BURIAL INSURANCE

Burial insurance is a very old type of life insurance which is paid out upon death to cover final expenses, such as the cost of a funeral. The Greeks and Romans introduced burial insurance circa 600 AD when they organized guilds called "benevolent societies" which cared for the surviving families and paid funeral expenses of members upon death. Guilds in the Middle Ages served a similar purpose, as did friendly societies during Victorian times.

HEALTH INSURANCE

Health insurance policies cover the cost of medical treatments. Dental insurance, like medical insurance protects policyholders for dental costs. In the US and Canada, dental insurance is often part of an employer's benefits package, along with health insurance.

Accident, sickness and unemployment insurance

1.Disability insurance policies provide financial support in the event of the policyholder becoming unable to work because of disabling illness or injury. It provides monthly support to help pay such obligations as mortgage loans and credit cards. Short-term and long-term disability policies are available to individuals, but considering the expense, long-term policies are generally obtained only by those with at least six-figure incomes, such as doctors, lawyers, etc. Short-term disability insurance covers a person for a period typically up to six months, paying a stipend each month to cover medical bills and other necessities.

2.Long-term disability insurance covers an individual's expenses for the long term, up until such time as they are considered permanently disabled and thereafter. Insurance companies will often try to encourage the person back into employment in preference to and before declaring them unable to work at all and therefore totally disabled.

3.Disability overhead insurance allows business owners to cover the overhead expenses of their business while they are unable to work.

4.Total permanent disability insurance provides benefits when a person is permanently disabled and can no longer work in their profession, often taken as an adjunct to life insurance.

5.Workers' compensation insurance replaces all or part of a worker's wages lost and accompanying medical expenses incurred because of a job-related injury.

GAP INSURANCE

Gap insurance covers the excess amount on your auto loan in an instance where your insurance company does not cover the entire loan. Depending on the companies specific policies it might or might not cover the deductible as well. This coverage is marketed for those who put low down payments, have high interest rates on their loans, and those with 60 month or longer terms. Gap insurance is typically offered by your finance company when you first purchase your vehicle. Most auto insurance companies offer this coverage to consumers as well. If you are unsure if GAP coverage had been purchased, you should check your vehicle lease or purchase documentation.

AUTO INSURANCE OR VEHICLE INSURANCE

Auto insurance protects the policyholder against financial loss in the event of an incident involving a vehicle they own, such as in a traffic collision.

Coverage typically includes:

    Property coverage, for damage to or theft of the car;
    Liability coverage, for the legal responsibility to others for bodily injury or property damage;
    Medical coverage, for the cost of treating injuries, rehabilitation and sometimes lost wages and funeral expenses.

Most countries, such as the United Kingdom, require drivers to buy some, but not all, of these coverages. When a car is used as collateral for a loan the lender usually requires specific coverage.

CLAIMS OF AN INSURANCE

Claims and loss handling is the materialized utility of insurance; it is the actual "product" paid for. Claims may be filed by insureds directly with the insurer or through brokers or agents. The insurer may require that the claim be filed on its own proprietary forms, or may accept claims on a standard industry form, such as those produced by ACORD.

Insurance company claims departments employ a large number of claims adjusters supported by a staff of records management and data entry clerks. Incoming claims are classified based on severity and are assigned to adjusters whose settlement authority varies with their knowledge and experience. The adjuster undertakes an investigation of each claim, usually in close cooperation with the insured, determines if coverage is available under the terms of the insurance contract, and if so, the reasonable monetary value of the claim, and authorizes payment.

The policyholder may hire their own public adjuster to negotiate the settlement with the insurance company on their behalf. For policies that are complicated, where claims may be complex, the insured may take out a separate insurance policy add on, called loss recovery insurance, which covers the cost of a public adjuster in the case of a claim.

Adjusting liability insurance claims is particularly difficult because there is a third party involved, the plaintiff, who is under no contractual obligation to cooperate with the insurer and may in fact regard the insurer as a deep pocket. The adjuster must obtain legal counsel for the insured (either inside "house" counsel or outside "panel" counsel), monitor litigation that may take years to complete, and appear in person or over the telephone with settlement authority at a mandatory settlement conference when requested by the judge.

If a claims adjuster suspects under-insurance, the condition of average may come into play to limit the insurance company's exposure.

In managing the claims handling function, insurers seek to balance the elements of customer satisfaction, administrative handling expenses, and claims overpayment leakages. As part of this balancing act, fraudulent insurance practices are a major business risk that must be managed and overcome. Disputes between insurers and insureds over the validity of claims or claims handling practices occasionally escalate into litigation (see insurance bad faith).

INSURER'S BUSINESS MODEL

UNDERWRITING AND INVESTING


The business model is to collect more in premium and investment income than is paid out in losses, and to also offer a competitive price which consumers will accept. Profit can be reduced to a simple equation:

    Profit = earned premium + investment income - incurred loss - underwriting expenses.

Insurers make money in two ways:

    Through underwriting, the process by which insurers select the risks to insure and decide how much in premiums to charge for accepting those risks;
    By investing the premiums they collect from insured parties.

The most complicated aspect of the insurance business is the actuarial science of ratemaking (price-setting) of policies, which uses statistics and probability to approximate the rate of future claims based on a given risk. After producing rates, the insurer will use discretion to reject or accept risks through the underwriting process.

At the most basic level, initial ratemaking involves looking at the frequency and severity of insured perils and the expected average payout resulting from these perils. Thereafter an insurance company will collect historical loss data, bring the loss data to present value, and compare these prior losses to the premium collected in order to assess rate adequacy. Loss ratios and expense loads are also used. Rating for different risk characteristics involves at the most basic level comparing the losses with "loss relativities" - a policy with twice as many losses would therefore be charged twice as much. More complex multivariate analyses are sometimes used when multiple characteristics are involved and a univariate analysis could produce confounded results. Other statistical methods may be used in assessing the probability of future losses.

Upon termination of a given policy, the amount of premium collected and the investment gains thereon, minus the amount paid out in claims, is the insurer's underwriting profit on that policy. Underwriting performance is measured by something called the "combined ratio" which is the ratio of expenses/losses to premiums. A combined ratio of less than 100 percent indicates an underwriting profit, while anything over 100 indicates an underwriting loss. A company with a combined ratio over 100% may nevertheless remain profitable due to investment earnings.

Insurance companies earn investment profits on "float". Float, or available reserve, is the amount of money on hand at any given moment that an insurer has collected in insurance premiums but has not paid out in claims. Insurers start investing insurance premiums as soon as they are collected and continue to earn interest or other income on them until claims are paid out. The Association of British Insurers (gathering 400 insurance companies and 94% of UK insurance services) has almost 20% of the investments in the London Stock Exchange.

In the United States, the underwriting loss of property and casualty insurance companies was $142.3 billion in the five years ending 2003. But overall profit for the same period was $68.4 billion, as the result of float. Some insurance industry insiders, most notably Hank Greenberg, do not believe that it is forever possible to sustain a profit from float without an underwriting profit as well, but this opinion is not universally held.

Naturally, the float method is difficult to carry out in an economically depressed period. Bear markets do cause insurers to shift away from investments and to toughen up their underwriting standards, so a poor economy generally means high insurance premiums. This tendency to swing between profitable and unprofitable periods over time is commonly known as the underwriting, or insurance, cycle.

EFFECTS OF INSURANCE ON SOCIETY

Insurance can have various effects on society through the way that it changes who bears the cost of losses and damage. On one hand it can increase fraud, on the other it can help societies and individuals prepare for catastrophes and mitigate the effects of catastrophes on both households and societies.

Insurance can influence the probability of losses through moral hazard, insurance fraud, and preventive steps by the insurance company. Insurance scholars have typically used morale hazard to refer to the increased loss due to unintentional carelessness and moral hazard to refer to increased risk due to intentional carelessness or indifference.Insurers attempt to address carelessness through inspections, policy provisions requiring certain types of maintenance, and possible discounts for loss mitigation efforts. While in theory insurers could encourage investment in loss reduction, some commentators have argued that in practice insurers had historically not aggressively pursued loss control measures - particularly to prevent disaster losses such as hurricanes - because of concerns over rate reductions and legal battles. However, since about 1996 insurers began to take a more active role in loss mitigation, such as through building codes.

INDEMNIFICATION OF YOUR INSURANCE

To "indemnify" means to make whole again, or to be reinstated to the position that one was in, to the extent possible, prior to the happening of a specified event or peril. Accordingly, life insurance is generally not considered to be indemnity insurance, but rather "contingent" insurance (i.e., a claim arises on the occurrence of a specified event). There are generally two types of insurance contracts that seek to indemnify an insured:

    an "indemnity" policy, and
    a "pay on behalf" or "on behalf of" policy.

The difference is significant on paper, but rarely material in practice.

An "indemnity" policy will never pay claims until the insured has paid out of pocket to some third party; for example, a visitor to your home slips on a floor that you left wet and sues you for $10,000 and wins. Under an "indemnity" policy the homeowner would have to come up with the $10,000 to pay for the visitor's fall and then would be "indemnified" by the insurance carrier for the out of pocket costs (the $10,000).

Under the same situation, a "pay on behalf" policy, the insurance carrier would pay the claim and the insured (the homeowner in the above example) would not be out of pocket for anything. Most modern liability insurance is written on the basis of "pay on behalf" language.

An entity seeking to transfer risk (an individual, corporation, or association of any type, etc.) becomes the 'insured' party once risk is assumed by an 'insurer', the insuring party, by means of a contract, called an insurance policy. Generally, an insurance contract includes, at a minimum, the following elements: identification of participating parties (the insurer, the insured, the beneficiaries), the premium, the period of coverage, the particular loss event covered, the amount of coverage (i.e., the amount to be paid to the insured or beneficiary in the event of a loss), and exclusions (events not covered). An insured is thus said to be "indemnified" against the loss covered in the policy.

When insured parties experience a loss for a specified peril, the coverage entitles the policyholder to make a claim against the insurer for the covered amount of loss as specified by the policy. The fee paid by the insured to the insurer for assuming the risk is called the premium. Insurance premiums from many insureds are used to fund accounts reserved for later payment of claims — in theory for a relatively few claimants — and for overhead costs. So long as an insurer maintains adequate funds set aside for anticipated losses (called reserves), the remaining margin is an insurer's profit.

INSURABILITY

PRINCIPLES

Insurance involves pooling funds from many insured entities (known as exposures) to pay for the losses that some may incur. The insured entities are therefore protected from risk for a fee, with the fee being dependent upon the frequency and severity of the event occurring. In order to be insurable, the risk insured against must meet certain characteristics in order to be an insurable risk. Insurance is a commercial enterprise and a major part of the financial services industry, but individual entities can also self-insure through saving money for possible future losses

COMMON CHARACTERISTICS

1. Large number of similar exposure units: Since insurance operates through pooling resources, the majority of insurance policies are provided for individual members of large classes, allowing insurers to benefit from the law of large numbers in which predicted losses are similar to the actual losses. Exceptions include Lloyd's of London, which is famous for insuring the life or health of actors, sports figures and other famous individuals. However, all exposures will have particular differences, which may lead to different premium rates.    

2.Definite loss: The loss takes place at a known time, in a known place, and from a known cause. The classic example is death of an insured person on a life insurance policy. Fire, automobile accidents, and worker injuries may all easily meet this criterion. Other types of losses may only be definite in theory. Occupational disease, for instance, may involve prolonged exposure to injurious conditions where no specific time, place or cause is identifiable. Ideally, the time, place and cause of a loss should be clear enough that a reasonable person, with sufficient information, could objectively verify all three elements.

3.Accidental loss: The event that constitutes the trigger of a claim should be fortuitous, or at least outside the control of the beneficiary of the insurance. The loss should be pure, in the sense that it results from an event for which there is only the opportunity for cost. Events that contain speculative elements, such as ordinary business risks or even purchasing a lottery ticket, are generally not considered insurable.

4.Large loss: The size of the loss must be meaningful from the perspective of the insured. Insurance premiums need to cover both the expected cost of losses, plus the cost of issuing and administering the policy, adjusting losses, and supplying the capital needed to reasonably assure that the insurer will be able to pay claims. For small losses these latter costs may be several times the size of the expected cost of losses. There is hardly any point in paying such costs unless the protection offered has real value to a buyer.

5.Affordable premium: If the likelihood of an insured event is so high, or the cost of the event so large, that the resulting premium is large relative to the amount of protection offered, it is not likely that the insurance will be purchased, even if on offer. Further, as the accounting profession formally recognizes in financial accounting standards, the premium cannot be so large that there is not a reasonable chance of a significant loss to the insurer. If there is no such chance of loss, the transaction may have the form of insurance.



            

UNIVERSAL LIFE INSURANCE

Universal life insurance (often shortened to UL) is a type of permanent life insurance, primarily in the United States of America. Under the terms of the policy, the excess of premium payments above the current cost of insurance are credited to the cash value of the policy. The cash value is credited each month with interest, and the policy is debited each month by a cost of insurance (COI) charge, as well as any other policy charges and fees which are drawn from the cash value, even if no premium payment is made that month. Interest credited to the account is determined by the insurer, but has a contractual minimum rate of between 2% and 4%. When a earnings rate is pegged to a financial index such as a stock, bond or other interest rate index, the policy is a "Equity Indexed Universal Life" contract.

USES OF UNIVERSAL LIFE INSURANCE


1.Final expenses, such as a funeral, burial, and unpaid medical bills
2.Income replacement, to provide for surviving spouses and dependent children
3.Debt coverage, to pay off personal and business debts, such as a home mortgage or business operating loan
4.Estate liquidity, when an estate has an immediate need for cash to settle federal estate taxes, state inheritance taxes, or unpaid income in respect of decedent (IRD) taxeS
5.Estate replacement, when an insured has donated assets to a charity and wants to replace the value with cash death benefits.
6.Business succession & continuity, for example to fund a cross-purchase or stock redemption buy/sell agreement.
7.Key person insurance, to protect a company from the economic loss incurred when a key employee or manager dies.
8.Executive bonus, under IRC Sec. 162, where an employer pays the premium on a life insurance policy owned by a key person. The employer deducts the premium as an ordinary business expense, and the employee pays the income tax on the premium.
9.Controlled executive bonus, just like above, but with an additional contract between an employee and employer that effectively limits the employees access to cash values for a period of time (golden handcuffs).
10.Split dollar plans, where the death benefits, cash surrender values, and premium payments are split between an employer and employee, or between an individual and a non-natural person (e.g. trust).
11.Non-qualified deferred compensation, as an informal funding vehicle where a corporation owns the policy, pays the premiums, receives the benefits, and then uses them to pay, in whole or in part, a contractual promise to pay retirement benefits to a key person, or survivor benefits to the deceased key person's beneficiaries.
12.An alternative to long-term care insurance, where new policies have accelerated benefits for Long Term Care.
13.Mortgage acceleration, where an over-funded UL policy is either surrendered or borrowed against to pay off a home mortgage.
14.Charitable gift, where a UL policy is donated to a qualified charity, or the policy owner names a charity as the beneficiary.
15.Charitable remainder trust replacement, where a policy owner wants to replace assets donated to a Charitable Remainder Trust.
16.Estate equalization, where a business owner has more than one child, and at least one child wants to run the business, and at least one other wants cash.
17.Life insurance retirement plan, or Roth IRA alternative. High income earners who want an additional tax shelter, with potential creditor/predator protection, who have maxed out their IRA, who are not eligible for a Roth IRA, and who have already maxed out their qualified plans.
18.Term life insurance alternative, for example when a policy owner wants to use interest income from a lump sum of cash to pay a term life insurance premium. An alternative is to use the lump sum to pay premiums into a UL policy on a single premium or limited premium basis, creating tax arbitrage when the costs of insurance are paid from untaxed excess interest credits, which may be crediting at a higher rate than other guaranteed, no risk asset classes (e.g. U.S. Treasury Bonds or U.S. Savings Bonds).
19.Whole life insurance alternative, where there is any need for permanent death benefits, but little or no need for cash surrender values, then a current assumption UL or GUL may be an appropriate alternative, with potentially lower net premiums.
20.Annuity alternative, when a policy owner has a lump sum of cash that they intend to leave to the next generation, a single premium UL policy provides similar benefits during life, but has a stepped up death benefit that is income tax-free.
21.Pension maximization, where permanent death benefits are needed so an employee can elect the highest retirement income option from a defined benefit pension.
22.Annuity maximization, where a large non-qualified annuity with a low cost basis is no longer needed for retirement and the policy owner wants to maximize the value for the next generation. There is potential for arbitrage when the annuity is exchanged for a single premium immediate annuity (SPIA), and the proceeds of the SPIA are used to fund a permanent death benefit using Universal Life. This arbitrage is magnified at older ages, and when a medical impairment can produce substantially higher payments from a medically underwritten SPIA.
23.RMD maximization, where an IRA owner is facing required minimum distributions (RMD), but has no need for current income, and desires to leave the IRA for heirs. The IRA is used to purchase a qualified SPIA that maximizes the current income from the IRA, and this income is used to purchase a UL policy.
24.Creditor/predator protection. A person who earns a high income, or who has a high net worth, and who practices a profession that suffers a high risk from predation by litigation, may benefit from using UL as a warehouse for cash, because in some states the policies enjoy protection from the claims of creditors, including judgments from frivolous lawsuits.
25.Cryonics funding, where a life insurance policy funds the costs associated with cryonic suspension.

WHOLE LIFE INSURANCE

Whole life insurance, or whole of life assurance (in the Commonwealth of Nations), is a life insurance policy that remains in force for the insured's whole life and requires (in most cases) premiums to be paid every year into the policy.

All life insurance was originally temporary (term) insurance. However, because term life insurance only pays a claim upon early premature death within the stated term, a number of term insurance policy holders became upset over the idea that they would most likely be paying premiums for 20 or 30 years and then wind up with nothing to show for it. Temporary insurance only pays out 2-3% of the time. This has become known as the "Lost Opportunity Cost" called term insurance.
In response to market pressures, actuaries produced an insurance policy with level contributions that would last a lifetime. These contracts would offer a "cash value" which was designed to be a cash reserve that would build up against the known claim-–the death benefit. These policies would also credit guaranteed interest to the cash value account. Upon maturity of the contract (usually at age 95 or 100), the cash value would equal the death benefit. By guaranteeing the death benefit, the policy owner was assured that insurance coverage would be in force when the insured died, allowing them to unlock and exploit other assets. Upon the death of the insured, the cash value would be surrendered to the insurance company and the beneficiary would receive the death benefit. If, before their death, the insured wished to borrow the cash value and forfeit the death benefit, the cash value would be paid back with interest minus dividends paid.[citation needed.

(B)PERMANENT LIFE INSURANCE

Permanent life insurance is a term sometimes used for life insurance, such as whole life or endowment, where the sum assured is due to be paid out at the end of the policy (assuming the policy is kept current) and the policy accrues a cash value.

This is contrasted with Term life insurance where insurance is purchased for a specified period (such as 5, 10, or 20 years) and a benefit is only paid out if the insured dies during this period.

The earliest form of permanent life insurance was offered in the 18th century as a fixed premium fixed return product known as whole life insurance. There were untold variations on this theme over the years. One example, which became popular in the United States in the late 20th century, was "universal life insurance". This allowed the policyholder considerable flexibility as to the amounts and timing of premiums. Some versions also allowed the policyholder to partially encash the policy (as opposed to taking a loan on the security of the policy) without the interest associated with the loan provisions in whole life policies. "Variable life insurance" or "linked life assurance" is similar, but the benefits are more directly linked to investment performance, thus shifting some risk to the policyhold

(A)TERM LIFE INSURANCE

Term life insurance or term assurance is life insurance which provides coverage at a fixed rate of payments for a limited period of time, the relevant term. After that period expires, coverage at the previous rate of premiums is no longer guaranteed and the client must either forgo coverage or potentially obtain further coverage with different payments or conditions. If the insured dies during the term, the death benefit will be paid to the beneficiary. Term insurance is the least expensive way to purchase a substantial death benefit on a coverage amount per premium dollar basis over a specific period of time.
Term life insurance is the original form of life insurance[citation needed] and can be contrasted to permanent life insurance such as whole life, universal life, and variable universal life, which guarantee coverage at fixed premiums for the lifetime of the covered individual[dubious – discuss]. Term insurance is not generally used for estate planning needs or charitable giving strategies but is used for pure income replacement needs for an individual. Term insurance functions in a manner similar to most other types of insurance in that it satisfies claims against what is insured if the premiums are up to date and the contract has not expired, and does not provide for a return of premium dollars if no claims are filed. As an example, auto insurance will satisfy claims against the insured in the event of an accident and a home owner policy will satisfy claims against the home if it is damaged or destroyed by, for example, a fire. Whether or not these events will occur is uncertain. If the policy holder discontinues coverage because he has sold the insured car or home, the insurance company will not refund the premium. This is purely risk protection.

LIFE INSURANCE

Life insurance is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary sum of money (the "benefits") upon the death of the insured person. Depending on the contract, other events such as terminal illness or critical illness may also trigger payment. The policy holder typically pays a premium, either regularly or as a lump sum. Other expenses (such as funeral expenses) are also sometimes included in the benefits.The advantage for the policy owner is "peace of mind", in knowing that the death of the insured person will not result in financial hardship for loved ones and lenders.Life policies are legal contracts and the terms of the contract describe the limitations of the insured events. Specific exclusions are often written into the contract to limit the liability of the insurer; common examples are claims relating to suicide, fraud, war, riot and civil commotion.Life-based contracts tend to fall into two major categories:Protection policies – designed to provide a benefit in the event of specified event, typically a lump sum payment. A common form of this design is term insurance.Investment policies – where the main objective is to facilitate the growth of capital by regular or single premiums. Common forms (in the US) are whole life, universal life and variable life policies.

TYPES OF INSURANCES

(A) LIFE INSURANCE :
                  Term Life Insurance
                Permanent Life Insurance
(B) GENERAL INSURANCE:

                  Fire Insurance
                Marine Insurance
                Accident Insurance