Everyone knows about the professional criminals who are now working up and down the country to bilk insurers out of their money. They stage accidents, fake injuries and receive several billion dollars a year for their trouble. Why, you ask, do they get away with this. The answer comes in two parts. The first is at state level. As you might have noticed, almost all states are running deficits and are under pressure to find savings – for some reason, no state wants to be seen raising taxes. This means even essential services are being cut. So when it comes to law enforcement, where does a Police Chief spend his reduced budget? What are the priorities? Well, we all want to feel safe so a focus on violent crimes like robbery and burglary wins votes in the election. So-called white collar crime takes a back seat. That means local police forces only investigate fraud when it’s really serious, i.e. there’s a lot of media coverage. The FBI are interested in anything crossing state lines and there is a task force set up to deal with insurance fraud. But this is a drop in the ocean when you consider how many billion dollars are involved every year.

The second reason is that you are not exactly overjoyed by the prospect of better fraud detection. Just imagine the sequence of events. Insurance companies have to recruit and train investigators to work alongside claims adjusters. This immediately boosts the insurer’s costs which get passed on to you in higher premium rates. Now all these eager-beaver investigators finish their training and they are released on to the current files. Suddenly everything slows down as these investigators decide whether there’s anything fishy about your claim. How long are you going to put up with someone poking around your claim to decide whether you really did suffer whiplash in that accident? At what point do you start complaining? It’s possible, of course, that these investigators may detect real fraud. If so, the savings they make could start paying their salaries and the premium rates would come down. Well that’s the theory, anyway, and we can all dream.

This leaves all those little frauds. Now we have pay-as-you-drive black boxes, this does away with the most common which was people lying about their mileage. Honest drivers with low mileage can now enjoy their justified discounts. Everyone else can go back to paying the proper rate. But this still leaves about $15 billion in other problems. You would be amazed (well, that’s probably an exaggeration) at the extent to which people lie. They forget to tell the insurers exactly who will be driving the family car, or they edit the driver’s experience, age or marital status. Relatives suddenly develop membership of clubs and affinity groups which produce discounts, and all this is before we get to those who forget to mention they are using their vehicle in a business. Yes, these are only small frauds, only barely dishonest really. But the industry estimates it loses $15 billion a year because of these little lies. That’s $15 billion we all have to cover with higher car insurance rates. So, be honest, what would you prefer: everyone telling the truth and most paying lower rates, or higher car insurance quotes to cover this continuing dishonesty?

It seems that the traditional discrimination between male and female drivers will end very soon thanks to the European Court of Justice, which has approved the ban on price discrimination and set a three year period for the insurance companies to comply. This is certainly good news for male drivers, especially the younger ones, who are traditionally charged with higher premiums, and also means that female drivers will be subjected to higher premiums as a logical move by the insurance providers to split even the costs in order to comply with the new rules.

The debate over car insurance price discrimination has been a long and heated one. Traditionally male drivers were charged with higher premiums because they were more often involved in accidents if compared to female drivers. And knowing that the insurance providers deal only with risk factors when calculating their rates as a result female drivers were always getting better rates then men. There are a lot of explanations of why female drivers are less risky then men behind the wheel. Male drivers tend to be more aggressive on the road, driving faster and taking more risks. And this of course leads to more accidents and insurance claims filed by men. So, in fact the math behind such discrepancy in rates for different genders can be understood.

Still, knowing how the EU acts regarding any type of discrimination this car insurance feature was set to become the subject for discussion sooner or later. And what may look like a call for justice from the lawmaker and political point of view will certainly give the insurers a bit of a headache when deciding how to comply with the new rules. Because the usual methods of calculating insurance rates for different groups of drivers will have to be reviewed in order to exclude gender discrimination among customers.

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Many people dream of running their own business and of giving up the day job. Most of these ambitious individuals only have the most basic of skills needed, and recognize that their business would not stand a great chance of success.

A Franchise is the answer for many of these would-be entrepreneurs.

A Franchise works by the franchiser selling a business plan to the franchisee. The fee paid may include marketing, a site, a website and vehicles in company livery. The most important thing the franchiser provides is training in implementing the business plan.

Franchise businesses have a much greater chance of success because the franchisee has training, guidance and supervision in the early stages. This support is expensive and the franchisee may have to pay a percentage of turnover or profits to the franchiser. (more…)

It’s a sad fact of life but machines work for less than human beings. In the good old days, every machine needed a human to watch over it and make sure it did not mess up. Now all you do is plug in these new generations of clever computerised things and they can work for days and weeks without ever having to step outside to enjoy a cigarette. It’s enough to make Karl Marx turn over in his grave as the workers of the world have slowly been losing the power to sell their labour. But inside every silver lining is a pig’s ear, or something. If a business can operate with fewer human beings, it’s making big savings that can be passed on to us, the customers. If you’re still able to find work and can afford to insure your car, this is a good thing. If you’re one of the replaced humans and now find yourself on the scrap heap of life, this is bitter medicine.

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The word ‘holiday’ has got different meanings in different countries. The meaning of the word ‘holiday’ can be inferred by dividing the word into two separate parts holy and day. So, holidays can be represented as special religious days. In today’s world, holidays are considered as a period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation.

To many people holidays are not voyages of discovery, but a ritual of reassurance. Holidays generally include travel to some favourite destination, be it very near or far off. Whether you choose to travel far or near, holidays generally incur a good amount of money. However, not everyone is financially steady enough to make the expenses for holidays. (more…)

There is no doubt that computer technology has give significant impact in our daily life. The fact is that we rely so much on the computer. The computer enables us to carry many daily task easily.
However, may computer users are concern with a Trojan virus. Trojan virus or Trojan horse virus is very dangerous virus that can attract your computer system easily. You will easily get infected trojan virus if you visiting and downloading some application from unreliable sources. Trojan virus is a kind of malware that can steal your important personal information. However, if your computer is attacked by Trojan virus, you don’t have to be panic as you are not alone. You can use some kind of software that specifically designed to remove Trojan virus. On the other hand prevention is obviously better than cure. So it is advisable for you to be careful and never download any application before you are sure that they are free from viruses.

When employers were still mostly human, they offered their employees a range of benefits in addition to pay. One of the more common add-ons was a group life plan. The general idea was to provide for the employees’ welfare through health, retirement and life cover, and so encourage them to greater effort. The advantage from the employer’s point of view was that it was usually cheaper to buy the various benefits in bulk than to add pay sufficient for the employees to buy as individuals. Since pay was low, it avoided struggles for the employees to buy their own benefits. Everyone was happy with this arrangement. As we move toward the end of the last century, this philosophy was retained in the public sector, but more greedy capitalists began chipping away at the benefits. (more…)