Global Market Reviews

The US is justly proud of its reputation as the home of modern capitalism and has promoted the idea of free markets to skeptical countries around the world. The fact that a bubble in the property market fuelled this recession does not change the philosophical power of the US economic model. When it works properly, the free market pushes businesses to compete. This improves the quality of service and keeps down the price. The consumer benefits. All federal government need do is intervene when there is clear evidence of a company abusing its dominant position to damage the consumers’ interests. Unfortunately, under the last administration, antitrust enforcement was scaled back. Worse, there were deeply entrenched monopolies and cartels that could not be investigated or regulated. The leading example of this immunity is enjoyed by the insurance industry. Some sixty-five years ago, it was exempted from federal antitrust laws by the McCarran-Ferguson Act. This is a sad example of corruption in government. Vested interests bought enough votes to get the Act passed. Lobbyists’ money has kept the immunity in place ever since.

Why is this immunity as bad thing? Competition improves choice. Given a reasonable number of companies competing in the same market, each must offer features to distinguish their product from the others. Once consumers see one product is better, they will transfer their business. The competitors must therefore match or improve on those features to win back market share. If there’s no effective competition, an artificially small number of products will be offered. The companies will agree not to compete on quality and price which rigs the market and divides it up between the suppliers. In the insurance market, patients have been paying artificially high prices. Doctors have also been paying inflated prices for their medical malpractice insurance. At a time when the costs of healthcare and drugs have been rising faster than inflation, this is penalizing the US consumer and the taxpayer who often ends up subsidising payment of these inflated prices. There is no justification for retaining this immunity. Read the rest of this entry »

The modern Western society is at war, which influences and affects virtually all domains of life and forces people to reconsider traditions, judgments and practices. This is the war of sexes. And if some domains women are left by men behind, when it comes to insuring one’s life, the strong sex is clearly losing it, with women going far ahead. But why is that so?

Back in February, the Society of Actuaries has conducted a study concluding that high amounts of testosterone (i.e. the male hormone) lead to more harmful effects on health and behavior, not to mention the overall risk-taking property of this substance, which makes men more prone to undertaking hazardous activities than women. Higher blood pressure and lower immune system activity is the cause of the substantial difference in mortality rates and serious health issues, which are most obvious at the age of 22, when men have the highest amounts of the hormone in their blood.

For a long time the common belief was that women live longer because they are not subjected to serious stress and hazards, traditionally working at home. But with the modern tendencies of women undertaking tasks that are traditionally done by men, researchers have observed that women who are making part of the working force actually have a longer duration of life even compared to those who stay at home. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not that hard as I may seem to be!

The reasons for choosing a different insurance company for covering your auto are numerous. Maybe it’s the level of services you aren’t quite satisfied with, or the other insurance company has the same amount of coverage for a considerably lower price. Today, checking your insurance rates and comparing them to what the other carriers have to offer is a few minutes task. And if you decide that your current insurance provider has to be switched to another one, you will be surprised to know that it’s not that hard to do like it may seem.

Why choosing another insurance carrier?

Checking your current insurance rates should become routine for you, to make sure you get exactly what you pay for. And while doing so, you should always shop around with other carriers as well. Even the same amounts and types of coverage can have different price tags with different companies. This is because each insurance company has it’s own set of indicators determining the final insurance rates.

The primary indicator, which the company uses for determining the rates is the claims experience with every group of drivers that are insured with them. In other words, if your company has many claims filed by drivers of your customer group (age, sex, driving record, credit rating, etc.) during a given period, you will definitely experience a raise in insurance rates. If this is what you have to deal with, you most probably need to look on what the other companies have to offer.

Make sure you have the new policy before switching

Have a lapse in auto insurance coverage is not the best thing to confront with, so make sure you get the new policy before dropping the old one. The new company you get the policy from will make sure that it will take force right when the old one is canceled.

When the time is right? Read the rest of this entry »