Simply Junior

Is your employer offering disability retirement plans? If yes, then you’re lucky. In general, employers are not required to offer the said plan. The nice thing about disability plans is the benefits it will give to the employees who become disabled while in service. It’s really good if your employer is open about having disability retirement plans for you and your colleagues. You will never know what will happen to your physical health. There are lots of uncertainties in the workplace. What if you meet an accident while working? Your bright future will be doomed. Can you imagine yourself disabled and financially unstable? Although, service retirement plans are the common benefit plan offered to employees but it has certain requirements in order to avail the benefits.

Service retirement plan is a plan which provides employees with lifetime income. Employees should reach the age of 60 or 65 and have completed particular years of service with the company. People are very familiar with service retirement plans. The said plans are means of having a secured life after retiring as employees. The retiree can just relax and enjoy after working for how many years. However, you cannot tell what will happen until you reach the age of 60. We are not thinking here of negative situations but it’s better to be prepared in times of accidents. Disability retirement plans are just what you will need.

Unlike service retirement plan, the disability plan doesn’t have age requirement as long as the employee cannot perform his work due to injury or illness. The best thing the plan can do to you in case you’ve suffered injury is the money you’ll be receiving. After suffering from illness or injury, an employee is unable to do his task and that would mean no income. By applying for disability retirement plans, eligible employees will receive an income in his lifetime. The amount is commonly computed based on the highest salary received by a particular employee during his service with the employer.

The equivalent amount of income from the plan is up to 45% of the highest salary received. It’s not bad, right? At least, you will have an income even though you are not working anymore. In disability retirement plans, you must first be eligible in the program. An employee cannot easily apply. The said plan is intended for disabled individuals. Actually, there are two kinds of disability: short-term and long-term. In short-term disability, you will be benefited until your illness or injury heals. Bear in mind to apply right away. Sometimes, it takes weeks before your application is approved. Remember not to falsify the information required in the form.

There are cases when your application will be denied if you’ll declare falsified information. Regarding long-term disability, you will prove the extent of your disability. It must be severe so you will be entitled to long-term payments. Prove to them that you are really disabled and needs financial assistance in order to make ends meet. Disability retirement plans are a way of relief to disabled employees. It gives them hope regarding financial matters.

Remember Aesop’s fable of the grasshopper and the ants? When winter came, the grasshopper went hungry because of a lack of adequate preparation. The story is used to teach children the value of hard work and saving.

Today’s world promotes spending making saving up very hard to do. Temptations abound everywhere. However, adequately preparing for the uncertain future can certainly help when the unforeseen strikes.

Saving money provides you with a benefit you may not immediately feel. However, this does not and should not detract from the importance of saving money.

The most obvious advantage of saving up is of course, extra money. But don’t get tempted yet.

Saving money will give you extra cash to use for emergencies like illnesses, accidents, natural disasters and sudden loss of a job. You won’t have to go into debt to handle such events.

If you have a healthy amount saved, you won’t have to use credit to purchase a high ticket item. You can avoid the repercussions of going into debt.

Saving up also gives you a headstart on the future. You take control of your future when you save up for college, a house, a car or even retirement. Your future won’t be so uncertain when you know that you’ll have a cushion to land on when things go wrong.

Here are a few rules for saving you should remember.

Budget

Start your savings program with a budget. Will you be using a monthly, quarterly or yearly budget? A monthly budget is easier for most people as bills come every month.

Determine your income. How much money will you make in a month after taxes? Will you have any additional sources of income other than your paycheck?

Determine your expenses. Some expenses remain fairly constant like your phone, water, cable and light bills. If you pay rent, this should be another constant expense too. You will need to determine which expenses fluctuate monthly. These can be your food, gas, clothing and entertainment expenses.

Now that you’ve determined what your expenses are, eliminate all unnecessary expenditures.

Record all your income, savings and expenses faithfully and diligently.

Create a savings plan

Set a goal. How much money will you need? How much should you save to reach that goal in a reasonable period of time? If you’re saving for the future, most experts would suggest having at least enough to cover three to six months worth of expenses.

Always keep records. You will want to know how much money you have already saved and how much you have spent.

Invest wisely and carefully. You can use your current savings to create even more savings by participating in low risk investments.

Create a savings account. There are many types of savings account available. You can choose from the most basic of accounts to a high yielding savings account to a money market account.

You can even encourage your children to save with a piggy bank. You can accompany them to the bank to open their own account once the piggy bank is full. Start the concept of saving while they’re still young and they’ll naturally imbibe the virtue.

Spend less. This is the difficult part. The trick here is not to stop spending but to moderate your spending. Cut back on eating out. Have home cooked dinners instead. Pack lunch to work. Your packed lunch will cost less and will most likely be healthier for you than takeout fare. Cancel your cable subscription if you don’t watch TV. If you can get your internet without a phone line, go ahead. If you’re mostly on the road, a landline may not even be necessary if you have a cell phone.

Pay off your debts religiously. Interest on debts can drive the cost of your debt all the way up. Once you’ve gotten your debt out of the way, you can now start on your savings plan for the future. And stay out of debt.

The insurance companies will always reward you for driving less. If you rarely put wheels on the road, the chances of a claim are small and all your premium will be “profit to the insurer. So how does this work? In theory, it could not be more simple. The insurance company looks at who you are, when you drive and where you drive in deciding how much of a risk you represent. If you live 50 miles from your work and have a daily commute along a busy Interstate, the chances of an accident are high. But if you live on a bus route to work and only use your vehicle for odd journeys at off-peak times, the chances of an accident are small. When you answer the questionnaire, you will see questions covering these possibilities. Remember, if you get caught out in dishonest answers, the insurer will cancel your policy and leave you without any coverage.

The first question is where you live. Although some states like California have outlawed setting rates according to your zip code, the majority of companies focus on your home address. If there’s a high accident or theft rate among people living in your area, you will all pay a higher premium. The only choice, if you can afford it, is to live some place where the crime and accidents rates are lower. You look for the middle ground between the worst inner city crime hot spot and a house on the prairie where you never see another vehicle from one day’s end to the next. All the discounts favor drivers who only drive off-peak during the day, and restrict their annual mileage. No more late night and early morning driving when the majority of other drivers may be tired or affected by alcohol and/or drugs. This raises the question of monitoring. It’s easy to answer the questionnaire and claim the maximum discounts. But the trend among insurers is to ask people to drop their vehicle in for a regular inspection of the recorded mileage. The maximum discounts are given to the drivers who agree to devices being installed which collect all the data on driving and transmit it to the insurers. These devices have a GPS element that records where you drive, the time and, in some cases, some measurement of the quality of your driving, e.g. how often you brake. The reward for accepting this invasion of your privacy can be discounts of up to 25% on top of the usual discounts. Obviously, it’s not a good idea to use your own vehicle to rob a bank since the insurance company will know you were there.

This set of discounts is somewhat frustrating. In the larger cities with well-developed public transport, it’s usually not too much trouble to get where you want on time without using your own vehicle. Assuming your vehicle is safely in a garage to reduce the risk of theft, you should break even or better, i.e. what you save on the insurance pays for your use of buses and trains. But the most of the US has poor public transport, so there’s little choice. Remember the car insurance quotes are not the final word. Call the company, explain your circumstances and discuss how you might qualify for discounts. In discussion, you often discover options not included in the website. So, treat the car insurance quotes as the opening offer and start negotiating. Investing a little time often saves you money.

Most of you are probably well aware of the fact that different age groups of drivers get different insurance rates, and the difference can be quite significant. Why the discrimination, you might ask? Well, don’t haste with accusing insurance company with unfair pricing, as there is a set of reasons behind such practices. When speaking about age groups and pricing, you have to understand how the insurance companies assess risk and set the rates you get when quoting.

The primary factors determining the price you will pay for insurance are risk and claim history within your demographic group. Insurance companies analyze the costs of insuring each age group and set their rates respectively. And due to a set of reasons, young adults are considered to be the most risky car owners, thus the high rates a young driver will receive when getting insurance quotes. That’s because young drivers have a larger claims history as a group, and the accidents they end up in tend to be more devastating and costly. Of course, it doesn’t mean that all teenagers and young adults get crazy on the road and have serious accidents. But that’s the situation when one has to pay for other’s mistakes, and unfortunately there’s little you can do about it.

But little doesn’t mean nothing. If you are a young driver looking for cheap auto insurance, you still have chances of getting better rates if your follow some of the following advices. Of course, they won’t drop your rates instantly and dramatically but by combining them you will be able to get quite reasonable car insurance rates.

Be a good driver

Being a good driver with a clean driving record with no accidents or traffic violations always pays of no matter how old are you. But you can go beyond that. Enroll in special driving schools and employ a defensive driving style – having proof of your good safe driving abilities will definitely give your significant discounts from the insurance company.

Buy a safe car

When you are young, you want to be fast and furious. That’s your right, but if you buy a fast sports car don’t expect to get advantageous auto insurance quotes for it. Sports and muscle cars are considered to be risky and have high insurance costs, so insurance companies will always charge more for owning a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo than for a VW Golf. That’s why you should think about the car you want to drive before actually buying it.

Do some comparison shopping

Shopping around has never hurt anyone. In fact, getting more auto insurance quotes from different companies will help you find a really competitive policy. Some companies give young drivers lower rates than others, so why not spending a bit of your time on comparing auto insurance quotes if you can save quite well on it? Besides there are so many free quote sites out there that it would be simply a crime to leave such a great opportunity for saving some money on car insurance unnoticed.

A traffic accident is never a think to be happy about. Having even the smallest car accident will surely give you a lot of stress and headache. Not to say that things will be a lot worse if there’s someone injured or the damage to vehicles or property is serious. The best thing to do in such a case is to remain calm and not panic. You will need your cool head for evaluating the extent of damage and injuries before you even contact your insurance company to report the accident. And here are some things to keep in mind if you want to do that right.

Remain cool-headed

The first thing you should do is to calm down. It will certainly be hard especially if you never had accidents before. But this is very important for properly analyzing the situation and helping other people involved if they need help. You have to keep focus on all of the details so you can report them to your insurance agent or the police officer when you will be asked questions.

Call for help first

Prior to evaluating the damage and injuries there’s another thing you have to do. Call 911 and report if there’s anyone injured at the scene. If the accident took place in a location where it is dangerous to remain (heavy traffic, high risk of collision) it is better to move the vehicles to a safer place rather than waiting for the police officer to document the accident. This will save you from additional risk of damage or injury. When you have all of these things done you can take your camera and notepad for documenting the crash.

Gather evidence

Try to get as many pictures and notes from the scene while it is still as-is before the police start moving the vehicles. Then write down how the accident happened step by step as you remember it. If there’s someone who saw it happen around the scene, get their names and contacts, and ask for their version of the accident. It’s not wise to start arguing with them if you don’t agree with them. Just document as many evidences as you can to have plenty of information that can be presented to your auto insurance company or the police.

Help the authorities

When the police arrive to the scene you should cooperate and do everything they say. Report everything you are asked about and ask for an additional copy of the report when it’s compiled. It can be a bit stressful to deal with so much documents but it will make it easier for your auto insurance claim to be processed faster.

Here are some things you have to pay utmost attention when documenting the aftermath of the crash:

1. Compile a list of any personal items that are missing after the accident.

2. Document the physical condition of all the people involved in the crash, even if it’s a light headache. Sometimes a light pain in the arm can turn out to be a fracture a few days later.

3. Take pictures of all the damage resulted from the accident. Take close up pictures of the damaged car parts and any infrastructure that has been affected by the crash.

4. Don’t sign any documents or agreements if you aren’t aware of their content. Contact your lawyer or your cheap auto insurance company to learn what you should do in such a situation.