates will be raised instantly. There are many additional devices for cell phones that allow you to talk without using your hands, and this is quite helpful behind the wheel. Still, the conversation itself could distract you from the traffic and raises your risk of having an accident. So if you want to make sure you’ll keep your cheap car insurance and avoid accidents, just find a place to pull over and take the call there. It may take some time, but it can also save your life.

The majority of policy holders will go through the year without making a claim. It’s possible a major weather disaster could suddenly take out an area, but the actual risks of fires, thefts and accidents around the home are relatively low. Even high-crime areas do not produce excessive numbers of claims. That’s why, when the anticipated cost of all the losses is spread among the policy holders, the premiums are not too high. That said, people find the claims process confusing, so here are some simple steps to keep technical problems to a minimum.

1. If a crime has been involved, notify the police immediately and cooperate with the investigation. Your insurance company will want full details of the investigation so keep good notes of the names and contact information for the officers who deal with it. Notifying the police also reduces the risk in the eyes of the insurer that you are making a fraudulent claim. Liaise with the police to get copies of any witness statements, police reports, fire department reports, and so on. Alternatively, be able to pass all the police or fire department contact details over to the insurer.

2. Never delay notifying the insurance company or your local agent that you have suffered a loss. There are a whole series of processes that have to be set in motion to handle the claim. If the loss is minor, your local agent will usually deal with it directly. Anything more serious will go through the claims office. At the earliest possible opportunity, confirm who will liaise with you and how you contact that person.

3. Depending on the circumstances, it’s possible that emergency repairs are necessary. Most insurance companies operate a list of contractors approved to make these repairs. Many contractors can bill the insurers directly. If emergency repairs are necessary, get the necessary paperwork to authorize the work from the insurer at the earliest opportunity.

4. Document every aspect of the damage to your property or the contents. That means taking photographs or a video, and keeping a diary of all the events so you can write up a full report for the agent or claims adjuster. The key issues are the value of property damaged or lost, and the cost of repairs. Hopefully, you have kept the receipts for all the bigger ticket items to set a baseline value.

5. Deal with the home insurance company in writing as much as possible, keeping copies of letters and e-mails. If you speak to people by telephone, keep records of the date, time, the person you spoke with and a summary of what was said. This will help you if there is a dispute later on in the claims process.

6. Ensure you are present when the agent or claims adjuster comes to inspect your property and point out all the damage. Again, keep notes of what is said.

7. The home insurance company will make an offer of settlement. Take advice on whether the amount offered is fair. If building work is involved, talk to the building contractor. If you think the insurer is trying to take advantage of you in some way, discuss the issue with the insurance department or commissioner for your state.

Often, California has been in the lead when it comes to legislating for fairness. When a service industry is acting in an arbitrary way and damaging the interests of consumers, you can usually rely on Sacramento to do something about it. So, for example, the Insurance Commissioner instructed auto insurance companies not to rely on ZIP codes when writing policies. The real basis on which to assess risk should always be the individual driver. It’s fair to look at the person’s experience, driving record, how far he or she drives every year, etc. That way you reward the good drivers with lower premiums and hit the bad drivers with higher premiums. This ends the discriminations of higher premiums for people living in predominantly black or Latino communities.

It would be great if we could see this change sweeping across the US, not just in auto insurance, but for all classes of insurance. Unfortunately, the insurance industry has fought the change tooth and nail wherever it has been proposed. Lobbyists with deep pockets have been able to keep the legislators at bay. The ZIP code approach remains the norm.

The most recent piece of research comes out of Chicago and relates to health plans. It seems it’s cheaper to live in the suburbs. The research used just over 3,000 ZIP codes in the Chicago area and, when analysing the rates charged, found that people living in the blue-collar suburbs west and south of Chicago paid almost 25% less for their insurance than those living in the downtown areas. Similarly, the residents of the northern suburbs paid about 15% less. Spread the net more widely and it turns out that everyone living between 15 and 25 miles from the downtown area pays an average of 13.5% less, while those who have moved 25 to 40 miles out of the city pay an average 25% less.

There are obvious explanations. The hospitals and clinics in different areas attract doctors and healthcare providers with different levels of experience and expertise. Operating costs will also change with local conditions. The level of support for public facilities and programs from local government naturally varies depending on the local tax take and political factors. These affect the rates for services the insurers can negotiate with the local provider networks. And then there are all the intangible factors based on the wealth or poverty of an area, the percentage of people without current health insurance, and so on. Put everything together and profiling by geography may produce very different results. This leaves us with an uncomfortable reality. As it stands, the health insurance industry is unregulated. It can charge what it likes using whatever factors it wishes to consider significant. As and when the healthcare reforms pass through Congress, some practices that produce unfairness will disappear, e.g. no more discrimination based on gender, no more discrimination by denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, no more caps on lifetime benefits, and so on. But the ZIP code abuse will not be affected. No matter where you live, you will be judged not on your actual health records but the “accident” of your address. Perhaps you should consider relocating to a better area to get the best health insurance rates.

If you look back over the last several years, this has been a really exciting period of time. For the first years, banks and finance companies let us borrow more money than we needed. Fortunately, there was a property bubble forming so buying a new more expensive home was a big winner. The housing equity grew real fast and provided ever more security for more loans. Changing homes after four or five years let us cash in and keep on building up our net worth. Except, all we were doing was going ever deeper into debt so that, when the property bubble burst and the recession hit, there was nowhere left to run.

Well, we have had just over a year to start sorting out our problems. Hopefully, you are one of the lucky ones who have managed to stay in work and keep up the instalment payments on your home. Although you may have negative housing equity, this is not all doom and gloom. Let’s start with how you have managed to survive. You stopped all the wild spending and began paying down the most expensive debts on your store and credit cards. You are still some way away from paying off all your debts. Very few people have managed to switch over to building up their cash savings. But you are better off than you were a year ago. Now look around. Interest rates have been at rock bottom for months. The Fed cut the headline rates to the bone and, slowly, this has filtered through the banking system. There is more cheap money around today. Except we still have the credit crunch. Banks are still reluctant to lend.

There are hundreds of neighborhoods around the country where repossessed homes are standing empty with resale values dragging along the bottom. While this persists, you only have one strategy. As soon as the value of your home rises above the amount outstanding on your current mortgage, you should consider refinancing. If you can switch from the existing more expensive home loan to one at current interest rates, you will shave thousands of dollars off the total you will pay over the lifetime of the mortgage. But there is a further possibility to consider.

Whenever you find you have some positive housing equity, you can negotiate a debt consolidation loan, i.e. instead of paying individual instalments to store and credit card carriers, you roll up all your debts into a single mortgage. This gives you a single monthly installment to pay. With the right deal in place, you will find you save thousands of dollars a year in interest payments. You will pay off your debts at a significantly lower cost and soon be able to start saving. So the watchwords are patience and forward planning. You need to keep on paying down your existing debts. Show yourself as a responsible borrower and keep your credit score as strong as possible. Monitor the local housing market and see what is happening to resale values. You need to be ready to move when values start to pick up. You also need detailed accounts and a financial proposal ready to present to a mortgage or home loan broker. Be prepared with your own long-term rescue plan.

The Malone Bay community features 18 lots at W. Kerr Scott Dam & Reservoir. Fourteen (14) are Lakefront and meet private dock requirements. All lots have access to public water, saving owners from $5,000 to $10,000 on drilling a well. These lots have public water and will save you the cost of drilling a well. The entire development also features underground utilities.

This is a gated community with lots ranging from 2.3+- acres to 6.8+- acres on the Hwy 421 side of the lake just off South Minton Road, Wilkesboro, NC 28697

W. Kerr Scott Lake is 1500 acres with 50 miles of shoreline and is controlled by the US Army Corps of Engineers. It is clean water with good fishing and is excellent for boating, kayaking, skiing, and swimming. The property is surrounded by National Parks. Wilkesboro is a beautiful community and town with friendly people. It is located just 40 miles east of Boone and Blowing Rock, NC and one and a half hours northwest of Charlotte.

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HUD just changed its condominium rules again, and there’s both good news and sobering news for investors and developers tucked away in the revisions. On the one hand, HUD relaxed its previously controversial requirement that at least fifty percent of the units in a project be sold before FHA could insure loans for new buyers on individual units.

Under the amended rule, FHA financing will be available in projects where at least 30 percent of the existing units have been sold. That change is important, say developers and investors, because many newly-constructed projects have had trouble pre-selling units in the current tough real estate market. (more…)

Waterfront on New River

Heritage Estates Lot 46. 1.3 acres. 100 feet on the river. Anchored gazebo stays. Septic permit. Shared well. Graded and ready to build on. Paved road.

MLS Number: 54345
List Price: $110,000

Very nice lot on New River. Good neighborhood, paved road to lot. Over 100′ on river, has a new gazebo anchored on lot that stays. Septic permit has been pulled as per seller. Grading has been done and shared well on lot. Ready to build on.
Ashe County
Lot Size, Apx Acreage: 1.37
Type: Waterfront
Suitable Use: Residential
Topography: Level, Stream/Creek
Utilities: Total Electric
Water/Sewer: Community Water, Septic Tank
Road Frontage: Private Road, Paved Road
Miscellaneous: 1-5 Acres

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The popular first-time homebuyer tax credit that was scheduled to end this month is being extended. President Obama signed a bill that extends the up to $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers for seven months. An additional incentive for the housing industry is for homeowners. The $6,500 tax credit will benefit some existing homeowners who are also buyers and whose primary residence has been owned, used, sold, or being sold within at least five consecutive years of the previous eight years. The legislation is part of a bill that also extends unemployment benefits.

Bruce Walker, Director of Marketing, RealEstate.com Reportedly, the credit would be available for people earning up to $125,000 a year and couples making up to $225,000 per year. This is an increase from the current income limits of $75,000 and $150,000, respectively. The extension of the first-time homebuyer credit lasts through June of next year. Buyers must sign a contract by the end of April 2010. (more…)