Have you ever worked out how much you spend on insurance? Try totting up your premiums – we suspect you'll be surprised! You'll be even more surprised to discover that there's a probability that you've also duplicated some of the cover you're paying for. Cut the duplication out and you're certain to save money. Lots of people have insurance cover for legal expenses, loss of income, theft, even death, without even realising it. This can arise because many of us don't fully understand what's covered by the policies we have, especially if the policies had been arranged for us by financial advisers and brokers. In a recent survey, The Financial Services Authority (FSA) discovered that optional extras such as breakdown recovery and legal expense cover, were frequently added to car insurance without checking whether the policyholder was already covered. It's also not uncommon to find that people with Permanent Medical Insurance have duplicated their cover via payment protection policies taken out specifically to cover their monthly payments on mortgages, loans and credit cards. The point is that if they claim on their Permanent Medical Insurance, their payout will be reduced because part of their claim is also insured through their payment protection policies – so their payment protection insurance is really a waste of money. The Financial Ombudsman has confirmed this saying, “People often contact us when they find themselves over-insured. They often do not realise until they make a claim that they have been paying for a policy that provides very little, if any, benefit”. There's also ample of evidence that some of us simply don't understand what we're actually insured for! For example, take the case of Amanda Lariviere from West Yorkshire. Amanda, aged 42 and mother of two, is recovering from ovarian cancer and had an allergic reaction to chemotherapy which kept her off work. Out of the blue she received an unwelcome tax bill so she decided to visit her building society to find out if she could raise some cash by re-mortgaging. The adviser at the Society wisely asked her to bring with her, her life insurance policies so that they could be used to support her re-mortgage application. So imagine Amanda's surprise and delight when the adviser explained that her policies with Norwich Union and Scottish Provident, which had been costing her Ј80 per month, were not life insurance policies at all – they were actually critical illness policies with a combined insured value of Ј100,000. She was able to claim on these policies and the Ј100,000 she received was sufficient to pay off most of her mortgage and her tax bill! Here's some typical insurance policies to check out. Critical Illness Insurance Critical Illness insurance is often sold as an optional extra within a life insurance policy. In fact that's usually the cheapest way to buy it. However, some enlightened employers already provide critical illness insurance as part of their employment package. Ask your employer if you are one of the lucky ones! Life Insurance Some employers also provide life insurance cover within their pension schemes. It's called death-in-service benefit and typically pays out a tax-free lump sum worth 3 to 4 times the annual salary if the employee were to die whilst employed by the company. Permanent Medical Insurance and Payment Protection Insurance Permanent Medical Insurance (PMI) is also known by some people as Income Protection Insurance. PMI pays out the insured monthly sum if the policyholder is off work due to illness due to one of a wide range of specified illnesses - and some policies will even pay out during redundancy. PMI policies pay out indefinitely or at least until the policy comes to the end of its insured term. Few appreciate is that PMI actually eliminates the need for Payment Protection insurance – the sort of insurance frequently sold alongside loans, credit cards and mortgages to maintain monthly payments if you are off sick, have an accident or are made redundant. Indeed, you can't make a claim against more than one policy for the same event – only one policy will agree to pay out! (All the others will reduce their payouts to the value of the money you are receiving from your other policies) Mobile Phone Insurance Normally mobile phone policies have a hefty excess – rarely less than Ј50. You could be better saving the insurance and changing to a pay-as-you-go plan. Legal Expense Insurance Insurance for legal expenses relating to disputes concerning your home will usually be included free of charge within your home and contents insurance policy. Most car insurance policies provide legal expense cover as an optional extra – others even include it as standard. Some trade unions and professional associations sometimes include access to legal advice as part of their service to their members. Check these out before you pay for more cover! Insurance for ID Theft According to “Which”, the consumer magazine, you are only legally responsible for the first Ј50 if your identity is stolen. Is it worth insuring for a Ј50 risk? Incidentally, my bank has just given me this insurance for free! Automatic cover for credit card purchases Many credit cards automatically insure your purchases for a set period of time after you've shopped. Barclaycard is a good example. If you used Barclaycard to buy something valued between Ј50 and Ј2,000, you're insured against theft and accidental damage for the next 60 days.
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Beating the s p 500 with stock market timing
Copyright 2006 Equitrend, Inc. Approximately 75% of fund managers do not beat the S&P 500 year in and year out. How can a basket of 500 hundred stocks beat the majority of actively managed mutual funds? The people who manage these funds are, for the most part, brilliant people. They are highly educated and have access to the most advanced information and decision support systems in the world. So why is it that they do not outperform the S&P 500? A Quick Test: Here's a very crude test of management performance: Let's compare the domestic-equity mutual fund performance supplied by Morningstar against the S&P 500 index for one, three, five and ten-year periods, looking back from April 30, 1995. The S&P 500 index is a fair comparison for large, domestic companies. Our results: --Of the 1,097 funds Morningstar covered for the one-year period, 110 beat the S&P 500, while 987 fell short. Results ranged from 46.84% to -32.26%, while the S&P 500 attained a 17.44% return. --During the three-year period, the S&P 500 returned 10.54%, while results in the funds varied from 29.28% to -15.02% compounded annually. Of the total 609 funds, only 266 beat the S&P 500. --Shifting to the five-year period, of 470 funds, 204 beat the S&P 500. Results ranged from 27.35% to -8.51%, while the index racked up 12.62%. --At ten years, only 56 of 262 funds managed to beat the index, and results varied from 24.77% to -4.06% compounded annually against 14.78% for the S&P 500. The fact that most funds do not beat the overall stock market should not be surprising. Since the majority of money invested in the stock market comes from mutual funds, it would be mathematically impossible for the majority all of these funds to out perform the market. The implied promise held out to investors in actively managed mutual funds is that in exchange for higher fees (relative to index funds), the actively managed fund will deliver superior market performance. There are a host of barriers to fulfilling this implied promise. Some of the problems are: --The larger a mutual fund gets, the more difficult it becomes to deliver exceptional performance. --Although fund size runs counter to performance, fund managers have a strong motivation to let the fund grow as big as possible because the bigger the fund gets, the more money the fund managers make. --Most skillful mutual fund managers are hired away by hedge funds, where their financial rewards are greater and there are few restrictions on investment techniques. --By law mutual funds are supposed to be conservative, which in theory limits their potential losses. This conservative stance generally limits their ability to use arbitrage, options, or shorting stocks. Can You Do Better? Because of the general inflexibility and restrictions of most mutual funds, your investment capital is not properly hedged against market fluctuations. In most cases, if you compared the beta of the equity exposure held in actively managed mutual funds to an equal equity exposure to the S&P 500 index, your reward/risk ratio would be less rewarding than purchasing an identical equity exposure to the S&P 500 index. So, the answer is, you can do better and beat the S & P 500 by using an effective stock market timing system.
The top ten marketing tips you don t want to overlook
1bine Emotion and Logic Consumers buy because the want to experience the benefits of the product or service you have to offer. Evoke those feeling that your clients will experience once they have the product in their hands... and you’ve made a sale. It isn’t until after the sale that they want to justify the purchase. Prepare them with the logical aspects of the purchase before they get the after-the-sale-blues. 2. Apply The 80/20 Advertising Principal You never want to put yourself out on a limb when you are experimenting with the market. That could spell disaster! Keep 80 percent of your advertising budget working tried and true methods, while you mine for gold with the remaining 20 percent. 3. Go For Dynamic Small Ads Do you need to cut advertising expenses? You’ll be happy to know that cutting down on the size of an ad doesn’t mean you’ll be trimming your profits as well! Bigger isn’t always better. Think about this... small ads have less potential for distracting your readers from the main point. That could be the blessing in disguise you’ve been looking for. 4. Market With Postcards Postcards are personal, quick to read, and make an impactpare them to other advertisements you receive in the mail... If you’re like me, you probably don’t even know what they look like. When I identify them as advertisements, I automatically pitch them... without opening the envelope. Postcards carry high-impact messages, and guarantee a 100 percent level of consumer exposure. 5. Call To Action The call to action is one of the most important parts of your advertising copy. Don’t wimp out on it! Spend time combining words and phrases to get the one with just the right impact. Remember, you’re trying to get the reader out of his chair ready to buy. It’ll take a stimulating sales copy to do the trick. 6. Surprise, Surprise! We all like surprises. Keep one on the back burner, ready to present near the end of a sale. You'll be sweetening the deal, and your prospective buyer will be pleased! 7. Send a Thank You. Have you ever received a personal thank you from a place of business after you purchased a product? Hey, it makes you feel appreciated. The impact of a hand-written or personalize thank you lasts long after the newness of the product wears off. The next time you head out to buy... yeah, you’ll be going back!
Protecting your family from fire hazards in your home
: The Home Safety Council reports that fires and burns are the third leading cause of home injury in the United States. The sad fact is, much of the time, these fires could have been prevented. Many homeowners have fire alarm systems and - while the fire alarms are effective in notifying you and your monitoring company of a fire in progress - the alarms don't prevent fires. Don't put yourself and your family at unnecessary risk. If you know where the primary trouble spots for fire are, you can do a room-by-room assessment and make any needed changes before you and your family become victims. Most people focus on the kitchen when it comes to fire safety. They make sure their fire alarm systems include smoke and fire detectors in the kitchen as well as fire extinguishers. Most people already know they should: · never leave the kitchen while cooking · never wear loose clothing around burners or gas flames · always carefully watch splattering oils during frying · never have paper, plastic or other flammables near burners However, the majority of homeowners stop there. Unfortunately, we all have fire hazards throughout our homes. Each room needs to be given due attention in order to prevent fires from occurring. Installing fire alarms is a great idea, but you can't stop there. To be thorough, use the following checklist to conduct a room-by-room survey. Once you're finished, you can feel much more confident that you and your family are safe from potential fires. Living Room ___ Fireplace has a screen, glass door or other protective device to prevent sparks from exiting the fireplace. ___ Matches and lighters are stored in a locked cabinet if small children are in the home. ___ The fireplace has been inspected annually and cleaned by a professional as needed. Garage or Outdoor Area ___ Chemicals (including fertilizers) are locked and out of reach of children. ___ Gasoline and kerosene are stored outside the home in a cool place in properly ventilated containers. ___ Grills are kept at least two feet away from anything flammable including bushes and tree branches. ___ Grills have been cleaned of all grease drippings, inside and out. All Rooms ___ Cigarettes are dipped in water before being disposed of. ___ Candles are never left unattended. ___ Space heaters are kept several feet away from curtains and drapes, newspapers, magazines, books, blankets, towels or other flammables. ___ Electrical outlets are not overloaded. ___ Power cords are in good condition and are not frayed. When you take just an hour or two to inspect your home, you can dramatically reduce your chances of falling victim to a fire. Alarm systems are a tremendous help in times of trouble, but by taking a few preventative steps, you greatly reduce the likelihood of an accident happening in your home
Efficient strategy to have good links
Google is the most powerful search engine; more than 80% of users are finding high quality and relevant information with Google. This is the reason why maintaining high quality information is an essential condition for search engines. High quality sites must have the place they deserve. There are some techniques allowing a site to have a high ranking; using inbound links is a very efficient way to do it. The more inbound links a site has, the higher its rank. But the inbound links number is a real factor to determine the site’s quality. A low quality site can build an inbound links system to gain a high place in Google’s lists. How do you make the difference between the normal and irregular inbound links? The link farms must be avoided at any cost. Google has methods to detect them and punish the unnatural links owner. It is really difficult to be rehabilitated after a similar mistake. It is wrong to have links to sites that are not logically connected to the main one. Links from irrelevant sites to the main site can be followed by a warning sign from Google. A penalty can arrive if Google detects the main site included in a group of interconnected sites. Another problem is to have reciprocal links; it is very probable that Google algorithms will disagree with this technique. Google has a new paradigm when looking at linking relations. It seems that the quality of incoming and outgoing links is now very important. A smart campaign to have good links is vital for the web site’s ranking. Search engines are making a distinction between links. There are important links, more valuable than the others. The best choice is to have links from highly ranked web sites. There is one more essential condition: the highly ranked websites must also have topics related to the referenced site. A popular solution is to build a links page; it is a page containing links to the other sites linking to the referenced site. Some web designers are also providing the HTML code that makes the links construction easy. It is also useful to create a links creation campaign. This can be done using the non-competitive, high ranked sites. If there is a links page, the referenced site can add its link there too. After building a links page, you may want to consider joining linking directories. By doing this you have access to thousands upon thousands of websites that may relate to your own as well as having a high PR. To start linking your websites to attain a higher PR, go to: o MyLinkMachine Downloading Google toolbar is a solution to see the page’s rank when browsers are used for different purposes. If a page has a topic similar to the referenced site and if it also has a high rank, it is helpful to make a links page using this information. You may also want to consider submitting articles to article directories. By doing this, you will increase your chances of your website getting noticed by Google and, therefore, getting a higher Page Rank. A great resource to submit your articles is: o MyContentBuilder If you are submitting articles to several directories and you're looking for a faster and easier way to do it, you may want to consider an automatic article submitter. To watch a video on how to do this, go to: o 1trac/dt/t/Article_Submitter_Video. php
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Saturday, October 1, 2016
It s a habit
Do you sometimes have the feeling that you're running into the same obstacles over and over again? Many of my conflicts have the same feel to them, like "Hey, I think I've been here before," but I can't figure out how I wound up in the same place. The situation is different, but the conflict feels the same. I first read this poem in "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche. When I "Googled" it, I found fourteen pages of links. It's clearly a favorite with many people; I know it speaks volumes to me. "Autobiography in Five Chapters" 1) I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I fall in. I am lost . . . I am hopeless. It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find a way out. 2) I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I'm in the same place. But it isn't my fault. It still takes a long time to get out. 3) I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in . . . it's a habit My eyes are open I know where I am It is my fault. I get out immediately. 4) I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I walk around it 5) I walk down another street. Does this feel familiar? I am ready to learn that lesson! I'm sure that I've changed. I can see that hole coming a mile away. This time it will be different. I still end up falling in. Tired, sad and angry, I drag myself up once again. What was I supposed to learn here? I thought I learned that the last time. Some conflicts seem to take years to unravel, but if we stay tuned, and our purpose is to look with curiosity and awareness, we will find the moment when we can step around the hole. As I write, thinking about a recent stumble of my own, I am smiling a bit. From a distance, I watch myself drop into the hole - one I know well - and it's kind of funny. And perhaps that is the way out - to laugh more often, to "love our mistakes," as my friend says. I've heard it said that eventually we will laugh at all our mistakes - the trick is to laugh sooner. When I can laugh as I climb out of the hole, I'm on my way to finding the route around it, or better yet, that alternate street.