Posted on February - 15 - 2010
1. “When I say this is a good policy, I mean it’s good for me.”
Although agents can help you navigate auto?policies, some may not have your best interests at heart. Often, large auto and home insurers use “contingent commissions” to compensate agents who sold their policies. These fees come in two types: “steering” commissions, for signing customers with a particular carrier, and profit-based commissions, when clients don’t file a lot of costly claims. The concern with the former is that unscrupulous agents push certain policies to reap larger commissions; with the latter, they might delay or discourage claims.
How can you protect yourself?
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Posted on February - 10 - 2010
If a person with little or no money wins a lottery for several million dollars, their first instinct would be to go on a shopping spree for stuff they could never afford. Statistics has proven that winners of large jackpots face both a pile of money and lots of problematic decisions.
We have all heard horror stories about people winning the lottery and a few years later they are totally broke. Most likely there will be family, friends and even strangers seeking ways to relieve you of your money. A prime example of that is a man in Florida who won the lottery a few years ago, it was reported that he was paying for funerals, lending money to friends, starting flawed businesses, and even giving out as much as a million dollars to an acquaintance.
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Posted on February - 10 - 2010
A financially clueless single gal — that was me when I first started writing this column, years ago. At the time, it was trendy to be both.
Remember the infamous “I spent my down payment money on shoes” episode of “Sex and the City”? It was a funny celebration of frivolity over financial sanity. Plenty of us could relate.
People still joke about that episode today. But even now, many of the messages that single women get validate obliviousness around money, disguised as being free-spirited.
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Posted on February - 08 - 2010
Banking today seems to be a much more complicated affair than it was just 10 or 20 years ago. The advent of debit cards, online banking, the ability to link checking and savings accounts, and tons of banks competing actively for your business can be overwhelming for the average customer.
After all, most of us just want a few simple things from our bank: a safe place to keep our money, access to our cash when we need it, and the ability to charge purchases or write checks to pay for things we need in a convenient fashion.
However, banking is big business. And, where there’s money, there’s creativity. Banks are always looking for ways to make themselves more attractive.
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