When people are young, the last thing they want to think about is cheap life insurance. Even entering into a marriage or another permanent relationship will probably not provoke the issue. It is only when the first child is on the way that most couples sit down to discuss the unthinkable. The reason? The acceptance of children into your life is the acceptance of a responsibility to see them through to adulthood with the fewest problems possible. There has to be a financial safety net in place in case one parent falls. What happens if both parents die, say, in a traffic accident? This brings us to the first issue. It does not matter whether both parents will continue to work or one will stay home to look after the children. Whatever insurance is put in place must cover both partners. That way, a survivor will hopefully have enough money to complete the children’s upbringing. If a relative is to assume the care of your children after you are gone, a lump sum will ease the children into a new home. To estimate how much insurance, you will need to “guess” how much it will cost to care for your children. This will be particularly important if any child has special needs. So, if the survivor is the homemaker, he or she will need to replace the missing income. If the homemaker disappears, the earner will need to add in the costs of a “nanny”, i.e. one or more people to run the household while the survivor is out during the working day.

Many years ago, there was an early version of James Bond called Bulldog Drummond. Like Bond, he was a Brit and he had true grit when fighting an international criminal and his moll. The movies were less successful but the books are truly memorable. One of the best is “The Female of the Species”, the title being the unfinished version of “. . .is more deadly than the male” – a line from a poem by another Brit called Rudyard Kipling. When Drummond finally kills his arch enemy, the battle is resumed by his moll and she proves a deadly opponent. Indeed, throughout literature, the women who step on to the dark side always prove to be more complete villains than their male equivalents. It’s as if our horror of women doing bad stuff makes anyone good at it seem doubly frightening.

Recently, the political parties were arguing over whether you should be allowed to buy your health insurance across state lines. As part of the healthcare debate, the GOP was strongly in favor of dismantling the current state monopoly. For once, and some would say for good reason, the Democrats were the party of “No”, and insurance companies are still to be regulated by Departments of Insurance in individual states. Obviously, this does not prevent you from moving between states so here, at last, is a national survey telling you where to pitch your tent to get the cheapest premium rates for insuring your vehicle.

Asian residential property buyers beware!

Asia’s real estate markets seem, on the surface, to have recovered from the Asian crisis and to be back on their feet. In fact the entire world has enjoyed a residential property boom over the past decade – Europe, the US, Australia and New Zealand have seen property prices soar.

But in Asia the reality is quite different. Asia’s residential markets have

To further complicate matters, even if a loss is covered, the policy most likely includes a deductible as well as coverage limits. Depending on the nature of the loss, multiple insurance companies may be involved. For example, if a storm strikes and you have both wind and flood damage, you may have to file a claim with your homeowners insurance for the wind damage and another with the national flood insurance p