insurance 2.20 – gtg
Mexican Insurance Store, one of today’s leading providers of online Mexican auto insurance, has been working on raising awareness about buying Mexican insurance on the Internet. The company’s website is available 24/7, and Mexican insurance Store has been noticing an uptick in the number of policies that are being sold on the weekends and weekday evenings. “While some folks plan out their Mexican vacations ahead of time, others are happy to head out on a total whim,” says Linden Gray, the president of Mexican Insurance Store. “Some of those people don’t realize that they can buy a Mexican insurance policy at any time of the day or night through our site, so we’ve been working harder than ever to make that more widely known.”
Through the company’s website, a traveler can log on and choose from a wide selection of Mexican car insurance policies. The site doesn’t shut down at night or on weekends, so travelers can click their way over to the site to get the Mexican auto insurance that they need at any time. “We keep track of the types of Mexican car insurance policies that are purchased and when they are purchased,” says a Mexican Insurance Store IT professional. “While more Mexican auto insurance policies are sold during regular business hours, plenty of them are sold in the middle of the night and at other somewhat unusual times. There’s no telling when someone will need Mexican insurance.”
The company’s quote system is also available 24/7. Travelers can visit the site to find out how much a Mexican auto insurance policy will cost at any time of the day or night. “I’m the type of person who likes to do research in the middle of the night, when things are nice and peaceful,” says one longtime Mexican Insurance Store customer. “I’ve always appreciated the fact that the Mexican Insurance Store site is available at all times. I’ve requested and received several quotes in the middle of the night from the site, and it’s worked perfectly fine each time.”
Mexican Insurance Store has never had a reason to shut down its site during the wee hours of the night. “Our customers need to have access at all times,” adds Gray. “Some people work night shifts, and others may just be impulsive and want to hit the road right away. We’re not concerned about why they want to access the site; we are strictly concerned about connecting them with high-quality Mexican car insurance policies when they need them the most.” The site is also open on all major holidays, and purchases can be made at any time.
While it’s true that shacks along the border sell Mexican auto insurance at all times, Gray advises against buying coverage from them. “Most shacks at the border charge more and provide less for this type of coverage,” he says. “Anyone who cares about saving money and buying reliable Mexican auto insurance is wise to buy their insurance online from Mexican Insurance Store before hitting the road.” Furthermore, there’s no need to wait in line when buying Mexican auto insurance online. “It’s so nice to find a policy and pay for it in just a few seconds,” says one customer. “The fact that I can do that at any time is especially nice.”
About Mexican Insurance Store.com
Mexican Insurance Store is the largest provider of Mexican Auto Insurance in the South. The company offers a variety of Mexico car insurance policies online and provides Mexican auto insurance to Canada and US travelers nationwide. Self-service policies are purchased and printed instantly by customers or created by Mexican Insurance Store and emailed or faxed to customers in minutes at no additional charge.
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Retirement years should ideally be carefree years where you indulge in your favorite activities without worrying about the costs. These activities could be holidaying at your dream destination, buying expensive art, antiques or collectibles, showering your kids and grandchildren with gifts etc. Sounds like a dream retirement, doesn’t it? But the power to turn this dream into a reality lies in your hands and the best time to start working towards it is now.
So what is the right approach and what should one do?
Income-earning years is the time when you can save money, but most people end up spending all or most of their money without giving this any thought. The best way to deal with this is to train your mind into thinking that your earnings are at least 20% less than your actual income. This can best be achieved if you instruct your bank to automatically deduct 20% of your salary or income and to put it in a recurring deposit. This will ensure that you do not overspend or end up with a zero balance bank account at the end of every month.
The next thing you need to do is to look for the best possible way to multiply or grow this money. There are varied investment avenues and the choice would differ from person-to-person.
One factor that will govern your decision will be your age. Your risk-taking capacity will be high when you are young say in your late 20’s or early 30’s. This is the time when you can take your chances and invest in medium-risk moderate-returns products, and the daring few can even experiment with high-risk high-returns products. However, if you are an extremely safe investor then you should look for low or no-risk investment options. As you get older, you must look for extremely safe investment options that will give you guaranteed returns.
All-in-all, the safest bet to ensuring good returns and getting a large corpus of funds by the time you retire, is to maintain a balanced portfolio throughout your lifetime and to review your portfolio every few years.
Some of the investment options for a balanced portfolio are:
→ Bank Fixed Deposits
→ Company Fixed Deposits
→ Mutual Funds and SIPs
→ Gold and Gold ETFs
→ Provident Fund
→ Bonds and Debentures
→ Money Market Funds
→ Equity
→ Pension Plans
→ Real Estate
→ Public Provident Fund PPF – Minimum amount you can invest is Rs 500 per year and maximum amount is Rs 1 lakh per year. The interest rates on PPF have also increased to 8.6% per year.
→ National Savings Certificate or NSC – Minimum amount you can invest is Rs 100 and there is no upper limit on investment.
At the same time do not forget to invest in a life and a health insurance policy. A life insurance policy will act as a safety net and ensure that your family’s financial needs are taken care of in your absence. A health insurance cover with a critical illness rider is also a must. The reason for this is that medical treatment costs are escalating and incase of any disease or illness, the expenses can make a dent in your savings. Moreover, treatment of any critical illness like Cancer, Stroke etc can nearly wipe off your savings. And please do make the mistake of underinsuring yourself.
Remember this – Over aggressive investments can take away your hard-earned money, whereas conservative investments may not fetch great returns. The art lies in having a balanced portfolio for that dream retirement!
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Lloyd’s of London is warning that the insurance industry faces an extremely challenging outlook as the world’s oldest market slipped deep into the red following record claims from natural disasters.
An unprecedented run of catastrophes in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the US has led to insurers paying out billions of pounds this year. This made the first half of the year the costliest six-month period in the insurance market’s 323-year history.
Richard Ward, Lloyd’s chief executive, said 2011 shapied up to be the second-worst year on record for the insurance industry – after 2005, which saw Hurricane Katrina wreak havoc across the southern US. Others, including Lloyd’s of London insurer Hiscox, believe this could easily be the most destructive year ever.
“If we see more catastrophes come through it could well be [the second worst year ever],” said Ward. “Things will get more and more challenging. We’re faced with a pretty dire economic environment. Everyone is talking about sovereign debt default and a double-dip recession. It doesn’t make happy reading. The economic environment is, of course, affecting all our clients.”
This makes it harder for insurers to raise the cost of cover. Ward warned: “While interest rates are low and equity markets are volatile, we can’t rely on investment income to subsidize our underwriting, we must decline under-priced risks.”
Lloyd’s, which began in a coffee shop in the City of London in 1688, slumped to a pretax loss of £697m in the first half, against a profit of £628m a year ago, reflecting £6.7bn of claims.
While insurers have been lifting their premiums to protect against natural catastrophes in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the US, Ward said that elsewhere rates are flat or even falling. “We do need to see rates go up to restore the industry to profitability,” he reiterated. “But rates are going up from a low level, the market was still reasonably hard and there were still profits in the system.”
The frequency and severity of natural disasters is making life hard for insurers. “It does feel as though [natural disasters] are happening a lot more frequently,” Ward said, although he added that “you have to look over 100 years rather than just 10 years”.
“When these events happen everyone does revise their models. But I always say what worries me is the things we don’t model,” he said.
Lloyd’s revealed that it had minimized its exposure to some European government debt regarded as too risky, and was steadily pulling deposits from peripheral European banks. A spokeswoman explained that Lloyd’s had no investments in Greece, and “minimal exposure” to Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Spain. Rather than rushing to withdraw deposits from certain banks, Lloyd’s is shifting its portfolio towards more secure banks as term deposits mature.
Lloyd’s has an investment portfolio worth £50bn, with 38% allocated to corporate bonds, 28% to government bonds, 29% to cash and 1% to equities. Most of its government bonds are UK gilts and US Treasuries, which are seen as safe havens.
Luke Savage, Lloyd’s finance director, said: “Given the uncertainty around the eurozone, we would seek to reduce potential downside risk. As a result, we’re not holding government debt of any peripheral EU countries and have sought to reduce our exposure to banks in these countries.”
Some 80% of Lloyd’s corporate bond holdings are from financial institutions. Savage said Lloyd’s was shifting its holdings towards high quality banks, perhaps with government backing, from single-A rated banks and peripheral European institutions.
MEP Godfrey Bloom, UKIP’s city spokesman, who sits on the economic and monetary affairs committee of the European parliament, said: “Lloyd’s are only doing what they have to do. Their job is to ensure that money deposited with them is treated with full due diligence and care. Anything else than acting to protect these deposits by removing them from potential harm in risky countries would be a dereliction of their duty.”
The news comes a day after it emerged that German engineering group Siemens pulled its deposits out of Société Générale in July.
At 113%, Lloyd’s has a combined ratio – a key measure of an insurer’s underwriting profitability where 100% and anything over indicates a loss – which compares favorably with the 117% recorded by its Bermuda-based rivals and 116% for US reinsurers, although European insurers and reinsurers have a lower ratio of 106%. Ward believes Lloyd’s is benefiting from the diverse book of business that its members write – covering anything from natural disasters to kidnapping, fine art theft and space and satellite insurance.
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premiums.
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