Guest Blog: 5 Tips for Finding a Life Insurance Policy that Works For You
In a world full of uncertainties, it is important to ensure your protection and that of your loved ones are guaranteed. A life insurance policy is a legal and mutual contract between you and a life insurance provider. In a life insurance policy, the insurer is called upon to make certain payments of money and list down beneficiaries who will benefit from the program if the insurer dies off in case of an unfortunate happening.
One of the biggest financial decisions you will ever make is signing up for a favorable life insurance policy that will wholesomely come through for you in any tight situation. The following are tips for finding a favorable life insurance policy:
1. Assess the Current Financial Situation You’re in
Before settling on a life insurance policy, you have to have a definite picture of your financial health. Assess the total amount you have that will cater for your family members, which includes:
- Monthly income
- The emergency funds available
- The life insurance coverage via work
- The retirement savings.
You may add up all the assets and find out that you are not eligible for a life insurance program. To ensure you make the right decisions, you should work with a financial planner to help you decide what needs to be safeguarded by the life insurance policy.
2. Understand What Affects Your Life Insurance Rate
When deciding on the rate, you need to pay for coverage; the key factors looked at by life insurance companies are your health and age. The younger you apply for your life insurance, the cheaper the life insurance rates are. This is because people are mostly healthy when they are young and run into fewer risks that push them towards applying for insurance policies.
The type of policy granted to you and the death benefits hugely depends on the rates paid by you. Most life insurance policies have an option for you to convert a term life insurance policy to a permanent insurance policy as desired with an increase in your income.
3. Choose an Insurance Policy Type
When planning to buy a life insurance policy, you have the option to choose between a term policy and a whole life insurance policy. A term policy is an advantageous way to help you cover bills such as mortgages or your kid’s education because they are only for a while.
However, a permanent life insurance policy is long-term with lifelong coverage. Compared to a termed insurance, permanent life insurance is expensive because of its high cash value. The cash is useful in supplementing retirement income or during emergencies.
4. Assess Your Life Insurance Goals
Every person has different goals and intentions with their insurance policies. With the aid of a suitable insurance policy, you have to formulate your goals well and ensure the amount you are directing to the insurance company can comfortably fund your goals without inadequacy. Whether it is a team or lifelong insurance, Omaha Insurance Medicare Agent ensures your assets are safe and all the goals are met at the end of the day.
A unit-linked insurance plan helps you take care of matters such as your child’s education and purchase a retirement plan that guarantees your daily expenses after retirement. Also, it is crucial to set realistic goals depending on the income you generate.
5. Name Your Life Insurance Beneficiary
A life insurance beneficiary is a person who benefits from the proceeds of your insurance policy. When choosing a beneficiary, it is important to choose wisely as this is the individual who will reap the fruits of your labor when you are not around. You can contact an independent agent to walk you through choosing your beneficiary.
When choosing a beneficiary, avoid opting for minors or infants that may fail to receive the funds. Also, avoid naming an estate as a beneficiary because it may go through tax implications, and you end up not benefitting from the insurance you worked hard to save for.
When going through the life insurance applications, ensure you have someone with your best interest in mind so that you can make sober decisions. While tapping into life insurance, you have to be intentional with the plans you have and prioritize paying the stipulated amount so that when the time comes for you to withdraw the money, you have something that can guide you to the next step in life.
Mastering your medical paperwork: Tips from a professional organizer
By Radha at Inspire
Inspire is a leading social network for health that connects patients and caregivers in a safe permission-based manner
Mastering your medical paperwork: Tips from a professional organizer
Who knew getting sick could require the combined skills of a librarian and an archivist? For most of us, managing the paperwork that comes with medical care can be an overwhelming task.
“In so many ways, you’re powerless,” said J.J. Jackson, an organization professional in the Washington D.C. area and owner of PaperworkMaven.com. “Especially people who have a lot of doctor’s appointments, they’re really sick and just don’t have the energy to do all this stuff… It’s so frustrating and it takes emotional time.”
Getting on top of medical paperwork – mainly, knowing where things are, what is complete, and what is not – can help people reclaim some power.
“It definitely empowers me,” Jackson said, because tracking her information gives her a complete picture of her medical and financial situation and she can speak with confidence about tests, needs, and money paid and owed.
Organized medical paperwork can also reduce stress and even save money. If you’re struggling to keep medical paperwork organized, here are 5 easy tips from a professional organizer.1. Put everything in one place
1. Put everything in one place
At minimum, having everything together is critical, Jackson said. This could be the point where some people stop; it might be a starting point for others to organize further. But as long as everything is in one spot – a box, a folder, a digital file – you can get to it later.
2. Set aside time for paperwork (it’s probably less than you think)
Time is the number one thing that Jackson said gets in her way.
For someone who has regular medical appointments and a paperwork backlog of several months, Jackson estimated about three hours of concentrated work to organize paperwork into a system. However, once the system is in place, it may require less than 30 minutes per week to log and file new information. In her experience, Jackson said calling insurance companies takes up the most time.
3. A Table of Contents is your best friend
Ideally, a system for paperwork would have an easy-to-skim main document to which related materials like receipts, Explanation of Benefits statements, medical reports, and images can be traced. This also makes it easy for others to figure out your medical picture, if necessary. It can be physical or digital.
Through her personal and professional experience, Jackson created a simple spreadsheet to track claims, a few claim details, and payments. Each line item corresponds to one day. Jackson labels related documents with the same line-item, so she knows what claim they correspond to. She won’t check off a line item until each task and payment associated with it is resolved.
“It’s about making sure you have enough detail to track things needing attention and things that are done,” she said,
Create a chart to organize and track your medical paperwork.
4. Delegate
Many people don’t realize they can and should delegate paperwork-related tasks. But, Jackson said, consider that having your medical paperwork in order is important enough to devote resources to it.
“I think people think they ought to be able to do it themselves,” she said. “It’s ok if you don’t want to do it. If someone is sick, I think it would be such a gift to them. If they just don’t have time or energy or the emotional capability doing that, as a family member or friend, that is an excellent gift to give.”
Expert resources from organizations like the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and the American Association of Daily Money Managers could be of use said Jackson, who enlists help for medical tasks herself. And depending how comfortable you are letting others see sensitive personal health information, hiring someone to sort, log, file, and do general paperwork-related tasks could also help.
5. Physical vs digital systems
Digital organization and cloud storage will be the way of the future, Jackson said. The challenge right now is that medical information is spread over multiple locations and multiple types (paper receipts and reports, emails, digital image files, audio recordings, and personal notes, to name a few) and there aren’t good ways to integrate these in one system.
Jackson has separate locations for physical and digital materials but sticks to the same labeling system that corresponds to her main chart. If you’re really committed to a paperless system, a good scanner is essential, Jackson said. A robust organization system should accommodate how you like to store and track your materials and adapt to changes in health needs over time.
Except for those who enjoy detailed organization work, Jackson admits getting medical paperwork organized is not fun. Rather, it’s a means to an end.
“The feeling I get when I’m done is really satisfying,” she said. “I feel accomplished and I feel empowered and like I have peace of mind.”
Peripheral Artery Disease
Background
Peripheral artery disease (PAD), the most common type of peripheral vascular disease (PVD), affects 8–12 million Americans, 12–20% of those over the age of 65, and could reach as many as 9.6 million Americans by the year 2050 (Cleveland Clinic, 2012).
Risk Factors/Warning Signs
The risk factors for PAD are the same as those for coronary heart disease (CHD), with diabetes and smoking being the greatest risk factors (AHA, 2005). Ac¬cord¬ing to the American Heart Association, only 25% of those older adults with PAD get treatment. PAD increases the risk of CHD, heart attack, and stroke.
Diagnosis
The most common symptoms of PAD are leg cramps that worsen when climbing stairs or walking, but dissipate with rest, commonly called intermittent claudication (IC). The majority of persons with PAD have no symptoms (AHA, 2005). PAD is a predictor of CHD and makes a person more at risk for heart attack and stroke. Left untreated, PAD may eventually lead to impaired function and decreased quality of life, even when no leg symptoms are present. In the most serious cases, PAD can lead to gangrene and amputation of a lower extremity.
Treatments
Most cases of PAD can be managed with lifestyle modifications such as those for heart-healthy living. This includes maintaining an appropriate weight, limiting salt intake, managing stress, engaging in physical activity as prescribed, quitting smoking, and eating a heart-healthy diet.
Patients with PAD should discuss their symptoms with both their healthcare provider and a physical therapist, because some patients find symptom relief through a combination of medical and therapy treatments (Aronow, 2007; Cleveland Clinic, 2012).
Adapted from Mauk, K. L., Hanson, P., & Hain, D. (2014). Review of the management of common illnesses, diseases, or health conditions. In K. L. Mauk’s (Ed.) Gerontological Nursing: Competencies for Care. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Used with permission.
www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/pad/
Guest Blog: Tools to Make Your Shower Safer
Have you heard? A new government study has revealed that falls among adults over 65 rose over 30% in the past 10 years! While a fall every now and then may feel like no big deal, it is important for seniors to recognize that even seemingly harmless falls can lead to dangerous complications like hip fractures and head trauma.
If you or the person you care for hasn’t fall-proofed one of the most dangerous spots in the home, the shower, yet, don’t miss this essential list of helpful safety tools:
Toiletry Dispenser
Are you still struggling with slippery bars of soap and hard-to-grip shampoo and conditioner bottles in the shower? Get an easy-to-install toiletry dispenser instead which can stay fixed to the wall under your shower head and dole out toiletries in your hand as needed with the push of a button.
Grab Bars
Experts recommend installing grab bars both inside and outside the shower on walls that are easy to reach and can fully support your weight when you brace against them. Similar products like bathtub bars which sit fixed on the side of a bathtub and provide a raised support to hold and steady yourself are great too for notoriously hard-to-navigate tub showers.
Non-slip Shower Mat
Not all shower mats are created equal, and for seniors taking fall prevention measures in the shower, finding one that stays in place and offers a textured non-slip surface to stand on is critical. Additional features like being antimicrobial and machine-washable also prevent the buildup of contaminants and mildew which are common to humid areas like the shower.
Shower Chair
Even if you have no mobility issues at all, a shower chair may be a good investment if your space allows for it. Shower chairs make it easy to sit and rest in the shower if you suddenly feel weak or unbalanced. And specialty transfer chairs help caregivers easily get a loved one in and out of the shower without over-exerting themselves or putting their loved one’s safety at risk.
Handheld Shower Head
Quit trying to twist, turn, and contort your body when bathing yourself. A removable, handheld shower head is a must for easy, thorough washing that won’t leave you with a muscle strain in your back. Experts recommend getting one with at least 5 feet of maneuverable cord to allow for enough slack to raise and move it around your body with ease.
Outside of the shower, additional upgrades that can improve your safety and bathroom experience include automatic lights that provide consistent, bright lighting without having to flip a switch, non-slip bathroom mats, and raised toilet seats with handles.