Get Help to Get out of Debt

Debt Mummy Art (Photo credit: Brad_Chaffee)

Being in debt can be really bad for your mental health. The stress and pressure that it adds to your life can affect your relationship, your sleep and your general well-being. 

Too often, people who are in debt don’t seek out help soon enough, instead they bury their heads in the sand and hope that the problem will somehow go away. Of course, it doesn’t. The problem with debt is that if you do nothing about it, the amount you owe just grows as each missed payment will mean that more interest is added onto the amount that you already need to pay back.

If you are ready to admit that you need help with debts, then there are some different ways to go about finding that help.

First, be honest with your partner. As the old adage goes, a problem shared is a problem halved, and while this might not actually do anything to change the amount of debt you have, it will ease some of the guilt and pressure if you have been trying to hide the debt from your partner. They may also be better at managing the income that you have and help you begin to pay the debt back through careful budgeting.

If this isn’t the case, you can always talk to a friend or relative who is ‘good with money’. They can help you go through the list of your expenses and debts owing, and look at your income and then see the best way to start reducing your living costs and clearing the debt.

Your debt levels may be so significant that self-help is not enough. In this case you can contact one of the many debt management companies that are now in operation. They will help you devise a debt management plan or if necessary, organise a debt consolidation loan – where you borrow a lump sum in order to pay off all the individual creditors who you owe money. This means you will still be in debt, but only to the debt management company and you’ll only need to find one monthly payment. Although this may cost you more overall than paying off the individual debts separately, it will take a lot of the stress and pressure out of the situation as you won’t have different creditors chasing you.

Whatever step you take to start clearing your debts, it’s positive that you are taking the decision to tackle the problem and move forward, and that in itself is very motivational.

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Accident While on Holiday? Tips for Your Insurance Claim

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most people don’t think of what might happen if they become ill or have an accident while on holiday. Travelers may find that their insurance does not cover them when they travel away from home resulting in their insurance claims being denied. 

No one wants to have an accident while on a holiday, but it does happen. When it does you may not be able to gather information at the scene that will help in getting your insurance claims paid. The most important thing is to get treatment if you are seriously injured and not worry about anything else. 

PAPERWORK 

Get a copy of the accident report filed by the police department and submit it along with your claim, keeping a copy for yourself. Keep copies of everything when submitting a claim for holiday accidents so that you have a back-up if the insurance company says they never received the information. Keep track of any calls you make to the insurance company about the holiday accident claim. Write down the date of the call, the person at the agency that spoke with you and a summary of the phone discussion. If any of the claim is denied and you did exactly as the agent told you to do on the phone, and you can prove you did what you were told. If at all possible, send a photo of the accident with the claim. If the accident was caused by stopping for a cow in the road, take a cell phone photo and send it along with the claim. Also send any written information that was gathered from witnesses and other people that were involved. Never sign anything given to you until you read it through completely. 

EXCEPTIONS 

A holiday claim for an illness occurring in another country, state or province, might not be covered completely. Some providers may not take insurance coverage from someone that comes from another region or country. Even within the United States, a person that has insurance in Pennsylvania might not be totally covered when traveling on holiday to Texas. The providers may be considered “out-of-network” and the policy holder will have to pay more for using them. Contact your insurance company before traveling to find out where you can go to receive service in the vacation region. This will go far in getting claims paid quickly and completely. 

TRAVEL INSURANCE 

Many insurance companies provide temporary travel insurance to those on holiday. This eliminates all worries because the insurance is specific to an area and conditions of the holiday site. It also pays for transportation home if a holiday accident occurs. This is especially important when travelling overseas, but even those traveling within their own country may consider travel insurance. Purchase travel insurance for the activities being done on vacation. If you are injured deep sea diving in the tropics and this was not something covered on the policy, it will be hard to get the claim paid. Having the right type of insurance while traveling is essential to having a wonderful, care-free holiday, and keeping documentation of the accident or illness will go far in making your claim go through much easier. 

David a retired UK teacher advises using irwinmitchell.com for any holiday accident claims or illness that happens whilst traveling abroad.

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Medical Negligence A Growing Problem For Baby Boomers

When going to the doctor we expect to find treatment and cure for our pain, injuries or illnesses. Such is the nature of the medical practitioners, to bring relief and diminish or eliminate the source of pain which is causing discomfort to the body. But what happens when the ones in charge of our health make the wrong decisions and therefore cause injuries or illnesses to patients who required their assistance? 

Medical negligence should be avoided at all costs and when it does occur, legal actions should be taken in order to obtain support and compensation. Neglect could be the result of the following actions: 

• Incorrect or late diagnosis 
• Errors and mistakes performed by doctors during surgery 
• Lack of appropriate post surgical care and treatment 
• Administration of medication which is not correct and might lead to complications 
• Lack of sterility in the environment where the patient is located before, whilst and after surgery 

These factors will lead to complications, occurrence of temporary or permanent injuries and life threatening illnesses. In the unfortunate situation when a friend or family member finds himself in such a position, it is crucial to ask personal injury lawyers for help and advice. These people have dealt with similar situations in the past and will surely know what should be done next in order to obtain compensation and full recovery. One of the most important things to consider is the time limit: it should be no longer than 3 years starting from the moment you notice the neglect. Proof of wounding as a result of medical malpractice should be evident and well articulated, so that the patient does not lose his right to compensation due to lack of evidence. 

Bolt Burdon Kemp is one of the companies which deal with such matters and their team of professionals is highly trained so that they can offer only the best of advice and support to the client. Their website offers accurate information on anything related to the topic and people in search of help will surely find answers to all the questions they might have. If that does not happen, they can always get into contact with the lawyers via telephone or email.

5 Things You Should Know Before Investing In Diamonds

Buying diamonds can be a good way to invest your money, but there are several things you should be aware of before entering the jewelry and precious gems market, particularly when buying diamonds. You may have heard of the three ‘C’s, well we've come up with five:

Color

Diamonds vary greatly in color  and there are hundreds of different hues that you can choose from. This often makes individual stones more valuable, as a buyer may be looking for a specific color. You can choose from yellow, blue, pink, and black among others! 

Cut

This is not the same as the diamond’s shape, so we’re not talking pear, square or oval here. The cut of the diamond is a measure of the stone’s reflective qualities. If you are planning to invest in diamond jewelry, an ‘ideal cut’ diamond can make a great buy. The ideal cut means that light can enter the stone, reflect from both sides inside the diamond, and then back out. This reflection of light is what causes diamonds to flash and sparkle, and a poorer cut can make a stone look dull.

Clarity

This refers to the amount of flaws or ‘inclusions’ that are present within a diamond. Because diamonds are formed naturally under intense heat and pressure, the vast majority of diamonds have flaws. Artificially made diamonds are as close as you can get to a flawless stone: a natural stone with very few inclusions can fetch a high price, due to its rarity. 

Carat Weight

A carat is a unit of weight used to measure diamonds, but is not to be confused with karats, which is the method for determining the purity of gold. One carat is equal to around 200 milligrams (0.2 grams), and obviously, the larger the stone, the pricier it will be. The famous Taylor-Burton diamond worn by actress Elizabeth Taylor weighed an incredible 241 carats (48 grams!) when it was discovered, and was bought for a record $1, 050, 000 in the 1960s by Cartier. The current owner has had the diamond cut to a more modest 68 carats (13.6g). Princess Margaret famously commented on Taylor’s ring at a formal dinner, calling it “very vulgar”; Taylor invited the Princess to try the well known diamond on and quipped, “Not so vulgar now, is it?” 

Certificates

Any diamond should be certified to validate its quality and value. The certification process should be completed by a reputable governing body within the gem industry, such as the GIA – the Gemological Institute of America. A certificate is essential for insurance purposes, and to ensure that you pay and receive a fair price when you are buying and selling your diamond. Jewelers are often known to under-pay, so certification can help you to wrangle a good deal!

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Sending a Parcel to USA? Your Courier Can Make it Easy.

Figures released by the World Trade Organisation in 2011 showed that the US remained the world’s largest importer of both merchandise and commercial services. If your business needs to send parcels or documents abroad at any stage then there is a good chance that, at some point, you’ll find yourself needing to become familiar with US import restrictions in order to avoid falling foul of them. 

The majority of items on this list, maintained and enforced by US Customs and Borders Protection (CBP), will be self-explanatory: alcoholic beverages, biological and firearms for instance. Some can be a bit of an eye-opener, though. Take this for example: since November 2000 it has been “illegal in the United States to import, export, distribute, transport, manufacture or sell products containing dog or cat fur”. One wonders how prevalent the problem of dog and cat fur entering the US was prior to November 2000.

Of course, the US is not the only country enforce restrictions on the import of certain goods, each nation has its own specific interests and protects them whenever, and however, possible. This is why it can be important to make yourself aware of a country’s particular customs regulations whenever you’re thinking of sending any kind of parcel there. If your business needs to send items to many different countries, though, it can be all too easy to become lost in a maze of commercial invoices and conflicting national priorities.

Any good online courier, though, will be well versed in the intricacies of everything needed to send any parcel to USA, or any other country for that matter. Whenever you find yourself unsure about whether the contents of a certain package will incur any kind of import restriction a quick call to your chosen courier ought to clear the matter up fairly easily.

As trade between nations has grown, and as cheap courier services have become available to more and more people, global parcel services have gone to great lengths to ensure they remain fully up to date on the finer details of sending parcels between countries. Why not let your courier worry about the details? They are the experts after all.

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Smokers and Unhealhly Will Pay Healthcare Penalty

Smoking (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many employers are asking that workers who smoke, are overweight or have high cholesterol pay a larger percentage of their healthcare costs, what some insurance companies call a healthcare penalty. It's a shift toward penalizing employees with unhealthful lifestyles instead of rewarding good habits.
Policies that enforce financial penalties on employees have doubled within the last two years to nineteen percent of 248 major American companies recently surveyed. 

Next year, The practice among employers with at least 1,000 workers was expected to double again.

Additionally, a survey released by Mercer, which advises companies, indicated that about a third of employers with 500 or more employees were attempting to coax them into wellness programs by extending financial inducements, like discounts on their insurance. 

As yet, companies including Home Depot, PepsiCo, Safeway, Lowe’s and General Mills have fought decisions to seek higher premiums from some workers, like Wal-Mart’s recent addition of a $2,000-a-year surcharge for some smokers. Many point to the higher healthcare costs related to smoking or obesity. 

Many even describe the charges and discounts as an approach to get workers to take more responsibility for their well-being. Regardless, it means that smokers and others pay more than co-workers who meet a company’s health goals.

But some benefits specialists and wellness experts say plans billed as inducements for wellness, by providing discounted health insurance, can become punitive for people who suffer from health problems that are not entirely under their control. 

Nicotine addiction, for instance, could hinder smokers from quitting, and serious obesity might not be easily overcome.

Present-day rules allow for companies to demand workers who fail to conform to specified standards to pay up to 20 percent of their insurance costs. The federal healthcare mandate raises that amount to 30 percent in 2014 and, possibly, to as much as one-half the cost of a policy.

When Wal-Mart Stores, the nation’s biggest employer, recently sought the higher payments from some smokers, its decision was considered unusual, according to benefits experts. 

The amount, reaching $2,000 more than for nonsmoker, was a good deal higher than surcharges of a few hundred dollars a year imposed by other employers on their smoking workers.

The only way for Wal-Mart employees to avoid the surcharges was to attest that their doctor said it would be medically inadvisable or impossible to stop smoking. Other employers accept enrollment in tobacco cessation programs as an automatic waiver for surcharges.

Some labor experts argue that employers can charge workers higher fees only when they're bound to a broader wellness program, while federal rules don't define wellness programs.

Employers cannot discriminate against smokers by demanding them to pay more for their insurance unless the surcharge is part of a broader endeavor to help them quit. Numerous programs that ask employees to fulfill certain health targets offer rewards in the form of lower premiums.

At the start the system also rewarded employees who fulfilled cholesterol and blood sugar goals, but after workers complained that those hurdles looked punitive.

Workers who don't meet the weight targets can be eligible for lower premiums if a doctor shows they have a medical condition that makes the goal excessive.Some benefits advisers say companies may be increasingly willing to test the boundaries of the law because there has been little enforcement, even though there is a provision calling for employers to admit workers with medical conditions restricting their ability to meet certain standards. 

But some have observed already that they are not being charged premiums when they are vaping. I guess this vaping is a loophole for some insurance companies. Although not entirely true, using those vaping devices (Go to http://www.davincivaporizer.com to see the most advanced vaporizer) could just be a solution not only to your health's advantage but to your work too.

However, the employer is going to win not by cost-shifting but by getting people to stop smoking. Some critics say the surcharge may have the effect of forcing people to opt for less expensive plans or persuade them to drop coverage totally.