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6. Pay final expenses Life insurance can pay your funeral and burial costs, probate and other estate administration costs, debts and medical expenses not covered by health insurance. Life Insurance Fat Or Thin - Don't Let It Cost You
By Catherine Harvey
It's a well known fact that life insurance companies have guidelines as to the risks they and their customers are going to be taking when embarking on life insurance schemes. It's an obvious statement to make that they want to protect their own assets and are concerned about insuring people who already have long term or chronic illnesses diagnosed. They call it wanting their customers to have long, healthy lives but whatever.
This is why it is absolutely essential to disclose every possible ailment on your life insurance application forms. It may increase your premiums slightly but if they can find a way out of a payout then they will and there's no point in making it easy for them.
Another thing that life insurance companies take into consideration when working out your premiums is your weight and build. They possess their own set of, somewhat outdated, guidelines that suggest healthy weight limits for men and women of different ages. Fall outside of these guidelines and you will see your life insurance premiums soar.
However, the press is full of advice about how to tackle both ends of the problem - obesity and anorexia. Solve these and not only will we all be that little bit healthier but also a little richer. Obesity is, as far as doctors are concerned, a fairly straightforward problem. For all the people that claim their obesity is due to thyroid, hormone or metabolism problems, very few are, in fact. And these can mostly be solved with medicine.
For the vast majority, obesity is due to putting too much food in the face and not taking enough exercise. And one of the biggest problems to overcoming this is will power itself. You cannot buy will power and the person that makes that possible will be very rich indeed.
Various drugs come on the market aimed at reducing obesity and are prescribed through doctors. Only prescribed in extreme circumstances where the extra weight is life threatening, these drugs come with some very nasty side effect. Namely, uncontrollable diarrhoea. Still people see it as a miracle cure, they continue to eat and think the doctor will put it right by prescribing pills to make the weight go away.
An over the counter product is now available that is half the strength of the prescribed pills but available to all. The idea is that you take three pills a day with meals and if any part of that meal contains over a certain amount of fat, that meal will pass through you rapidly and without warning. The manufacturers recommend that until you get used to this event, or until you resist fatty food, you should always carry spare clothes with you!
Now resisting fatty food is not always easy. God knows, I love a regular dose of chocolate and the occasional bag of chips but I know full well that if it was that or opening my bowels in public, I know the chips and chocolate would go first!
Does running with such urgency to the toilet not constitute a health risk, particularly in a restaurant serving greasy food? Slippery floors etc? Would patients on these drugs increase their life insurance premiums thus?
The cost of this so-called 'wonder drug' comes in at approximately one pound per day. IF you follow a strict diet and exercise you can lose 3lb a week instead of the 2lb you would lose on a normal diet and exercise programme. Is it worth it I ask myself. You could easily lose that extra pound a week by slightly reducing portion sizes or, as a more entertaining and much less messy method, have one more round of sex!
For those at the other end of the spectrum comes higher life insurance premiums for the severely underweight - the anorexics. It is widely debated whether or not anorexia is a disease of the mind or body and, speaking from experience, it is very difficult to tell.
I don't believe you are born with any particular gene that would develop into anorexia later in life but you can, from a very early age, suffer with such low self esteem that events in life bring you to such a low ebb that you turn on yourself. Is anorexia brought on by depression or do you get depressed because you do not have the nutritional basis to think straight? An argument that will go on for some time.
However, some preventative measures are being put in place to stop the up-coming generation of young girls from succumbing to this feeling that they have to be underweight to be worthy people. The French government are leading the way in banning all advertising that promotes anorexia. Mostly aimed at websites, fashion magazines and advertisers, anybody seen to be recommending ways of losing excessive amounts of weight will be punished with fines up to 36,000 pounds and/or jail terms of up to three years.
Hopefully, this move will ease some of the pressures that young girls feel to conform to a certain unrealistic and unhealthy size. The rest of the world would do well to follow suit.
Health expert Catherine Harvey looks at ways to reduce life insurance premiums.
Mortgage comparison be your own broker
By search
When you make the decision to buy a house it is one of the biggest decisions you will ever make. Not only are you buying a property you are also putting yourself in the hands of lenders who will provide you with your mortgage. With so many different lenders on the market it is very important that you make the right choice and that is where a mortgage comparison site can help you.
Mortgage comparison is vitally important if you are looking for a mortgage that will suit you and your circumstances. It might be tempting to opt for the first deal that seems to be reasonable but this is one of the traps that too many buyers and first time buyers can and do fall into. So if you want to make an informed choice on mortgages use a mortgage comparison site.
Using a mortgage comparison site is incredibly straight forward and can drastically cut down on the amount of time spent searching for the right mortgage. When you begin to use the comparison tool you will be asked several questions which are used to give the potential lenders an overview of your finances and mortgage amount. These questions will begin with your name / date of birth and other such personal identification details, then they will move on to the details of any other applicants. Then the questions focus on the actual mortgage amount you are looking for, the term of the mortgage, the reason you are applying - are you going to be an owner occupier, buy to let or joint ownership client? After this you will be expected to give details of your income and expenditure and employment status. These questions are used to gain more information about your ability to make the repayments on a mortgage. Without asking such questions the mortgage comparison site cannot link your circumstances to lenders that might be able to offer you a mortgage.
Once you have filled in all the relevant sections on the mortgage comparison site you will then wait for the site to bring up a list of potential lenders that fit your needs, along with a brief description of the mortgages available. From this list you will be able to see and compare the mortgages on the market that you could, in theory apply for. This will enable you to make a decision on which mortgages you might like to find out more about. If you do decide to request more information about a particular lenders mortgage you can then click through to the lenders site without any problems.
Mortgage comparison sites are such a useful tool in cutting down the time and effort spent, and too often wasted, in searching for a mortgage to suit you. Many people find that they prefer to use a mortgage comparison site in order to give themselves the time to compare deals without the pressure of a broker or lender who will want you to go with them. In this way a task that can seem to be very daunting can be made much more bearable as you are acting as your own broker, and if you need additional free advice you can also use the fee free advice section on the site to further help you with your enquiries.
You need to be aware that using a comparison site to get mortgage information is not actually an offer of a mortgage but a tool to help you compare what is on the market. Ultimately any mortgage offer you get is conditional and you must provide your lender with the necessary information to be successful.
Go Direct have tailor made their mortgage comparison site to meet all of your needs when looking for a mortgage. Jason Jones is a mortgage advisor for Go Direct and he is on hand to answer any questions you might have about using our mortgage comparison tool.
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