Investment Info

No-one said life ever has to be fair but, as parents, you quickly discover the world is not set up to make things easy for you. There are challenges at every turn. Of course, all the healthcare needs can be put on the back burner if you or your partner have a family plan provided by your employers. Now all you have to do is read the small print to see what coverage is provided for children while they are at elementary school or high school while still under the magic age of 18 years. After they pass the threshold of their eighteenth birthdays, the coverage gets more patchy. They are still family members but the extent of the coverage may change. If you have not been fortunate to find an employer offering health coverage as part of the pay package, the world has been less welcoming. It’s entirely possible that you and your family are one of the growing millions who are uninsured or underinsured. This leaves a number of options to explore for the children.

For some years, the federal government has recognized that children are the future of our country. If they do not grow up strong, the future may not see the US remain so dominant internationally. So, with federal encouragement, states have been offering a safety net for children. The alternatives are Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) which was established by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 to expand health insurance coverage to uninsured children in families with income too high to qualify for Medicaid. For the record, Congress has provided about $40 billion to fund SCHIP through 2007. Federal funding is currently available. Outside the federal and state programs, some elementary and high schools group together to offer health coverage for their students where the families are uninsured or underinsured. Some states have not set generous criteria for access to their SCHIP and the group policies help the modestly well-off families bridge the health plan gap. Read the rest of this entry »

The hard times many of us had to face with the recession have made some people think of “special” ways for getting some extra money. And when every dollar counts, any measure will do. Insurance companies report records in claims these days, typically for small amounts, and there’s a growing number of frauds the carriers have to deal with. Having overwhelming numbers of claims may seem like the perfect way to get a fraud unnoticed, but fortunately for insurance companies it is not so.

Every insurance company has its own special investigation unit, which is usually comprised of people who have experience working in law enforcement domain. And as you’ve guessed it, this unit is dealing with cases when fraud is suspected. Taking into account that fraud is illegal, these guys are just as serious as police detectives and FBA agents – when there’s a crime, they are bloodthirsty for finding out the truth. And that’s what they typically see people trying to get away with:

1. Leaving the car unlocked and the keys in place.

Missing a set of keys when your “car” gets stolen and having no signs of forced entry when it is found will make the investigation unit suspect that you’ve just decided to get rid of your car and get money for it.

2. Blame vandals for setting your auto on fire after spilling some gasoline somewhere near the engine.

You may think that the fire will destroy all the evidence. Well, there are things like computer simulations, pattern analysis and other ways to investigate such cases that will get you red-handed. Read the rest of this entry »