31st
March
2010
My twin daughter and son just turned sixteen a few months ago and now have their driver’s licenses. We always promised to buy them their first car when they had their license and turned sixteen. Insurance seems quite high in cost for younger teenagers. We are now starting to look at different cars to buy them. When they seem to really be interested in one, we always come home and call our insurance agent we currently have our cars insured with, for a quote first, as we can also get a multi-car discount for having more than one car on our policy. Both of our children have finally decided on a couple different cars each, for us to decide on which one we agree to buy for them. The insurance was still a huge factor which we needed to decide on soon. We decided we would do some car insurance reviews on the internet to see how they were rated as far as customer service, how well they paid on claims, if they had been known to raise rates often and more. The car insurance reviews really helped us a lot in deciding which car to buy and which insurance company to get insurance with. We were very pleased to find out during our car insurance reviews that the company we currently have coverage with is very highly rated and recommended, so that saved us time, and money, since we wouldn’t be changing insurance companies.
31st
March
2010
My grandmother has been in a hospital for over a month now. She has very poor health and can’t stay home now alone. She recently had surgery that she had problems with during, and after, her procedures. He had already told us that she might have problems due to her health problems and her age, as she is almost 90 years old. Her doctor just told our family that he recommended us to check out different nursing homes now, because it would be dangerous for her to be at home alone, if nobody was able to move in with her or have her move in with them. That was no possible because everyone in our family had jobs to go to. It was very saddening to us to think of putting her in a nursing home and it was to her, too. She did not have the money to pay for it either. She only owned a small home, but she loved it. In order for her to be able to go into a nursing home, she would have to sell her home and let the state take over in paying for her nursing home and other medical expenses. Even though it was hard for her to sell her home, we found a very nice and clean nursing home and was highly recommended by many. It was even closer to all of our family. They would take her social security income each money with the exception of allowing her to have a very small amount of money at any time and no assets over a certain amount. We sold her home and she is now moved into her new nursing home and loves it, even though it’s so sad for her to think that her home had to be sold. One great thing she was allowed to spend her money on first, before giving the rest of it to the state, was to pay for her own funeral and headstone. It was nice that she was able to do this first, even though this was another sad moment for her. Funeral planning can be hard on families financially and deciding and agreeing on what casket and all else there is to arrange. It was a real eye opener to everyone how much there is to do and how much easier it will make things when she passes away. All the funeral planning is done now and all our family will have to do is arrange the date and time. Many people do not realize that if you make your funeral arrangements and pay for it all, the price will never go up or cost any more when a person dies. I have now started thinking about taking care of my own funeral planning to save anyone else the time and money to do so when I pass away.
31st
March
2010
I lost a family member several years ago. Our family had to purchase a cemetery plot, head stone, and also pay for the funeral. It was very expensive. I never realized how expensive it was to bury someone. I was amazed when the total amount was shown to us. We were all going to try to pay for it all with the help of each other in our family. Nobody knew he had a life insurance policy. After going into his home and going through all of his paper work that he had in the bottom of a cabinet, we found a life insurance policy that he had taken out for himself several years ago, without sharing that information with any of us. He also had a will that nobody knew about. After contacting his insurance company and sending them a copy of his death certificate, we received a check approximately two weeks later. We were very thankful that he did have a life insurance policy after words. Most of us had to borrow the money in order to come up with enough money to pay for it all. We ended up reimbursing each of us when receiving the check and then split the remainder after all his bills were paid.
31st
March
2010
I was driving on an interstate today, taking my cousin to the airport. My car died on me while I was traveling at a rate of 65 miles per hour. I was in the middle lane and was having problems getting over to a lane at the side of the road. Finally, there was a nice person who stopped and blocked traffic in two lanes, with stopping in the middle of both of them on the line, so I was able to coast over almost all the way, then was going to push it the rest of the way. I was almost there when another car hit me. It only did minor damage to my bumper by the rear driver’s side. We exchanged information and I called a tow truck. After being towed to a repair shop, I was told that my serpentine belt had worn out. I needed to get a rental car after that, since I have that coverage on my insurance on my car. After getting everything taken care of, I went home. I called my insurance company and was told that it wasn’t covered and I never had that coverage. I looked at my policy and it showed I did and had been paying for it. They still refused to pay any money towards the tow charge or rental car, which made me furious. I immediately got on the phone and called several insurance companies to get an auto insurance quote. I made notes about all of them to compare before making my final decision. After calling several on the phone, I went online and received an auto insurance quote from a few companies on there, too. I have now decided to switch my auto insurance and am also going to report them for fraud of services I paid for. I am so glad I hopefully found a better company to go through. It didn’t even take that long to get an auto insurance quote from different companies. An agent is coming to my home tomorrow to meet with me, go over all the coverages, deductibles, etc…. that I would like. I am still in shock how I was treated by the insurance company I had been with for many years.