Analyzed Insurance

A personal asset is something of value that you own.  Personal assets can include home, financial accounts, life insurance policies that have a cash value, real estate, businesses, cars, electronics, investment portfolios, collections of art, antiques and other valuables.  We may feel that once we own something, it is ours forever and therefore safe, giving us a false sense of security.  What is happening more and more is that legal judgments in lawsuits often exceed the amount you are insured for leaving your personal assets completely vulnerable.

Your assets are vulnerable as long as they are not protected.  A simple accident could mean total loss.  For example, if your neighbor stepped in a hole on your property in the dark and broke his hip– you could be liable. If you

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Insurance Australia Group (IAG, ASX:IAG) has increased its catastrophe reinsurance cover by 12 per cent for 2012 following a year that included cyclones and flooding in Australia and earthquakes in New Zealand.

The general insurer said it finalised its catastrophe re-insurance program starting January 1 with protection of up to A$4.7 billion (US$4.86 billion), compared with $4.1 billion in 2011.

“In challenging market conditions, we are pleased to have concluded a program which provides us with increased coverage and the additional security of some multi-year protection,” IAG’s CEO Mike Wilkins said in a statement on Wednesday.

Mr Wilkins said that while the overall cost had risen, “the outcome is consistent with the assumptions contained in the insurance margin guidance of 10 to 12 per cent provided by the group at the outset of the financial year”.

The insurer, which owns the NRMA Insurance, CGU, SGIO and SGIC brands, has predicted that there will be more severe cyclones and hailstorms over the coming decades.

In 2011, floods and storms in Queensland and Victoria, combined with bushfires in Perth, cost the industry $4.2 billion, according to estimates by the Insurance Council of Australia.

Local insurers were also hit by the Christchurch earthquakes, which New Zealand authorities estimate have caused around $NZ23 billion ($A18.3 billion) in total losses.

Mr Wilkins said the company had been able to keep the maximum it pays out for a single catastrophe at $250 million until 2014 at agreed prices.

IAG had also retained a buydown arrangement, which commenced in 2011, that reduced the maximum cost of subsequent catastrophes to $150 million.

The re-insurance program included cover for flood, which was being introduced Australia-wide by CGU, and extended into Queensland and Victoria by Australia Direct, in early calendar 2012, the statement said.

There was also an upper layer of reinsurance for earthquake cover over three years.

We live in a wonderful country, where we enjoy many freedoms.

Unfortunately, one of those freedoms is owning a trampoline.

If our founding fathers had known what trampolines actually were, they would have viciously jotted down another section of the Constitution that forbids us from purchasing them. There would have been a block on importing any trampolines from outside the country, and anyone caught making or distributing them would be promptly hauled away or shipped off to some dark and lonely place. But because Ben Franklin never got around to inventing one before all those laws got written down, we’re stuck with them forever. (

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Sun Life Financial, based in Wellesley, Mass., announced it will market its stop-loss insurance through Cigna Payer Solutions, a network connecting third-party administrators with health care providers.

Under the business agreement, any employer or plan sponsor that is a client of a TPA contracted with Cigna Payer Solutions will have access to Cignas health services and Sun Life Financials expertise in stop-loss insurance.

Cigna Payer Solutions connects participating TPAs to a network with more than 660,000 health care professionals and 5,100 hospitals.

Cigna, which has a large presence in Philadelphia, will continue to sell medical stop-loss to employers that do not work with Cigna Payer Solutions TPAs.

“Sun Life Financials ability to provide quality customer service in the TPA marketplace will offer significant value while managing medical costs for our customers,” said Jeff Terrill, president of Cigna Emerging Markets, in a statement.

Sun Life Financial offers group life, disability, dental and stop-loss insurance through 170 group insurance sales representatives in 34 major U.S. cit

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A great deal of responsibility is required for someone in a data management position, such as an IT manager, CIO or a PCI auditor. They are responsible for private and valuable company information, as well as very detailed customer information in some cases. However, with access to highly important and sensitive information they also run the risk to have to defend themselves in a fraud case. For this reason, it is extremely important to have data security liability insurance.

Security fraud is a very serious and dangerous act. Companies, as well as individuals, may be put at stake for informational and identity theft even if they personally didn’t do anything wrong. S

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American millennials believe their retirement depends solely on personal savings and investment, but are unsure how they will finance and save for their retirement, a new study says.

Millennials, or people age 18 to 29, do not believe that Social Security will exist when they reach their retirement years, according to a study by the iOMe Challenge.

Financial service professionals can help to educate millennials and their parents, according to David Wegge, chair of iOMe Challenge and executive director of the Strategic Research Institute at St.

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