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Archive for the ‘Accident & Casualty Insurance’ Category

Dealing With a Car Crash

According to the U.S Census Bureau there have been over 10 million car crashes in the U.S. each year starting in 2004 and ending in 2008. That’s over 50 million car crashes in a five-year period. With numbers like that you can safely assume that everyone will have to deal with a car accident at some point in their lives. Everyone should know what to do in the event of a car crash to make sure that the event isn’t anymore stressful and difficult than it needs to be.

Stay Calm

This is the first thing you need to do in the event of a car crash. In some cases this is easier said than done. Car accidents can be very traumatic and being calm may be the last thing on your mind. But be assured, staying calm is critical so that the accident can be documented correctly and all necessary information is obtained.

Obtain Information

After a crash, if you are not seriously hurt, you will want to gather as much information as you can. You should write down the name, address and phone number of the other parties involved in the accident. You will also want to write down the name of their insurance company, their policy number, drivers license number and their license plate number. If the name of the driver is different from the name on the insurance policy of the vehicle you should write down the driver’s name and relationship to the person whose name is on the policy. Write down the location of the accident and how it occurred. When writing how the accident happened, or when speaking with police about what happened you should be polite and be truthful, but you should NOT admit fault for the crash even if you think you might be at fault. This may benefit you if legal action is taken later by one of the other parties. You may also write down a description of the cars involved including the year, make, model and color.

You should also write down any damaged or missing items resulting from the crash. Examples of this might be your cell phone, contents of a wallet or a purse, glasses, or any other items you may keep in your car. Another important thing to write is what you feel physically. document anything out of the ordinary as even small aches might be more painful in a day or two. If possible write down any relevant medical information for others involved in the accident.

In accidents more serious than a fender bender you will have to contact police so they can come to the location of the accident. When talking with police ask about the traffic accident report. When police are involved in the more serious crashes traffic accident reports are required to be filed. Even if you accident is minor you might want to file an accident report with the state. Insurance companies use these to file claims and if you’ve filed an accident report it can help to speed up the process of your insurance company. Car accident reports are public record so write down the names and badge numbers of the police assisting you, know where your accident report will filed, and be sure that you have a number to contact the precinct where the report will be filed.

Take Photos

If you have a camera you will want to take as many pictures of the crash as you can. You will want pictures of the damage to each vehicle and you should do your best to make the pictures show how the accident happened. You should write down the contact information of anyone who saw the crash so that they can be contacted if necessary later on. You will also want to take pictures of your injuries and date them. Keep taking pictures of your injuries while they heal and make sure to date them. These will be good to have when dealing with insurance companies.

After the Accident

Documentation is just as important after leaving the scene of crash. You should keep a record of any medical consults, and medical bills you receive. You will want to keep track of any work or school you miss due to the crash. This would include time you need to take for medical treatment. You should keep records of car repair estimates. Your insurance company might give a low estimate. If you think the estimate isn’t right then go get one from a certified mechanic. Don’t forget to keep all the paperwork and bills regarding repairs to your vehicle. In addition you should keep track of any out-of-pocket expenses relating to injuries from your accident. This includes heating pads, bandages, child-care bills, rental cars, taxis, or even cancellation of a trip you had planned to take.

Contacting a Lawyer

Having a personal injury attorney is a smart choice after an accident. Before signing any forms related to an accident you should get advice from a lawyer, especially if you do not understand what you are signing or are not comfortable signing something. Initial offers from insurance companies may be lower than you feel you deserve and you may feel that your insurance company isn’t providing you with what it should be. And if an accident is serious and you are taken to the hospital you won’t be able to document the incident at all. In these situations having a personal injury attorney is crucial. A personal injury attorney will communicate with your insurance provider and make sure that you get the amount of money that you deserve. A good personal attorney will investigate your accident and even evaluate your injuries to make sure that they get you the best settlement that you can get. Car accidents are very stressful and settling them can be an extensive and drawn out process. Having a personal injury attorney will bring you peace of mind and help to reduce the stress of dealing with insurance companies after an auto accident.

-Accident health insurance supplements are guarantee issue up to age 65 or 70.
-Online applications have no health questions. Automatic approval.
-ER supplements can be used at any Doctor, Emergency Room, Hospital, Urgent Care Facility, or Medical Clinic.
-Injury plans are not insurance. Plans are an association based indemnity.
-Indemnity= Plans that compensate up to a predetermined amount and pay in cash payments to cover losses incurred from hospitals and doctors.
-Plans either pay benefits to health care provider or member.
-Limited accident medical expense benefit levels of $2,500, $5,000, $7,500, or $10,000 are typical. Benefits are payed per injury or per accident. Policy resets for every claim.
-Accident plan deductibles are usually $100 to $200 dollars. Deductible= Out of pocket expense you pay before insurance company pays.
-How plan works: Accident coverage pays part of hospital or doctor expenses up to policy max ($5,000, $7,500, or $10,000) minus $100 deductible.

Most competitive rates so far (estimates)

$24.00 US dollars a month: $5,000 Benefit Individual Plan
$29.00 US dollars a month: $7,500 Benefit Individual Plan
$36.00 US dollars a month: $10,000 Benefit Individual Plan

$35.00 US dollars a month: $5,000 Benefit Family Plan
$41.00 US dollars a month: $7,500 Benefit Family Plan
$47.00 US dollars a month: $10,000 Benefit Family Plan

Accident Health Insurance Supplements Cover:

-Hospital Emergency Rooms Expenses
-Doctor’s fee for surgery (in and outpatient surgery)
-Lab Tests
-MRI’s and X-Rays
-Ambulance
-Nurse expense
-Operating Room Cost
-Hospital room and board
-Prescription medications
-Anesthesia
-Physical Therapy Services
-In or Outpatient Doctors Visits
-Casts, Crutches, and Splints
-Dental treatment for injury to sound natural teeth.

Other names for accident health insurance supplements include: accident medical expense benefit, emergency room insurance plan, personal accident insurance, accident supplemental benefit plan, 24 hour accident coverage, accident medical coverage, and supplemental accident coverage.

-Accidental injury benefits are only payable if plan was in force prior to injury.
-The top ER supplements do cover kids sports accidents from soccer, football, and other high school sports. Plans don’t cover College or Pro level sports injuries.
-Plans work outside of the United States for up to 60 consecutive days abroad.
-Children can stay on family emergency room insurance supplement until age 26.
-Plans only cover ER expenses related to accidental bodily injuries and not sickness or disease visits (Stroke, Heart Attack, Cancer isn’t covered).

Accident health insurance supplements are being used to cover upfront injury related expenses for the ER. Plans can be used to compliment an existing health insurance policy or just as a personal injury plan to pay for any unexpected ER visits or surgeries.

Many Americans are concerned with insuring the everyday mishaps like bodily injuries and emergency room coverage. Of course, insuring things like Cancer and Heart Attacks are important, but for younger adults and especially kids, emergency room visits are far more prevalent. Unfortunately, a trip to the emergency room isn’t cheap and the healing process from a serious bodily injury can be exhausting. Damaged body parts often need to be surgically corrected and the post operation Physical Therapy sessions feel like a Sylvester Stallone Rocky Movie. I’m not going to lie, the Rocky Four soundtrack got me through my Physical Therapy workouts post ACL Knee surgery.

Health insurance for the self-employed is especially complicated when it comes to emergency room visits. To qualify for a Major Medical PPO plan one must go through underwriting and medically qualify. Assuming you get approved, you’ll need to select a deductible and plan style. The most cost effective PPO policies in the individual health insurance market are the HDHP (High Deductible Health Plan) plans. Deductible is the out of pocket expense the insured has before the health insurance policy picks up the bill. PPO stands for Preferred Provider Organization and is the type of health insurance that lets you choose any doctor. Choosing any doctor isn’t necessarily true, theirs a lot of gray area with “being in network or out of network” with PPO’s.

Deductible options for individuals in the PPO market are $1,500, $2,500, $3,500, and $5,000. Typical family deductible options are $3,000, $5,000, $7,000, and $10,000. You’ll want to choose a co-insurance of 100%. Co-insurance is the shared expense between you and the insurance company after the deductible. Most people are familiar with 80/20 % co-insurance. 100% co-insurance is popular because you won’t need to understand Calculus to figure out any future hospital bills. Insurance plan picks up 100% of the bills after deductible with this option. On a side note, it’s a good idea to set up a Health Savings Account. HSA’s have some decent tax advantages and you can set up an account equivalent to the deductible amount. So a $10,000 HDHP can have a $10,000 health savings account attached to it. The yearly max contribution to the health savings account is determined by your HDHP deductible. Ask your CPA about health savings accounts if your self-employed.

Higher deductible health insurance plans have lower monthly premiums. However, with that high deductible comes risk of having to owe that deductible amount if you use the health insurance. A $5,000 dollar deductible hospital bill is one broken bone away. Guess how a lot of Americans end up paying that HDHP $5,000 deductible? You guessed it, in the emergency room from a accidental bodily injury.

Accident health insurance supplements have been doing a good job filling this ER gap for years. Other names used for this plan include personal accident insurance, emergency room insurance supplement, accident medical coverage, personal injury insurance plan, 24 hour accident coverage, and accident supplemental benefit plan. These plans are under marketed in my opinion, and most licensed health insurance agents are doing a disservice to their clients if they don’t bring it up. I say this because so many people are shelling out a lot of money each month to insurance companies, and if they actually use the insurance could be stuck with a huge deductible bill.

Opposite the PPO health insurance industry is Guarantee Issue insurance products. Emergency room insurance supplements fall into this category and are automatic approval. Online applications have zero health questions but do need social security numbers and birth dates. This type of guarantee issue accident medical expense coverage is an indemnity. Indemnity’s compensate members with a predetermined benefit amount.

Personal injury insurance plans in this category are membership based associations. The membership organization helps individuals and families in the United States gain access to discount programs and in this case, the pound for pound most practical emergency room insurance supplement I’ve seen so far.

Each association member can choose a benefit level of accident coverage to fit their monthly budget or to match the HDHP deductible. Plans cover the HDHP deductible giving high deductible health plans a virtual zero deductible effect. Remember, a lot of HDHP’s max out deductibles from ER visits due to injuries. ER plan pays injury related expenses to pay off the PPO deductible. Again, plans only cover ER related expenses due to injury and not sickness.

Members can choose a emergency room coverage level of $2,500, $5,000, $7,500, or $10,000. Accident compensation benefits pay out per injury and have no limits on use. Typically a person will have a $100 dollar deductible per covered accident. ER policy pays up to the $2,500, $5,000, $7,500, or $10,000 per accident excluding the $100 deductible. In simple terms, you’ll owe $100 dollars for any covered injury assuming the bill doesn’t exceed the policy benefit max of $2,500, $5,000, $7,500, or $10,000.

Here’s some figures on what the leading personal accident insurance dues are. Indemnity plan rate increases are seldom because it’s an association based health insurance product.

-$24 dollars a month: $5,000 benefit individual plan.

-$29 dollars a month: $7,500 benefit individual plan.

-$36 dollars a month: $10,000 benefit individual plan.

-$35 dollars a month: $5,000 benefit family plan.

-$41 dollars a month: $7,500 benefit family plan.

-$47 dollars a month: $10,000 benefit family plan.

(family policy prices include everyone, it’s the same price for a 3 person family or 12 person family)

It doesn’t matter what accident health insurance plan brochure you pick up, all plan brochures EOB (Explanation Of Benefits) page say the same important benefit: Members may choose any Doctor, Hospital, or Emergency Room. Since this is accident indemnity, benefits have no restriction on health care providers to choose from. Accidents are unpredictable and so is knowing what emergency room you’ll be showing up at. I can’t imagine accident plans would sell if they came with some lame network provider booklet of acceptable doctors. This brand of accident coverage is 100% portable and can be used up to two months outside the United States while traveling abroad.

Accident Plan benefits at a glance:

-Hospital Emergency Care

-Doctor’s fee for surgery (in and outpatient)

-Laboratory Tests.

-X-Rays and MRI’s.

-Ambulance Expense.

-Registered Nurse.

-Hospital room and board.

-Operating Room Costs.

-Anesthesia.

-Prescription Drugs.

-Physical Therapy (super important post operation)

-Doctors visits (inpatient and outpatient).

-Dental treatment for injury to sound natural teeth.

-Splints, Crutches, and Casts.

Filing auto accident insurance claims is quite tedious. But to get your compensation for the accident, it is a necessary procedure – so you might as well go about it in the fool-proof manner described here.

Tip 1: Inform the Insurance Company about the Accident Immediately

Your first priority after an accident is to ensure you and your co-passengers are okay, so a thorough medical check-up is necessary. After you are done with it, call up your insurance company and inform them about your accident. Now would also be a good time to go through your insurance policy and familiarize yourself with the exact terms of your auto accident insurance claim, if you are not familiar with it already.

Tip 2: Write a Detailed Auto Accident Insurance Claims Statement

Giving as much detail of the accident as possible and supporting your claim with pictures of the accident site, damaged vehicles, etc. is essential. In the claims statement, you must also include medical reports of all injuries that you have sustained in the accident, no matter how small the injury appears. If you add names and contact details of any witnesses to the accident, it adds more value to your claim. All this substantiates your auto insurance claim immensely.

Tip 3: Keep Track of all Events Pertaining to Your Claim

Whether it is a discussion you had with the police, your insurance agent, or a record of your medical expenses, anything that has got to do with your claim is supposed to be recorded in writing. If your claim is settled in court, these will be used as evidence. Do not try to rely only on your memory; file all bills, receipts, etc.

Tip 4: Check all Your Insurance Policies

If you have multiple insurance policies, each one may allow you to file an auto accident insurance claim. To ensure you claim all that you are entitled to, you have to know your policies’ details, as discussed above. Take time out to review all your policies periodically.

Tip 5: Be Honest

Honesty with your insurance company is always the best policy. Otherwise your auto accident claim could be disqualified on fraudulent grounds.

If you have a dog that you hunt with, you owe it to your dog to have it insured. Accident insurance is very affordable and can save you and your dog a lot of pain in the event of an accident while out in the field.

I have a beagle that I run rabbits with, and she has health insurance (all my dogs have disease and accident insurance). I have a friend, Brian, that runs Walker coon hounds for bear and cougars. He doesn’t hunt them, he just lets his dogs tree the animals (its what they were bred for) and then goes about his way.

Well, Brian knows I’m a photographer, so one day he asked me if I would like to join him and take some photos of his dogs in action so he could have something to hang on his wall. He also said I could get close enough to get some neat shots of the animals in the tree.

So we go out to the forest, to an area where he’s found bear often. It wasn’t long before his dogs get on the scent of a black bear, and they are off. So Brian and I take off running, following the baying of the hound dogs. A few hundred feet later there we come to a clearing where his dogs have a small bear backed to a tree. So I ready my camera and start shooting. The dogs are barking, jumping in and away from the bear. The bear growls and swipes, just trying to keep distance between himself and the dogs. It was a real adrenaline rush!

Then one of the dogs, a one year old named Bruno, got a little too close. The bear made a swipe and his paw caught the dog right on the flank and opened him right up. Brian immediately called the dogs off, and the bear ran away. And we ran to Bruno to see how he was.

Thankfully the wound wasn’t serious. But Bruno did have three gashes about four inches in length each, right on his right flank. The wounds cut through the flesh in into his meat. He needed to see a vet immediately to get sewn up.

On the way to the vet I asked Brian if he had accident insurance for his dog, and he looked at me like I was crazy. He didn’t know such a thing existed. I felt bad.

By the time the vet had run labs, x-rays, sedation, and sutured Bruno, his bill was $600. A few days later, the Bruno developed an infection. He had to take him back in and the vet for emergency treatment and serious antibiotics. That was another $300. And one more follow up exam was another 100. In the end, my photo shoot cost Brian about $1,000 in vet bills. If Brian would have had just basic accident insurance coverage on his dog, his out-of-pocket expenses would have been around $100.

I got a call from Brian’s wife the next week asking me what I knew about pet insurance. I promptly told her about the plan that I have for all of my dogs, and directed her to a website where she could review plans for herself.

They now have accident insurance for all three of their dogs. In addition to accident insurance, their eldest dog (10 years old) also has a senior policy to help with the impending bills that are going to happen as his health declines.

Pet accident insurance is not only affordable, it is responsible, especially if you hunt with your dog. With the cost of veterinary care today, you cannot afford to be without some kind of coverage should something happen while you are out in the field. Take some time and check out the available whole health, senior, and accident programs today.

Need some accident car insurance? Here’s a few things to keep in mind before you purchase it.

Check for discounts

Before you buy accident car insurance, make sure that you can get some kind of discounts.

For example, you might be able to get a discount because you are in the military or have good grades as a student.

There are lots of other discounts, such as a safe car discount, a new car discount, or a defensive driving discount. The good thing about a lot of these discount is that you have control over them. Therefore do everything you can to get these discounts.

Any of these as auto insurance discounts will help you save money in the long run.

Have a high deductible

While looking for accident car insurance, make sure you enter in the quote that you will have a high deductible. This will help you have a lower monthly premium on your auto insurance.

Although this means that if you get an a car accident you will pay more, in the long run it will definitely help you save money on your insurance.

Shop around

The best way to find accident car insurance that is affordable is to shop around and get quotes from multiple companies. One company might offer cheap auto insurance in your state but in the next eight state it might be more expensive, so it all depends on the company and how they compute their quotes.

Also keep in mind that a lot of the time the cheapest, most affordable auto insurance will come from small companies that do not spend a great deal on advertising.