Crop insurance is purchased by agricultural producers, including farmers, ranchers, and others to protect themselves against either the loss of their crops due to natural disasters, such as hail, drought, and floods, or the loss of revenue due to declines in the prices of agricultural commodities. The two general categories of crop insurance are called crop-yield insurance and crop-revenue insurance.
Crop-yield insurance: There are two main classes of crop-yield insurance:
Crop-hail insurance is generally available from private insurers (in countries with private sectors) because hail is a narrow peril that occurs in a limited place and its accumulated losses tend not to overwhelm the capital reserves of private insurers. In early 1820s, crop-hail insurance were available to farmers in France and Germany. That is among the earliest forms of hail insurance from an actuarial perspective. It is possible to implement the hail risk into financial instruments since the risk is isolated.
Multi-peril crop insurance (MPCI): Coverage in this type of insurance is not limited to just one risk. Usually multi-peril crop insurance offers hail, excessive rain and drought in a combined package. Sometimes, additional risks such as insect or bacteria-related diseases are also offered. The problem with the multi-peril crop insurance is the possibility of a large scale event. Such an event can cause significant losses beyond the insurer's financial capacity. To make this class of insurance, the perils are often bundled together in a single policy, called a multi-peril crop insurance (MPCI) policy. MPCI coverage is usually offered by a government insurer and premiums are usually partially subsidized
by the government. U.S. Department of Agriculture is known to implement the earliest Multi Peril Crop Insurance program in 1938. Federal Crop Insurance Corporation managed this multi-peril insurance program since then. The Risk Management Agency (RMA) is active in calculating the premiums based on individual risk factors since 1996.
Crop-revenue insurance: Crop-yield times the crop price gives the crop-revenues. Based on farmer's revenues, crop-revenue insurance is based on deviation from the mean revenue. RMA uses the futures prices on harvest-times listed in the commodity exchange markets, to determined the prices. Combining the future price with farmer's average production gives the estimated revenue of the farmer. Accessing the futures market offers enables revenue protection even before the crop planted. There is a single guarantee for a certain number of dollars. The policy pays an indemnity if the combination of the actual yield and the cash settlement price in the futures market is less than the guarantee. In the United States, the program is called Crop Revenue Coverage. Crop-revenue insurance covers the decline in price that occurs during the crop's growing season. It does not cover declines that may occur from one growing season to another.
A monthly mortgage payment includes at least two parts: an amount that goes toward the principal of the loan (the money you've borrowed) and a second amount that goes toward interest (the cost of borrowing the money).
For most homeowners, however, there is also a third part of the mortgage payment: an amount that is paid into an escrow account that the lender maintains for you to pay for things like homeowners hazard insurance, property taxes, condominium and association fees and mortgage insurance (if applicable). This is the element of the monthly payment that can go up or down even in a fixed-rate mortgage.
Together, these elements are called PITI:
P — Principal
I — Interest
T — Taxes
I — Insurance
Your tax and insurance costsHomeowners must pay property taxes and they must have some type of homeowners insurance. Depending on state laws and other variables, most lenders require homeowners to pay into what is called an "escrow account." In this account, the lender or mortgage servicer keeps enough money to cover your property taxes and homeowners insurance. You pay into this account each month as part of your mortgage payment. When your taxes are due, the lender/servicer pays them for you. The same is true for your insurance.
The lender/servicer sends you a periodic statement showing how much is in this account. You can compare the statement with your property tax bill and your homeowners policy to ensure that the right amount is being held to cover the payments. The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), which is enforced by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is the major law covering escrow accounts.
It is important to maintain the required property insurance on your home. If you don't, your lender/servicer can buy insurance on your behalf. This type of policy is known as "force placed insurance"; it usually is more expensive than typical insurance, and it provides less coverage.
If you're buying a house, most sellers disclose the amount of the annual property taxes on the house when it is listed for sale. If they don't, you can easily get this information from your local property tax assessor. A local insurance agent can give you an idea of the annual insurance cost. Divide each of these numbers by 12 and add them to the principal and interest to get the estimated total monthly payment.
What is private mortgage insurance? If a buyer puts down less than 20 percent of the selling price on the mortgage, lenders may require the buyer to buy another type of insurance called private mortgage insurance (PMI). This provides insurance to the lender in case the buyer is not able to repay the loan and the lender is not able to recover costs after foreclosing the loan and selling the property.
The annual cost of PMI can vary but usually is between .19 percent and 1 percent of the total loan value, depending on the loan terms and loan type. PMI can be paid up front but most buyers prefer that it be included in their mortgage payment. The cost can vary based on several factors that include: loan amount, loan-to-value ratio, occupancy (primary home, second home, investment property), documentation provided at loan origination, and probably most of all credit score.
Once the principal of the loan reaches 80 percent (the owner has 20 percent equity in the home), the PMI is usually no longer required and can be canceled, although you may have to prove your equity by having a new appraisal done to show that the house is worth at least 20 percent more than you owe on it. (Note: Some lenders may require that PMI be paid for a fixed period even if the principal reaches 80 percent.) The cancellation request must come from the servicer (the company you send your mortgage payment to) of the mortgage to the PMI company that issued the insurance.
Note: PMI may be waived or avoided through some types of government or other loans. Check with your lender to determine your situation.
A PITI Payment with PMI Maria and George have found a home that costs $150,000. They are able to make a downpayment of 5 percent, or $7,500. The annual property taxes are $1,650 and the annual homeowners insurance is $780. These payments are made in monthly installments in their mortgage and are held in an escrow account. When their taxes and insurance are due, the lender (or mortgage servicer) makes the payments for them.
Because their downpayment is less than 20 percent, Maria and George will pay PMI as part of the mortgage payment. With a 30-year fixed mortgage and an interest rate of 6 percent, the PITI with PMI is as follows:
Principal and Interest (P and I): $854.36
Monthly Property Taxes (T): $137.50
Monthly Property Insurance (I): $65.00
Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI): $85.50
Total payment: $1,142.36
Making bi-weekly paymentsPaying half your mortgage every two weeks instead of a full payment once a month can be done with most any type of loan but is most common with a 30-year fixed-rate loan. Doing so pays your mortgage more quickly because you pay the equivalent of 13 months of payments each year. For people who can budget to make a half-payment every two weeks, this offers more rapid building of equity. You can choose to do this on your own. Many people have it automatically deducted from their checking accounts.
Because your payments are applied to the loan every 14 days, the principal amount decreases faster, saving you more in interest costs. Your loan term shortens to 22 or 23 years, providing a substantial decrease in total interest costs. For example:
Monthly mortgage payment (12 months/12 payments): $997 Interest paid over the life of the loan: $209,263 Paid off in 30 years
Half payment (13 months/26 payments): $498 ($997 / 2) Interest paid over the life of the loan: $155,938 Paid off in 22-23 years
Interest savings over the life of the loan are $53,325 – paid off in 22-23 years instead of 30 years!
Paying additional principal Another option — if you can afford a slightly higher monthly payment — is to achieve the same savings with monthly payments. To do this, you would need to pay an extra amount of principal to your total mortgage each month. Using the above example, with a mortgage payment of $997, you would add $83 a month ($997 divided by 12) toward the principal (You will need to specify the extra amount for "principal only" on your payment.), making your payment $1,080. The interest savings would be the same and the loan would be paid off about seven years early, but you wouldn’t have to commit to making payments every two weeks.
Health insurance is insurance against the risk of incurring medical expenses among individuals. By estimating the overall risk of health care and health system expenses, among a targeted group, an insurer can develop a routine finance structure, such as a monthly premium or payroll tax, to ensure that money is available to pay for the health care benefits specified in the insurance agreement.
The benefit is administered by a central organization such as a government agency, private business, or not-for-profit entity. According to the Health Insurance Association of America, health insurance is defined as "coverage that provides for the payments of benefits as a result of sickness or injury. Includes insurance for losses from accident, medical expense, disability, or accidental death and dismemberment"
The number of persons without health insurance coverage in the United States is one of the primary concerns raised by advocates of health care reform. A person without health insurance is commonly termed uninsured (regardless of insurance of objects unrelated to health), and this article uses the term in this sense as well.
Multiple surveys indicate the number of uninsured has fallen due to expanded Medicaid eligibility and health insurance exchanges established due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as PPACA or "Obamacare". These changes took effect January 1, 2014. The Commonwealth Fund reported in July 2014 that an additional 9.5 million people aged 19-64 had obtained health insurance, roughly 5% of the working-aged population. Gallup reported in July 2014 that the uninsured rate among adults 18 and over fell from 18.0% in Q3 2013 to 13.4% by Q2 2014. Rand Corporation had similar findings.
According to the United States Census Bureau, in 2012 there were 48.0 million people in the US (15.4% of the population) who
Vehicle insurance (also known as, GAP insurance, car insurance, or motor insurance) is insurance purchased for cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other road vehicles. Its primary use is to provide financial protection against physical damage and/or bodily injury resulting from traffic collisions and against liability that could also arise there from the specific terms of vehicle insurance vary with legal regulations in each region. To a lesser degree vehicle insurance may additionally offer financial protection against theft of the vehicle and possibly damage to the vehicle, sustained from things other than traffic collisions.
A mortgage – a loan to finance the purchase of your home – is likely the largest debt you’ll ever take on. A mortgage is actually made up of several parts – the collateral you used to secure the loan, your principal and interest payments, taxes and insurance.
Since most mortgages last 15 to 30 years of monthly payments, it helps to understand the working parts.
Collateral
When you agree to a mortgage, you’re signing a legal contract promising to repay the loan plus interest and other costs. Your home is collateral for that loan.
If you don’t repay the debt, the lender has the right to take back the property and sell it to cover the debt, a process known as foreclosure. In a foreclosure, you will lose your home and you will likely damage your credit rating, affecting your ability to buy a new home in the future.
Principal and Interest
The principal is simply the sum of money you borrowed to buy your home. To lower your principal amount upfront, you can put down a percentage of the home’s purchase price as a down payment. Typically, lenders require you to make a down payment equal to 20 percent of the home’s purchase price to get a mortgage.
Interest is what the lender charges you to use the money you borrowed, usually expressed as a percentage called the interest rate. In addition to the interest rate, the lender could also charge you points and additional loan costs. Each point is one percent of the financed amount and is financed along with the principal.
Principal and interest comprise the bulk of your monthly payments in a process called amortization, which reduces your debt over a fixed period of time. With amortization, your monthly payments largely go toward paying off the interest in the early years, and gradually reduce the principal later on.
Taxes
In addition to your principal and interest, your mortgage payment will likely include taxes. The taxes are property taxes your community levies based on a percentage of the value of your home. These taxes generally go towards financing the costs of running your community – for example, to build and maintain schools, roads and other infrastructure, and to provide certain public services.
Generally, if your down payment is less than 20 percent, your lender considers your loan riskier than those with larger down payments. To offset that risk, the lender sets up an escrow account to collect those additional expenses, which are rolled into your monthly mortgage payment.
Even if you don’t have an escrow account, you’ll likely have to pay property taxes as long as you live in your home.
Insurance
Lenders won’t let you close the deal on your home purchase if you don’t have home insurance, which covers your home and your personal property against losses from fire, theft, bad weather and other causes.
If your home is in a federally designated high flood-risk zone within a flood plain and you are signing for a federally insured loan, federal law mandates that you must buy flood insurance.
If you choose a conventional loan and put down less than 20 percent of your home’s total value at closing, your lender will likely require you to pay private mortgage insurance. PMI protects the lender from you defaulting on the mortgage. You will have to make PMI payments for two years or until your mortgage balance shrinks to 78 percent of the home’s original purchase price.
If you choose a loan backed by the Federal Housing Administration, you will have to pay mortgage insurance. Mortgage insurance works the same as PMI, however, you will have to make these payments for 11 years or for the life of the loan, depending on your loan terms and down payment amount.
Life insurance (or commonly life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth) is a contract between an insured (insurance policy holder) and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money (the "benefits") in exchange for a premium, upon the death of the insured person. Depending on the contract, other events such as terminal illness or critical illness can also trigger payment. The policy holder typically pays a premium, either regularly or as one lump sum. Other expenses (such as funeral expenses) can also be included in the benefits.
Life policies are legal contracts and the terms of the contract describe the limitations of the insured events. Specific exclusions are often written into the contract to limit the liability of the insurer; common examples are claims relating to suicide, fraud, war, riot, and civil commotion.
Life-based contracts tend to fall into two major categories:
Protection policies – designed to provide a benefit, typically a lump sum payment, in the event of specified event. A common form of a protection policy design is term insurance.
Investment policies – where the main objective is to facilitate the growth of capital by regular or single premiums. Common forms (in the U.S.) are whole life, universal life, andvariable life policies.
The European Health Insurance Card (or EHIC) is issued free of charge and allows anyone who is insured by or covered by a statutory social security scheme of the EEA countries and Switzerland
to receive medical treatment in another member state for free or at a reduced cost, if that treatment becomes necessary during their visit (for example, due to illness or an accident), or if they have a chronicpre-existing condition which requires care such as kidney dialysis. The term of validity of the card varies according to the issuing country.
The intention of the scheme is to allow people to continue their stay in a country without having to return home for medical care; as such, it does not cover people who have visited a country for the purpose of obtaining medical care, nor does it cover care, such as many types of dental treatment, which can be delayed until the individual returns to his or her home country.
It only covers healthcare which is normally covered by a statutory health care system in the visited country, so it does not render travel insurance obsolete.
Health insurance in India is a growing segment of India's economy. In 2011, 3.9% of India's gross domestic product was spent in the health sector. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), this is among the lowest of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) economies. Policies are available that offer both individual and family cover.
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