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Most of you are not aware of the different health insurance policies. You might be depending on the insurance agents to be updated with the different health insurance policies.Possibly for such a reason there is a rise in price of different health insurance premium over time. This has led to a considerable fall of the health insurance market. So it’s high time we get introduced to the health insurance market.

• Indemnity Policies (Traditional Fee-for-Service Insurance)

• Preferred Provider Organization (PPO)

• Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)

• Multiple Employer Welfare Arrangements (MEWA)

• The Self-insured Employer-Sponsored Plans

Read the rest of this entry »

• Putting Day to Day Expenses on Credit

If you are borrowing money for your everyday expenses like paying for groceries or utility bills then you need to take a stock of your money situation. If you can’t afford basic necessities like food, gasoline, electricity and rent, you are probably over your head. You must address the problem as soon as possible or else you will have a harder and harder time digging out of debt.

• You can only afford to make the minimum payments on your card

You are in serious trouble if you are only paying off the minimum amounts due on your accounts, or maybe even less than the minimums. Making the minimum on cards will undoubtedly keep the collectors from calling but will take a really long time to wipe off the debt. When you are paying the minimum to cards, you are actually paying off the interest rate, but no actual principal. Read the rest of this entry »

More and more employees following a 401k plan are being offered a debit card to access 401k loan funds. The card thus issued is known as ReservePlus.

How does this work?

When a company offers a 401k plan to any employee, the latter has to transfer the approved loan into a Reserve Plus account online. Then the employee receives a debit card which they can use to take out less than 35% of the loan amount they have been approved for.

The loan starts off as soon as an employee removes cash from the account. The employees receive the bills directly and not through payroll deduction. They can pay back the loan in the same way as they pay off their credit cards. Depending upon the employer, the employee may also get a revolving loan thereby taking out money and paying it back within a specific time period.

Since 2003, there have been a growing number of employees applying for the ReservePlus debit cards and as such experts feel, the program has lured even the reluctant consumers to participate in retirement plans.

Interested to know the pros and cons? Well, you have to wait for my next post:)

Technorati Tags: 401k loan and debit card, reserveplus

There are credit card programs available in the market, which are based on health and medical expenses. If you are undergoing persistent medical expenses and not very comfortable carrying revolving credit, then these cards might come handy.

Two major banks Citibank and BoFA are offering these special credit card programs which help reducing the total medical expenditure in a year. BoFA is offering point based programs. In case you have insurance through Aetna, you can turn your accumulated points to “cash direct deposits to a health savings account, or other standard rewards.” Members of Caremark are eligible or awards but not cash deposit.

For Citibank the offer remains open for all. It offers discounts through PrescriptionDiscountBenefit [dot] com.

These credit card interests vary from 10% to 11%.