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Health insurance can be one of the best things you can get for yourself as this ensures that somehow, when the need arises, you’d get adequate healthcare. However, we know that insurers and clients always clash in the sense that they want to keep costs down while you want to make sure that your health is up.

In the past, Indemnity Insurance was the most common type of insurance and pays a portion of your medical bills. You need to spend a certain amount each year, deductibles, before you can start benefiting from it, by that time your plan will be covering about 60 to 80 percent of your medical expenses.

However, with the soaring indemnity insurance fees, a new more cost-efficient system called Health Maintenance Organizations emerged. HMOs are connected with specific hospitals, clinics, and doctors and hospitals, which then become the healthcare plan’s network. Unlike indemnity insurance, there will be no deductible and the co-payments will be, usually, low. The monthly premium you pay will cover doctor visits, hospitalization, emergency care, laboratory tests, and therapy.

For most healthcare needs HMOs can be a cheaper alternative.

Long term care insurance has been on the rise as the public came to realize that the government is unable or unwilling to pay the cost for long-term care. This has prompted a lot of people to seek help from their employers.

However, according to survey only a few employees understand what LTC insurance is all about, which is why active employee participation is, for the time being, a mere two percent.

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Basically, the provisions of individual LTC policies and those sponsored by the employer are about the same, except for the fact that in the case of the employer-sponsored policies, the employer shoulders the premium for the employees’ benefit.

The main idea behind LTC is to protect assets in case of illness or injury that requires long-term care.

To qualify for the benefits of LTC, the insured must not be incapable of doing two of the six dialy living tasks, such as eating, bathing and dressing or the insured must be suffering from dementia or other forms of severe cognitive impairment.

There’s usually an elimination or waiting period before the patient can avail of LTC insurance benefits.

Group policies may have limited benefits compared to individual individual LTC policies. However, employees may opt to purchase more coverage by paying additional premium.

On the part of the employer, premiums paid are tax deductible. Since LTC is a non-qualified benefit, it can be used as a form of incentive for employee performance.

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With the increase in the number of projected hurricanes this year, investors can profit from them, if they purchase credit-default protection, according to Barclays Capital analysts.

There are markets for two years damage claims for property and casualty insurers for relatively light hurricane, the advisers said.

For this year, meteorologists have predicted a greater than average number of hurricanes as well as an increased probability that a storm of major magnitude will hit the United States. This is how investors can make a profit:

• On the three insurers, purchase credit-default swaps
• fund the trade. You can do this by selling contracts on certain insurers (they must have less exposure to the hazard although they’re in a region prone to storms) or you can get them sold on a benchmark index.

The contracts could easily yield 15 to 20 basis points increase, the analysts added.

Credit-default swaps are financial instruments. These instruments are based on bonds and loans that are utilized as speculative tools as regards a certain company’s ability to make good its debts. They were first and foremost designed to shield bondholders in case of default. In effect, these instruments pay the buyer at face value in return for the underlying securities in the event that the company should fail to comply with debt agreements.

It’s a great opportunity for investors to grab and take advantage of the credit markets’ volatility as the looming threat of storm activity increases. Remember that these are all based on predictions, but if a major storm does in fact happen, the contracts could go wider even more.

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There are a lot of people who see life Insurance as an Investment. Some of them are very close to me, and are stuck in long term policies that are touted as great investments. This is so patently false, that it’s a miracle that agents selling Life Insurance have got away with it so far.

The first reason is common sense (More specific reasons are listed below!) - It’s too good to be true! What agents selling this stuff are telling you, is that you can essentially have a great equity linked investment, and be covered with a death benefit. Your alarm bells should be ringing by now already. Nothing comes for free, and if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Life insurance carries hefty fees, costs, and commissions that erode your returns. This makes some sense, as otherwise, how would life insurance companies make their money? What about the agent who sold you the insurance? He gets a commission as well.

I’m not against Life insurance per se. I understand that it provides a layer of security in case of mishap, but I certainly do object to calling it a mainstream investment, and to make matters worse, calling it better than other long term investments. You need to buy life insurance for the right reasons. Not as an investment option.