Here is an interesting article from the NY Times on a computer simulation program that tests your driving skills and is

…intended to improve mental acuity, the cognitive software uses bouncing balls and visual memory tests to gauge driving skills.There are already programs like AAA’s Roadwise Review (about $15), which is intended to help older people evaluate their driving. The program was based on research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Institute on Aging that showed that older drivers who had significant declines in particular cognitive abilities were up to five times as likely to be in a car accident as their peers. Roadwise assesses eight physical and mental fitness elements related to driving, an especially pressing issue with an estimated 40 million people over the age of 65 expected to be driving by 2020, up from 29 million in 2005, according to the AAA. The program, which takes about 30 minutes to complete, amounts to a do-it-yourself driving checkup, including video clips explaining the relevance of tests that check visual search and memory skills.   

 I can almost imaging the future when the DMV or insurance companies would just email you such a test and see if you qualify to drive or quote your drivers insurance based on your score. 

If Roadwise does reveal impairments, AAA reminds users that the computer program is not equivalent to being examined by a doctor and that users may want to take additional steps, like seeing an ophthalmologist if one has difficulty discerning low-contrast objects. “The program only looks at abilities that are known to decline with age,” said Dannielle Sherrets, AAA’s manager of traffic safety research and analysis. So the program may not reveal other problems. Furthermore, Roadwise isn’t intended to improve cognitive shortcomings.There are other programs that will test mental agility and then use subsequent computer training sessions to improve a driver’s skills. One such program is an online application called DriveFit ($89), which was developed by CogniFit, an Israeli company specializing in cognitive training software. DriveFit uses visual and memory tests to measure 12 driving-related cognitive abilities. It assesses reaction times, as well as a person’s propensity to take risks, ability to judge relative speed and process information when attention is divided (for example, driving while talking on a cellphone). According to the company, people who are slower at processing information in these areas are going to be more dangerous drivers.I found DriveFit’s 30-minute evaluation much more challenging than AAA’s. Some sections were like a sophisticated version of Pong, in which I had to track moving objects on the computer screen and quickly judge the relative speeds of moving balls. In other sections, my memory was strained trying to recall ever lengthening number sequences and answer questions based on split-second glimpses of photos of busy intersections.   

I will not try to settle the long standing battle that takes place between Permanent Life Insurance and Term Life Insurance but I will raise a few points that are key to making an informed decision when buying life insurance.One thing to think about is that there are thousands of insurance companies out there and if you are getting advice from a talking head on TV,  you can assume that the complexity of permanent life insurance and the variations among 1,000’s of companies, some A+ rated and others not, would make anyone a little hesitant to recommend it without guiding you to a specific company and product. These tv and radio experts are probably doing a service to the average consumer by guiding them to the most basic type of insurance.  It doesn’t hurt that this stance also provides more opportunities for advertising as well. The financial services industry has would rather sell you a mutual fund than insurance because that’s how they make their penny.Third, as the Wall Street Journal notes in Stocks in Longest Funk Since ’70s, stocks have historically gone through long periods with little growth.   

Over the past 200 years, the stock market’s steady upward march occasionally has been disrupted for long stretches, most recently during the Great Depression and the inflation-plagued 1970s. The current market turmoil suggests that we may be in another lost decade.The stock market is trading right where it was nine years ago. Stocks, long touted as the best investment for the long term, have been one of the worst investments over the nine-year period, trounced even by lowly Treasury bonds.         

I put that in there to make the simple point that the “buy term and invest the rest” mantra is not always right for everyone unless you own a crystal ball. People still think that stocks owe them something because they were so good to us in the 90’s. So many people still imagine that as Suze Orman says in her extremely influential book “The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom”, that “9 percent was being conservative”. I bet a lot of people who are today getting less that 3.5% on a ten year t-bill might laugh at this but it was originally published in 1997 and revised in 2000 and things had been pretty rosy.  Now her assumption about what is conservative has been reigned in a bit to 5%, quite a reality check. Remember the Beardstown Ladies who “merely goofed when calculating their annual returns” and had to revise their numbers down to the point that they underperformed the Dow. My point being that assumptions about how easy it is to make a fortune investing in the stock market abound and it just isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. The article that follows aims to say that term insurance is a better value than permanent insurance. A couple of highly suspect assumptions are made. The first is that the client lives till 87, a full eight years longer than the current average of 79.4 and that it would be more wise to have the client have her inheritance go from $2,000,000 at age 65 to $672,465 at age 66. So ask yourself if you were 66, would you rather know that if you didn’t wake up the next day that your heirs would get $2,000,000 or would you rather they got $672,465? Sure the $672,465 may grow to be more if you make it to 87 but if you happen to be average like most people it will just grow to $1,331,434. The Orman article follows. 

And the Financial Fight Goes on… If you are still with me, I’d like to get back into the ring for a little longer and continue comparing term insurance with the other contenders. In one corner is the investment type of life insurance known as universal, whole life, or variable life. And in the other corner is level term insurance. My guess is that many of you would be tempted to place your bet on the investment insurance because of everything you may have been told about it in the past.But before you lay your money down, let’s walk through a scenario of what a healthy 35-year-old would pay on an investment insurance policy, such as universal life, versus a 30-year level term policy. My friends at Accuquote tell me at the time of writing this article that a $2 million universal life policy would run $11,640 a year, compared to the $1,945 for the 30-year term policy. Now at the end of the 30 years, assuming a policy contract with a 4 percent guaranteed rate of return, that universal life policy will have built up a “cash value” of nearly $430,000. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But wait a minute; before start celebrating, ask yourself this: if the insurance company is guaranteeing you 4 percent yearly, how come when you do the math $430,000 appears to represent an actual yearly return of only 1.4 percent? Did that hit you where it hurt? If you invested $11,640 a year for 30 years at 4% tax free, you should really have $653,000, not $430,000. What’s going on? The reason you have $223,000 less is that the rate of return you were quoted is before they subtract all the mortality charges, fees, and commissions that are part of the insurance policy. And don’t forget that as you get older the mortality charges go up and up and up – meaning your return will go down and down and down.But here’s where it gets really interesting. If you stuck with the cheaper term insurance, then invested the difference in the two policies on your own – we’re talking a yearly difference of $9,696 – you could do a whole lot better. Let’s assume that over the next 30 years you could easily earn 5 percent a year investing in tax-free municipal bonds. At 5 percent tax-free, investing the difference between the term and “investment” insurance policies would generate a $672,465 pot at the end of 30 years. Now most likely at the age of 65 you will still not need $2,000,000 of insurance. Your kids will be financially independent, hopefully your home is close to being paid off, your car is paid off, and you have ample assets in your retirement account. So with the $672,465 to replace your insurance, you should be just fine. But this is what you should really keep in mind: assuming you’re pretty healthy, odds are you’re going to live at least another 20 years. In fact, your life expectancy is going to be 87. And you need money to live on in those golden years, right?Well, if you just let the $672,465 continue to earn 5 percent a year for the next 22 years – without investing another penny – you’ll have $1,967,000. That’s very close to the $2,000,000 your family would have gotten if you had purchased the universal life policy at the age of 35.So why do I insist the term insurance is better? Remember my friends, for you to get that $2,000,000 in the universal life policy you would have had to continue to invest $11,640 a year for an additional 22 years. And if you are only getting the guaranteed cash value, we’re talking a mere $400,000 more. You get my point: stick with term for your insurance and do the investing on your own.        

Wow that must have been one heck of a convincing apology.

A Lumberton couple’s marriage appears to have survived an attempt by the wife to hire a hit man to kill her husband.Doris Marie Brown, 51, pleaded no contest Thursday to charges she tried to hire an undercover Beaumont police officer to kill her husband, Humverto Brown, last November.The wife faces up to life in prison when 252nd state District Judge Layne Walker sentences her on the first-degree felony next month.Her husband, though, has asked she be given a much lighter sentence, prosecutor Pat Knauth said.”He’s been calling, asking us not to prosecute her, or to give her probation,” Knauth said by phone, speaking of Humverto Brown “Apparently they are together.”…When an acquaintance told police in November that Doris Brown had asked him to kill her husband, police arranged for the wife to meet an undercover officer posing as a hit man, according to court documents.Surveillance recorded Doris Brown offering the officer $10,000 to kill her husband, explaining she wanted to collect on his life insurance policy, according to her arrest warrant affidavit.

Not just in the movies I guess.

This article from MSN has some food for thought about insuring your home.

Is your home underinsured? 8 key tests

Don’t rely on your insurance company to size up what you need. Here are the steps you should take to make sure that a disaster doesn’t ruin you.

By Liz Pulliam Weston

Karen and Bill Reimus aren’t cheapskates about insurance. In addition to life and health policies, the self-described “insurance freaks” have earthquake and disability protection. They also sprang for extended replacement coverage on their pricey new San Diego County home, figuring better safe than sorry.

“We try to prepare for a rainy day,” said Karen, a mother of two who, like her husband, is a lawyer.

But it was fire, not rain, that proved their undoing. Four months after they bought their house in 2003, it burned to the ground in the Southern California wildfires and the Reimuses discovered their policy limits fell at least $150,000 short of what they needed to rebuild.

After talking with their Scripps Ranch neighbors, the Reimuses learned they had plenty of company. California’s insurance commissioner estimated 90% of those affected by the wildfires were underinsured, and an insurance industry estimate puts the number nationwide at around 67%.

How much?

Trying to figure out the right amounts of insurance coverage, however, is a tricky, frustrating process. Your insurance company or agent may be surprisingly little help, and may even steer you wrong.

Many San Diego wildfire victims, for example, said their agents used a computer survey that vastly underestimated the cost of rebuilding their homes.

The survey, called Quick Quote, was part of a larger software package that Marshall & Swift sells to insurers to estimate replacement costs. The company said agents should have used the more detailed software, which requires a longer interview with homeowners, to determine policy limits.

The controversy over Quick Quote led Marshall & Swift to remove the survey from its software package in November 2004.

Video on MSN Money: Save on home insurance

How does the type of dog you own affect your insurance rate? Find out along with how much you should insure for and other cost saving tips. Click here to play the video.

Reimus said she was stunned that an insurance company would offer too little coverage, since such a practice limits the premiums it collects. She now suspects insurers actively avoid selling consumers adequate coverage to reduce the companies’ exposure to loss.

Insurers deny that, although they do admit some agents may “lowball,” or give quotes based on inadequate policy limits, to sell more policies.

Lulled into complacency

Insurance analyst Brian Sullivan has another take on the situation. He says the annual premiums paid on most policies are too small for insurers to spend much time doing a detailed assessment of the customers’ needs.

“If you ask most insurance companies what they’re insuring — how many hardwood floors, how many fireplaces — they have no idea,” said Sullivan, editor of Risk Information, an industry newsletter. “It’s only companies like Chubb that have (policies with) premiums in the thousands of dollars that will come out and appraise your home and everything in it.”

Homeowners are often lulled into complacency because they have “guaranteed replacement” or “extended replacement” policies, which sound like they’ll rebuild a home regardless of the cost, said attorney Amy Bach of United Policyholders, an advocacy group for insurance consumers.

But true guaranteed-replacement policies are almost extinct, and virtually all insurers cap the payouts to 100% to 150% of the amount for which the home is insured.

Bach recommends consumers buy the highest cap they can afford, and take the following steps:

· Talk to a custom homebuilder about square-foot replacement costs. Divide your home’s policy limits, which are listed on the “declarations” page, by your home’s square footage. Compare this to the builder’s estimate of what it would cost to rebuild your house, with its current amenities. If your insurer can’t explain discrepancies to your satisfaction, start shopping for another insurer.

· Don’t be cheap. Make it clear to your insurer or agent that you want the best coverage for your money, not the lowest possible premiums.

· Check your “loss of use.” Homeowners’ policies typically provide money to pay your rent and related living expenses while your home is being rebuilt. Again, you should find this coverage on the declarations page. If the amount offered wouldn’t cover you for two full years, Bach recommends asking for a higher limit or finding another insurer. It’s not just rebuilding coverage that falls short. Many homeowners’ policies severely restrict how much money you’d get to replace your stuff, and limit or even exclude some common household items from your policy:

· “Actual cash value” vs. replacement cost. If you have a policy that pays out “actual cash value” on your home’s contents, for example, you’ll get a check for what your possessions were worth when they were destroyed — not what they would cost to replace.

It’s much better to spring for “replacement cost” on your contents, and get a check for what you would need to buy a new item. The cost of this coverage is typically about 10% to 20% more than actual-cash-value coverage.

But even here, you could be vulnerable. Some policies provide replacement-cost coverage for most items, but make exceptions for others. Your policy might give you a check to buy a new couch, for example, but decide to depreciate your carpet and give you only a fraction of the replacement cost.

The only way to know how you’re protected is to read your policy, front to back.

· Limits on total coverage. Many policies peg your contents coverage to a percentage of your overall policy limit. If your home is insured for $200,000, for example, your contents coverage might be $80,000, or $100,000, or $150,000, depending on the insurer’s policies. Obviously, there’s a lot of variation, and these limits don’t reflect whether your furniture consists of Chippendale or chipped-and-dented. The only way to be sure you’re adequately covered is to do a detailed household inventory, writing down all your possessions and what it would cost to replace them. A drag? Of course. But it’s time you’ll be glad you invested if you’re ever faced with making a claim.

· Limits on the good stuff. If you own something truly valuable, chances are good your policy restricts how big a check you’d get. Most policies put payout limits of $1,000 to $2,500 on such items as jewelry, firearms, artwork and antiques. If you want full coverage, you need to purchase a “floater” or “rider” on the item at an added cost.

· Exclusions and more exclusions. Your policy likely has some other gaping holes. Homeowners’ insurance typically won’t replace equipment you use for a home-based business. Property belonging to a tenant is usually excluded. Damage from certain causes, like a flood or sewer back-up, won’t be covered, either. In these cases, you can get supplemental coverage — and you probably should.

Liability lessons

Then there’s liability coverage, which is supposed to protect you from lawsuits. Chances are pretty good you don’t have enough protection, which means you could be in danger of losing everything you own to the next person who decides to sue.

Again, deciding how much liability to buy is tough. You can’t predict who is going to sue you or for how much. Although most insurance experts advise buying liability coverage equal to one or two times your net worth, a jury could come back with a whopping award that bears no relationship to what you own or could earn in a lifetime.

Still, trial attorneys tend to go for the easy money and often settle for the amount of your policy — unless you’re vastly underinsured. Then they’re likely to go to the time and trouble of identifying, and going after, all your available assets.

That’s why Steve Vidmar, an insurance defense attorney in New Mexico, recommends most homeowners have at least $1 million in coverage. That means buying the maximum coverage your homeowners’ policy allows — typically $250,000 to $500,000 — plus an “umbrella” or personal-liability policy that provides coverage up to $1 million.

“I’d recommend even higher limits,” Vidmar said, “for those with teenage drivers.”

Fortunately, boosting your liability coverage is still relatively cheap. A $1 million umbrella policy usually costs $200 to $300 a year.

Take action now, not later

]]> http://www.portland-insurance-agent.com/portland-home-owners-consider-this/feed/ 0 http://www.portland-insurance-agent.com/will-insurance-inquiries-hurt-my-credit-score/ http://www.portland-insurance-agent.com/will-insurance-inquiries-hurt-my-credit-score/#comments Tue, 11 Sep 2007 04:21:51 +0000 Your Portland Insurance Agent http://www.portland-insurance-agent.com/will-insurance-inquiries-hurt-my-credit-score/

Insurance companies each have their own unique method of judging the risk presented by a potential applicant. A major component of this secret formula, like seemingly all things in modern life, is the persons credit score. At first it may seem strange but in all actuality there is not that many criterion with which to fairly judge applicants and if you were insuring someone, would you rather insure the person with the perfect credit or the terrible credit. In many cases having your credit checked by a lender can temporarily lower your credit score by a small bit. That small bit could cost you extra money on your insurance premiums. Therefore if you are in the market for a new home or income property it is best to start the application process with your insurance agent before seeking a loan.

Inquiries for insurance purposes are “soft” inquiries, meaning they only appear on your personal credit report. They are not provided to lenders and so do not affect credit scores.
When the Fair Credit Reporting Act was first passed in 1972 it included insurance purposes as one of the reasons businesses could check your credit report.
Originally, checking your credit report gave insight into whether you could afford to pay your monthly premiums. As technology became more sophisticated, insurance companies developed systems that enable them to predict the potential that someone will file claims, based in part on the information in a credit report.
Every time your credit report is accessed, an inquiry is added to your credit report. An inquiry is simply a record of that access. There are two kinds of inquiries.
Inquiries that are the result of your application for credit are shown to other lenders and can affect credit scores.
Other inquiries, which are not the result of your application for credit, are shown only to you on your personal credit report and do not affect credit scores.
Inquiries for insurance purposes fall into the second category because they do not involve a credit relationship. Other types of inquiries in this category include those for employment purposes, account monitoring by existing creditors and preapproved credit offers.
Because you do not ask for the preapproved offer to be sent, the inquiry made to determine if you qualify for the offer is shown only to you.
If you later choose to accept the offer and send in the application form, the company can check your report to be sure you still qualify. That inquiry will be shown to lenders and can influence credit scores because you have then applied for credit.

(source Experian)

In many cases the score that the insurance company will use to evaluate your risk will remain affective for 30 days, during which time you can line up your loan and not affect your insurance rates.

]]> http://www.portland-insurance-agent.com/will-insurance-inquiries-hurt-my-credit-score/feed/ 0 http://www.portland-insurance-agent.com/portlands-time-based-art-tba-07/ http://www.portland-insurance-agent.com/portlands-time-based-art-tba-07/#comments Sun, 09 Sep 2007 06:20:44 +0000 Your Portland Insurance Agent http://www.portland-insurance-agent.com/portlands-time-based-art-tba-07/

What a great night of art starting with Andrew Dickson’s “Sell Out” followed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph giving the audience a pre-premier of his forthcoming performance. Both were excellent and highly recommended.

Dickson’s PowerPoint monologue is more or less a how-to guide for slackers to achieve the trilogy of “a house, kids and healthcare”

Ten years ago Andrew Dickson was an independent filmmaker whose typical day involved riding his bike around Portland eating cheap burritos, going to basement punk rock shows and maybe doing a 4-hour temp job. Today, he writes ads for Fortune 500 companies, lives in a brand-new loft apartment, and hasn’t been on a bike in years. The Andrew of ten years ago would definitely consider the Andrew of today a sellout.
Long fascinated with street cred, artistic self-identification, personal economy, and the relationship between corporate America and culture, Dickson is publicly mining the evolution of his lifestyle from DIY to 2.0. Sell Out, his latest PowerPoint monologue, or PowerLogue, documents this journey. The show will also address how and why to sell out, penny-pinching ideas for getting by in the meantime, and what the ramifications can be once the sale has been made. And with any luck, it will be insightful and funny.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph took the audience through a range of thoughts, ideas and emotions packed into personal stories, movements and beats. Definitely one of those artists the make me think “oh yeah, raw talent, I like that”

A multimedia excursion across planet hip-hop, the break/s is presented in verse, dance and film, which dramatically realizes the living history of the hip-hop generation through the performed personal narrative of poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph. The break/s brings together thematic ideas that Bamuthi has been exploring for many years with Jeff Chang’s landmark hip-hop history Can’t Stop Won’t Stop to chronicle a generation’s political and social longing to make culture that impacts the world.

The quotes are from the PICA website.

]]> http://www.portland-insurance-agent.com/portlands-time-based-art-tba-07/feed/ 0 http://www.portland-insurance-agent.com/car-insurance-agent-or-800-number/ http://www.portland-insurance-agent.com/car-insurance-agent-or-800-number/#comments Thu, 30 Aug 2007 05:41:12 +0000 Your Portland Insurance Agent http://www.portland-insurance-agent.com/?p=4

Sounds like a good time to give Your Portland Insurance Agent a ring.

(from the Wall Street Journal)

Auto insurers that sell policies directly to consumers say they’re able to offer lower prices because they don’t need to pay agents commissions, but with car-insurance prices falling in many states amid a price war, agent-oriented insurers could be gaining an advantage.

A recent study from Conning Research & Consulting Inc. says that as auto-insurance prices fall, the expense of paying commissions — which can average around 10% of the premium — falls too. Meantime, direct insurers’ costs remain stable or rise, bringing direct insurer costs closer to the costs of insurers that sell through agents.

Direct insurers may need to focus their marketing to existing customers and to areas where premiums remain high and populations concentrated, particularly urban markets, which leaves some areas more open to agent-driven insurers.

Consumers value having an agent available to answer questions about coverage and other insurance needs. “Price is important, but it is not the end-all,” said Karen Eckert, assistant vice president of agency distribution at Allstate.

As reported in Adweek

Geico spent $560 million on media in 2006

Just think about that for a second… that’s roughly $2 for every American. There are really only three ways to make up for that kind of capital outlay, make more on investing policy holders premiums, pay out less on claims or provide less customer service. If you can think of any others let me know. So as a consumer do the last two sound like what you want when you set out to insure one of the most likely sources of liability in your life? Insurance is an intangible, but just imagine if you caused an accident, you made a mistake, who do you want to call, your agent or an 800 number?

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Types of insurance:
1 Throughout most of the United States an auto insurance policy is required to legally operate a motor vehicle on public roads. In some jurisdictions, bodily injury compensation for automobile accident victims has been changed to a no fault system, which reduces or eliminates the ability to sue for compensation but provides automatic eligibility for benefits.
2 Casualty insurance insures against accidents, not necessarily tied to any specific property.
3 Credit insurance repays some or all of a loan back when certain things happen to the borrower such as unemployment, disability, or death.
4 Crime insurance insures the policyholder against losses arising from the criminal acts of third parties. For example, a company can obtain crime insurance to cover losses arising from theft or embezzlement.
5 Crop insurance for farmers to reduce or manage various risks associated with growing crops. Such risks include crop loss or damage caused by weather, hail, drought, frost damage, insects, or disease.
6 Health insurance policies will often cover the cost of private medical treatments if the National Health Service in the UK (NHS) or other publicly-funded health programs do not pay for them. It will often result in quicker health care where better facilities are available.
7 Disability insurance policies provide financial support in the event the policyholder is unable to work because of disabling illness or injury. It provides monthly support to help pay such obligations as mortgages and credit cards.
8 Liability insurance covers legal claims against the insured. For example, a homeowner’s insurance policy will normally include liability coverage which will protect the insured in the event of a claim brought by someone who slips and falls on the property, and brings a lawsuit for her injuries. Liability policies typically cover only the negligence of the insured, and will not apply to results of willful or intentional acts by the insured.
9 Life insurance provides a monetary benefit to a decedent’s family or other designated beneficiary, and may specifically provide for burial, funeral and other final expenses.
10 Home owners or property insurance provides protection against risks to property, such as fire, theft or weather damage.

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