About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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January 26, 2009
and prices. Whooo, the prices!
I don’t know how frequently I’ve talked about getting life insurance, separate from my employer-sponsored plan, but I’m pretty sure I called last March the month of insurance. What a liar.
Well, it took me two days to get my butt in gear THIS time, but I’ve finally requested quotes from a variety of companies, and they really run the gamut.
I started with looking for companies with higher ratings on A.M. Best, but that kinda just confused me, and wasn’t terribly fruitful. I came up with the following: AAA (wouldn’t give me an online quote), Mercury (doesn’t do life insurance), Wawanesa (also doesn’t do life insurance), Commerce West (again, same story).
Finally, I just gave up on the A.M. Best angle, clearly that was going about things backwards. It was time for known quantities and Googling. Mostly Googling because not many of my friends have life insurance. I also wasted about 30 minutes lecturing a friend about how important life insurance was; it’s not hypocrisy, she’s pregnant! With a child. Life insurance is critical! Of course, I’ve got dependents already, so why was I still on the phone and not getting quotes? Right right.
So, friends: one gal has her policy through Farmers, but “it was through hubby’s friend, and I don’t know if I got a good deal.” And work: provides life insurance through Prudential. Good enough, I started with those two companies and worked up quotes for both.
The baseline information was: 26 yr old Female, short, thin, non-smoker with no family history of cardiovascular disease, cancer, etc., for a 30-year Term policy for $2 million.
Honestly, that number was initially just a randomly chosen number, but after I used a few calculators to estimate my family’s insurance needs given existing debt (I don’t have any but the padres do), living expenses for 20 years (my people can be long-lived), and existing savings, it came extremely close to that $2 million. Crazy, huh?
And I chose term life after reading so very many articles arguing the merits of term versus whole life insurance. Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity explains the differences here. Most term policies have the option of converting to a whole life policy, but I’m not certain that’s really necessary. Then again, I might be looking at this wrong: with auto insurance, I’m accustomed to shopping around and being able to replace my existing policy at any given time. That’s probably not the case with life insurance, you probably don’t want to have to be re-insured at a later time in life because, theoretically, you’re going to be facing higher rates. Then again, the rates can be pretty high just for term, I’m not sure I could afford whole life.
Anyway, the quotes ranged pretty wildly.
The lowest bid came from Prudential: $965 per year.
The others came in at $1000/yr (Midwestern), $2400/yr (Farmers), $1500/yr (Liberty Life), $1300-2700/yr (State Farm).
All the above companies were fairly highly rated, they’re all at least A ratings, with a Stable indicator. Of course, most of the ratings were from last spring so there’s certainly a chance that they aren’t doing as well now.
Now that I’ve taken that first step, and requested a few applications, I’m not really sure how to choose. I feel the need to do more research on the actual policies: coverage, restrictions, etc. Also, it’d be great if I could select a company that provides both auto and life coverage for a discount.
In any case, if I plan to pay the annual fee in full, though, the insurance fund is going to need a boost. Just at the wrong time, too!
Has anyone else gone through this selection process or care to share what sort of life insurance you have?
January 25, 2009
And no, I’m not crazy, Dish Network retention services department guy. My time is worth more than …. nothing!
Finally called Dish today, for what seems like the 875th time in the last year and a half. Their website keeps sending Yodlee bills for a total of $46.37 at last check, while never actually allowing me to view any bills or statements. This annoys the heck outta me because I should be getting free service for at least another 8 months! The previous 870 calls were about actual statements I was receiving in the mail for services I kept trying to cancel; this is a new twist in their game.
It turns out that the amount is a credit on the account to offset the automatic billing of $10.81/month, but I’m fed up with my budget tracking getting screwed up by the errant billing every month. And we don’t use it anyway, so I asked Nick to, please, just cancel the account.
“You …. want to cancel your free cable?”
“Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but please please cancel it. I’ve spent WAY too much time on the phone with your CSRs, not that they weren’t perfectly nice, but waaay too much phone time has been wasted over this account.”
“Um, ok, if you’re sure….”
So that’s it. A box should be sent out, a neck will be risked to remove the thingy from the roof, and they’ll stop telling Yodlee I owe them money. I hope.
January 24, 2009
This was originally posted on January 18th, but I’ve updated for self-taggers.
Alright, I’ve got to stop rumor-mongering because making blog-buddy Bart of A Certain Je Nes Sai Quoi nervous means I get tagged. Because it’s my lazy Sunday and I’m really tired, I’m keeping them at Bart’s 4 instead of the original 8. I know you’re fine with that.
4 Things I’m Passionate About:
- Reading
- Learning
- Food
- Relationships
4 Words or Phrases I Use Often:
- Dude…
- Seriously?
- “He like blondes. Chubby ones.”
- Owww…I’m so out of shape!!
4 Things I Want to Do Before I Die
- Explore the world.
- Make sure my family’s been taken care of.
- Run a good animal rescue.
- Learn to speak Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, French, German and Portuguese fluently. (Or at least three of the above)
4 Things I Have Learned From the Past
- I’ve been known to speak in haste. It’s funnier when other people do it.
- It’s better to ask questions and learn than stay silent and hope for the best.
- I’m really a bad cook. Much better at baking and eating.
- Helping other people is always easier than doing the same task for myself.
4 Places I Want to See or Visit
- New Zealand & Australia (combo trip)
- Austria
- Italy
- Himalayas
4 Favorite Restaurants
- Thai Kitchen
- Mi Piace
- There’s a Shanghai dumpling place in SF … that I don’t know the name of.
- Gyro cart in NY 🙂
4 Things that Happened Yesterday
- We tried Fish & Farm in the Tenderloin. Delish.
- Random napping.
- Woke up really early.
- Decided to try a Neutrogena skin product instead of Clean & Clear.
4 People I Tag
January 21, 2009
Mmm, I knew there was likely to be quite a few people taking advantage of the free make-up being disbursed due to this lawsuit, but I know someone who is really pushing the envelope, and bragging all over the place about it, to boot.
Having already made her rounds of one mall yesterday with a young teenager in tow, they collected 16 free items, and she plans to make another round of two malls tomorrow with the goal of picking up at least another 32 free perfumes and make-up items.
When someone else in line was told they couldn’t come through the line more than once, she encouraged this person to go through multiple times, belligerently and challenging the sales clerks as if they were in the wrong for enforcing the rules of the disbursement. She herself was looking for a fight, saying that “if the sales clerk picked on her? She would create a ruckus, cause the line to be shut down, and threaten them with a lawsuit for discriminating against her because she’s black.”
All because she has a “right” to collect as much free stuff as she wants. That’s it. As she tells it, she’s not giving the stuff away to charity, to friends, to family, to anyone in “need.” She just wants to get as much as she wants to get.
Um, what?
I’m not sitting here saying that corporate giants can’t absorb the cost of the products, they’re required to give away $175 million worth of make-up after all, it’s the whole point of this giveaway. But threatening a lawsuit? Harassing the sales clerks, glaring at them and giving them the evil eye on someone else’s behalf? Accusing people of racism when it’s got nothing to do with the issue at hand? All because you “need” more free stuff?
That just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. There’s real racism out there, and real issues to be talked about. There’s something wrong about using those hot-button words just to enable greed.
Psst, is anyone else up? No?
*sigh* I thought not.
It’s been awfully quiet around here because, uh, I’ve been doing all my blogging in my sleep. Between huge commitments at work – trying to complete two weeks’ worth of projects in 4 days, ‘hunting, revising paperwork, prepping wardrobe attire, catching up on the occasional news update (Hello, Mr. President!) and all, it’s no wonder I haven’t been coherent. It’s hard to see through your eyelids…
Little update:
Truck
Looks like we have a buyer! We’re holding a $300 deposit pending the receipt of the title. I was first told it’s a standard 10 biz-day processing before the title is sent, but I’ve been looking for ways around that. Initially, the only thing they suggested was to provide a FedEx account number so that at the end of the 10 days, Toyota could just overnight my title, but that only saves me a day or two, and costs money. Meh, not a fan. After making another call to the same call center, I got a nice lady who suggested that I fax her a copy of my bank statement showing the payoff amount debited from my account. With that information, she could begin the paperwork for the title immediately. She gave me a fax number and I’ve pulled that paperwork together.
Being the suspicious sort, though, I made one more call to see if there was anything else she needed to complete the paperwork. Also to verify that this one lady wasn’t trying to pull any funny business with getting my bank statement. 🙂 No, guess it’s standard -expediting- procedure.
So: Faxed. Done! That buyer better not back out! *glare*
The Hunt
Rescheduled the appointment again: first, had to change the flight itself for an earlier arrival. Then had to change the arrival time again. Bah. Is this disorganization on their part? Or just scheduling issues? Whatever the case, I’m on a mission to knock their socks off tomorrow, wish me luck! *singing* “On the road again ….”
Finances
Picked up another little overtime check, and finally received my holiday check as well. That’s e-fund and moving money.
Ok, I’m starting to get a little dotty. Better sign off and get on going!
January 20, 2009
Only a few people got the day off today – I’m not one of them – so I got to watch the inauguration events via MSNBC’s video link.
Hope all who attended, or stayed home to watch, were warm, hydrated, and as comfortable as could be!
January 15, 2009
I think *gulp* I’m gonna do it. Without the title in hand, it’s a bit harder to sell the truck because potential buyers don’t want to wait 7-10 days to complete the paperwork and sale. So I’m going to send my payoff to Toyota. Yipes!
This is half my expense cushion! But it shouldn’t make a real difference; I’d have to pay it over the next six months, regardless of my employment status.
It makes sense if it eases the sale process, I just have cold (spending) feet!
Edit: Did it. Just did it. Whew!