Monday, 1 April 2013

What Is an Insurance Premium?


An insurance premium refers to the amount of money that is stipulated by an insurance company that a insurance policy holder must pay in order to maintain the active coverage of the insurance.

For example, an insurance premium on your car insurance would be the amount you had to pay before the insurance company. This amount is often something around $500 or $1000. Because of the premium, there are some issues (such as a cracked windshield) that insurance doesn't cover because they are cheaper than the premium.

Insurance premiums asked by different insurance companies will vary even if these companies offer the same service. This is the reason why insurance experts recommend that people who are interested in getting an insurance policy get quotes from different insurance companies so that they can get the best deals and lowers insurance premiums. To get the insurance premium, an insurance agent will get a person’s personal information, and based on the information as well as other factors, the insurance premium is computed. The lowest insurance premium would obviously be the easiest policy to maintain, although a low insurance premium may also mean that the coverage provided may not be much. The insurance premium is based a lot on statistics. It is not really dependent on the individual habits of a person applying for insurance. This basically the same whether a person is applying for car insurance or a medical insurance.

Insurance premiums are usually collected in various schedules. One can opt to pay it monthly, quarterly, semi yearly or yearly. A policy holder has the responsibility to make sure the insurance premiums are paid regularly. A policy holder who fails to make the scheduled payment is in danger of having his insurance policy cancelled by the insurance company. This is called a lapsed policy. The policy holder has the option of paying the balance of the insurance premium to reinstate the policy.

Source: http://brainz.org/what-insurance-premium/

What is insurance?

Life Insurance is the key to good financial planning. On one hand, it safeguards your money and on the other, ensures its growth, thus providing you with complete financial well being. Life Insurance can be termed as an agreement between the policy owner and the insurer, where the insurer for a consideration agrees to pay a sum of money upon the occurrence of the insured individual's or individuals' death or other event, such as terminal illness, critical illness or maturity of the policy.

Life insurance plans, unlike mutual funds, are beneficial when you look at them as a long term avenue of investment which also offers protection through life cover. Life insurance policies are broadly categorized into 2 types; Traditional Plans and Unit Linked Insurance Plans (ULIPs).

Traditional policies offer in-built guarantees and define maturity benefits through variety of products such as guaranteed maturity value. The investment risk in traditional life insurance policies is borne by life insurance companies. Additionally, the investment decisions are regulated to a large extent by IRDA rules and regulations, ensuring stable returns with minimal risk. Investment income is distributed amongst the policy holders through annual bonus. These policies are ideal for policy holders who are not market savvy and do not wish to take investment risks.

ULIPs, on the other hand provide a combination of risk cover and investment. More importantly they offer a flexibility to decide your risk taking profile.

Source: http://www.lifeinscouncil.org/consumers/what-is-insurance