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Understand Business Owner Policies (BOP)
It is actually easy to understand business owners policies (BOP). Compare them to personal homeowners insurance policies. A home policy covers property, buildings, and liability. It actually packages different types of coverage into one policy, and only one premium must be paid every month.
You can tailor a BOP to your own unique business needs too. Compare that to the way you can adjust limits on a home policy to make sure you have enough coverage for personal property.
Insurers market different packages, and they can be custom made for some businesses, but there are some typical packages.
Coverage for property, like buildings, inventory, and equipment, is typcial.
Consider your liability needs. Your business may need professional liability or protection against a claim that an employee has caused damage to a customer.
Protect your business against theft. This could include burglaries, or even inside theft from employees.
Coverage for liability in case a customer claims damage from an injury on your property.
Business Cars – Protect your company vehicles.
Sometimes a BOP may include specific coverage for a particular business, or you may need to purchase them on their own. A discussion with a qualified business agent or company will help you understand what your unique business needs, and what other similar companies in your area buy.
Why is the BOP a Popular Choice for Small Business?
It is just simpler to combine coverage, rather than have to keep up with several policies. Many small businesses choose to buy a package like this.
Some examples of small companies who are interested in a package deal would be dentists office, beauty salons, stores in strip shopping malls, and sandwhich shops. Some home business owners who have outgrown their personal homeowners policy also turn to one.
Look For a BOP
In the old days, all a busy business owner could do would be to call around and set appointments with multiple insurance agents to find local coverage. These days, online quotes and forms can speed up the process.
Find Business Owners Policies in your local area with a fast and free safe business owners policy quote.
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Return of Premium (ROP) Gives Back Money
What if you could purchase an insurance policy, be lucky enough not to ever use it, and then get all of your money back at the end. This would seem like a win-win situation. You would be protected, but if you never needed to make a claim, you could get all of your premiums back in a nice check.
Well, this situation does exist in the real world sometimes. You can find return of premium term life insurance policies. You will still purchase your policy to last for a specified amount of time, like 20 or 30 years. Then, when the policy expires, if nobody has collected on the policy, a check comes back for the amount of all of the premiums paid.
An Example of ROP at Work
Consider the situation of a 40 year old man who wants to purchase a 20 year term policy with a death benefit of $500,000. Now understand that premiums vary by age, health, location, etc., but let us just say his premium is $50 a month. You can calculate his total premiums for twenty years by multiplying 50 * 12 * 20 = $12,000.
At the end of his term, he is now 60 years old. He has not passed away, so while he may be happy to be alive, he still has nothing left to do with that life insurance contract.
But let us say he choose to purchase a return of premium rider when he bought his life insurance. Now this additional benefit will cost a bit more, so for the sake of illustration, we will assume it adds ten dollars to his monthly premium. Now you can figure that he paid $14,400. In the end it cost him $2,400 more. than the basic policy without an ROP rider.
But now, instead of having a worthless piece of paper, this man will get back a check for $14,400! This seems like a good incentive to keep a policy in force. Not only do you have coverage for the period of your policy, you also get to look forward to collecting your premums if you survive it. If you do not survive the policy, the normal death benefit would be paid out ot your beneficiaries.
The Cost of Return of Premium Term Life Insurance
You understand that this example just used some figures for illustration. You can run some quick and free quotes to compare life insurance costs.
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Are Ads for Obama Car Insurance Discounts Real?
Since President Obama gets so much press, and since insurance reform (health) gets a lot of attention, it has to be very tempting for advertisers to tie these things in to their ads. It certainly gets attention, and at first glance, it may look credible. But you understand that most of the press about insurance reform is directed at health insurance reform, and not car insurance reform. Also understand that most insurance is regulated at the state level.
I have nothing against a good advertising, but I think you would be right to be skeptical about Obama car isurance reform ads. There may be some pending bills about this subject, but I am not aware of anything as dramatic as the current health reform debate.
This came to my attention when I checked another website for stats about how people found a particular article. This article – Over 50 Car Insurance – was found because an internet visitor searched for Obama Car Insurance Reform. This was because there was a link to an Obama Health Insurance Reform article on the same page, but not in the article. Search engines are good, but they are not perfect. But it was kind of a happy accident because it made me realize that people were taking these ads seriously!
Here Are Some Good Things to Know About Car Insurance
- Almost everybody needs car insurance to be a legal driver in the USA. All states require a proof of financial responsibility in order to drive. For most of us, this means we need car insurance.
- It is very possible to get a better deal by comparing car insurance rates and plans. Top insurers offer different discounts. They also have their own rate charts for drivers, car types, and zip codes. You probably should compare policies every year or so to make sure you are getting the best rates.
We would certainly like to invite you to run a quick quote to make sure you have the best insurance rates. We do not believe that President Obama, Congress, or anybody in the federal government endorses our website though.
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Dental and Vision with Medicare
Lots of people want to know if Medicare covers dental work or vision care. After all, these medical services can be very expensive too, and no less in aging people. But while some Medicare Advantage plans may have some dental coverage, most of these services are not covered by Medicare. Retirees may also have these benefits covered through their job’s retirement plan.
Medicare Dental
Here is what Medicare.gov has to say about Dental care under Medicare.
Medicare does not cover routine dental care or most dental procedures such as cleanings, fillings, tooth extractions or dentures. In rare cases, Medicare Part B will pay for certain dental services. In addition, Medicare Part A will pay for certain dental services that you get when you are in the hospital. Call your local Medicare Carrier for more information.
So most routine dental care will not be covered. Under certain situations, usually if dental work is needed because of an accident or illness, some services may be covered. Go ahead and check first. Good resources are your Medicare office or a supplemental Medicare health insurance company you are a member of.
Vision (Optical) Services Under Medicare
This is similar to Medicare Dental Coverage in that routine treatment like vision exams, eyeglasses, etc. are not normally covered. Surgery, or other treatment by an M.D. should be covered under Medicare Part B. If you are unsure, check with a Medicare office or your supplemental health insurance.
Save Money on Dental and Vision
Medicare beneficiaries, or other people without dental plans, may enjoy some great savings with a national dental (vision) discount plan. While these plans are not insurance, they admit you into network discounts, which is similar to a benefit provided by many insurance plans.
There are dozens of good quality dental discount plans, and you can perform a simple zip code search to find the best ones in your local area. Find Dental Discounts.
Medicare Health Plans
Some Medicare Advantage Plans or retirement health plans may provide dental and vision benefits. If you are interested in seeing if you have the best plan for you, or for somebody you care for, you can compare Medicare Health Plans here.
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How does US Health Reform Help Uninsurables?
Not much is getting more press attention than the curren debate over health reform. But, in my opinion, one big problem that needs to be addressed is covering people with pre-existing conditions that are getting declined for health insurance today. How does the current health reform bill help these people?
People can get declined by private insurers for a large variety of reasons. These could range from mental health issues to high blood pressure readings. They could also be more serious. Of course, no insurer wants to pick up a patient who is already undergoing chemotherapy at $12k a day. But where do these people turn? It seems like most of us agree that our government should be the ultimate safety net, and how is health reform meeting that?
What Do High Risk Patients Do Today?
What do they do, you mean, besides rely on emergency services and throw their bills in the garbage can? Well, they do have some options. Each state has a high risk health insurance plan today. But these vary. Some states, like mine, do have a high risk plan with a very expensive price tag. And not everybody qualifies. For instance, I had a friend with cancer who had maxed out his group health insurance benefits, and was declined by the high risk pool because he had group, even though he had no benefits left. Nice, huh?
Health Reform for High Risk Health Insurance
Apparently a national high risk health insurance pool will be established, and the rates will be set to be similar to standard rates. This part of the bill is set to go into effect 90 days from the bill’s passing, and will not have to wait until 2014 like other parts of the measure.
Is this all true? Who knows. The bill seems to change daily, and just because one version has passed the senate, while another version passed the representatives, doesn’t mean it will go into law. Both houses of congress have to merge this into one bill, and then Obama must sign off on it.
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