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Need Insurance that Star Wars Will Continue to Rock!

Remember how excited you were when you first heard about George Lucas doing Star Wars prequels? Remember how quickly that excitement faded when you actually sat through that midnight showing of The Phantom Menace, then endured the cringe-worthy s and speech in Attack of the Clones? Revenge of the Sith was a bit better, but still nothing like the Original Trilogy.

C3PO and George
C3PO and George

So now, there’s another trilogy coming out. Yay? It would be nice to have some guarantee that this one won’t have its own version of Jar Jar, bad writing and wooden acting (looking at you, Natalie and Hayden!). If only there was some kind of insurance you could get that would ensure that this trilogy captures the spirit of the first three. Sure, we’ll have Han, Leia and Luke around, as well as Chewie, C3PO and R2D2, but we don’t really know how much they’ll be in it and how they’ll do on screen this time around. The rest of the cast includes a lot of little-known actors and actresses (kinda like the original films at the time), so that’s a plus.

You might not be able to buy Star Wars insurance, but there’s one thing you can hope for — notice who’s missing from the original cast members? Flamboyant and always entertaining L ando is noticeably absent from the cast list, and who doesn’t want to see what the scoundrel-turned-respectable business owner-turned-Rebel hero is up to these days? You might just have to deal with the mental image of geriatric L ando dancing his hips off, cape and all, on Dancing With the Stars, but that’s a small price to pay. Bring on Billy Dee!

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I Miss My Honda Accord DX

I used to fly around town, well as close to flying as you can get in a Honda Accord, but for me it was the life. The car was able to zip in and out of traffic with ease. Heck, it got around so good that I used to pretend that I was a race car driver. Well, that was until the cops helped me figure out that I was not going to win the race.

Red Honda Accord DX
Red Honda Accord DX

They decided to pull me over because I had my little Accord zipping down the main street in my hometown. Normally I would not be upset by this, because everyone gets a ticket at some point in time. I mean seriously how often can you go a hundred miles an hour and avoid all the cops. The downside is the ticket was high enough that it put points on my license! Talk about feeling terrible, I knew this was going to jack up my insurance rates. Heck, I was so nervous to tell my insurance company that I tried to figure out what kind of story to make up to try to get them to feel pity for me.

The downside is the story that I came up with was the one telling about how my sick gr andmother with terminal cancer had just been diagnosed with HIV and I was rushing to the hospital to make sure she had paid for her life insurance premium. The insurance agent started to buy the story until I started to laugh while telling it to him. After I started to laugh, all I could here was the upsetting tone of his voice while he told me what my new insurance premium was going to be for my vehicle each month for the next two years.

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I love you

Yes, according to the word dictionary, and human intelligence, love is definitely spelled L-O-V-E. However, really smart people with families and responsibilities spell love a totally different way; I-N-S-U-R-A-N-C-E. That’s right, getting insurance on your children and your pets, and yes, even your spouse tells them that you care, even if you don’t.

Love your Insurance Agency
Love your Insurance Agency

Getting Sick is Not an Option

Have you looked at a medical bill lately? Well, you should. If you visit the ER with complaints of a headache, those aspirins might cost you $5 to $10 a pop. This depends on the strength, of course. Please don’t get really sick, and need long term care, that’s another $500 dollars a day. Let’s face it, if you don’t have health insurance, you can’t afford to get sick.

No Discounts in the Life There After

Whatever, you do, please don’t forget to take out life insurance. There is a saying that goes, “You are worth more dead than alive.” Well, that might be true. Department stores run specials all the time, you can get your clothing and household items on special, or probably half off. But who will seriously offer you half off on your burial? That is unheard of.

You don’t want your family to remember you dressed in your favorite suit, and being lowered into the ground with a cardboard box. If you can have friends with benefits, why do have life insurance with benefits too.

Take Insurance Seriously

Don’t take being healthy for granted. Although, it does pay off, if you are looking for health and life insurance. If you are a smoker, your insurance premium has just increased and so is your risk for heart disease and lung cancer. The price of your insurance coverage depends on your lifestyle. Even if you have not taken the best care of your body, you can still get coverage for any pre-existing illnesses, but it is definitely going to cost you. So, pull out those “Duckies” and show some real love.

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Long Live Farscape

A great action sci-fi classic!
A great action sci-fi classic!

So you go to bed one night and wake up the next morning expecting to see your alarm clock. Instead, you see a woman with white skin and whiter hair looking in your face upside down and behind her is a blue-skinned bald woman st anding like a professor, evaluating you like a bug. You try to move but a gargantuan figure with a sword on his back snaps you back in the bed with his tongue (yes, his tongue). You look around to the only humans in the room, dressed in black leather, and instead the long-haired on points a gun in your face and asks, “Who are you?” The man next to her laughs and notes that you’re not in Kansas anymore.

Fortunately, the above scenario is not likely to occur since it’s a fantasy scene out of the famous science fiction cable show, Farscape. And all the characters are the core cast from the show, like D’argo, Aeryn Sun, Zhaan, and John Crichton, for example. However, after going through a session of life insurance sales pitches, you might think your insurance agent sounds like the big guy with the tongue when you can’t underst and what he’s saying anymore about coverage.

A good life insurance company will speak in regular English and take as long as necessary to help a client underst and what type of coverage is available and what sort of benefits are included. This is critical because, after all, life insurance is for those loved ones left behind. So it matters to know how things are going to work, for sure, every time. Of course, if you had a time machine, you could come back and enforce cheaper policy with D’argo as the muscle, but working with a good provider is a lot easier.

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Earthquake Early Warning System

The high cost of earthquakes in California has been due in part to their unexpected nature. An earthquake early-warning system allows emergency workers time to prepare for an imminent earthquake, which reduces its repair costs. The cost of such a system is easy to justify since it’s typically much less than the cost of repairing an unexpected earthquake in California. Possible sources of funding for an earthquake early-warning system include the State of California, the Federal Government and a California referendum.

Capabilities

The effectiveness of an earthquake early-warning system is based on the fact that earthquakes travel at the speed of sound while the signals from earthquake sensors travel at the speed of light. A magnitude 5.1 earthquake originating near La Habra, California occurred on the evening of March 28, 2014. A prototype of an earthquake early-warning system provided seismologists in Pasadena with about 4 seconds of advance warning of this earthquake. The same system also gave seismologists a two-second warning for a 4.4 earthquake that occurred earlier in March near Westwood.

The U.S. Geological Survey is testing this prototype for the purpose of creating a network of earthquake early-warning systems throughout the state of California. The completed network could provide Los Angeles with up to 50 seconds of warning for earthquakes originating along the San Andreas Fault. This advance notice would allow engineers to slow down trains to avoid derailment, firefighters to open the doors to firehouses and surgeons to remove scalpels from patients.

The USGS is proposing that the earthquake early-warning system be built into the California Integrated Seismic Network, which already has almost 1,000 sensors. The CISN still requires an additional 400 stations and 200 machines to become an effective early-warning system for earthquakes. Users could install software on their computers or apps on mobile phones that would notify them in the event of an earthquake in progress. Similar software would alert motorists, hospitals and emergency workers.

Cost

Cost is the primary obstacle against implementing an earthquake early-warning system. The USGS estimates that this system would cost about $80 million, according to a plan that it announced on 01/27/2014. These funds would be primarily used to maintain the stations needed to make the system reliable. For example, a 6.8 earthquake occurred off the northern coast of California on March 10, 2014. The seismic warning station nearest the epicenter of this quake didn’t detect the tremor because it wasn’t functioning at the time.

State Representative Peter Defazio reports that only $10 million has been spent on developing earthquake warning systems since 1999. Government spending on this technology has been limited to about $400,000 per year, although researchers received a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation worth about $6 million in 2011. Additionally, the proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2015 provides $850,000 for continuing research on these systems.

State Senator Alex Padilla is sponsoring proposing legislation to create the statewide network, which would be the first of its kind in the United States. He believes California will eventually have an earthquake warning system, although he doesn’t know if this happen before the next major earthquake. Earthquake experts have said the system could be operational within two years once funding is available, although a complete network along the West Coast will require about five years to complete.

Damages

A large major quake in California can easily cause billions of dollars’ worth of damages. For example, the last major quake in California occurred in 1994 and originated near Northridge in the San Fern ando Valley. It was a 6.7 quake that caused $20 billion worth of damage and killed 57 people.

Seismologists have made many attempts to predict future seismic activity along the San Andreas Fault. The latest of these studies was released in January of 2014, which discusses the possibility of a major quake that would be felt from San Diego to San Francisco. Senator Padilla has said that a statewide network of earthquake sensors could save many lives and reduce the damages that a quake could cause. An earthquake early warning system would only need to reduce the damage from an earthquake by a small fraction to more than pay for itself. Padilla added that he was surprised that funding has been so difficult to obtain, and that state legislators will be kicking themselves if they don’t begin moving more swiftly on this issue.

Funding

California lawmakers passed a law in 2013 that prevents the government from using the General Fund to finance such a system. This legislation requires the Office of Emergency Services to obtain funding for an earthquake system from other sources, including public and private sources.

California Representative Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) has circulated a letter requesting the appropriations subcommittee of the House Interior to contribute $16.1 million towards an earthquake system for the 2015 fiscal year. Democrats from California, Washington state and Oregon signed the letter, although no Republicans from California did so. Legislators outside of California may also be reluctant to allocate funding for earthquake detection systems, since they tend to view earthquakes as a California problem. In addition, Professor Thomas Heaton of the Earthquake Engineering Research Lab in Caltech reports that seismic activity in California has been relatively quiet for the last few years, making it difficult to regard earthquakes as an urgent problem.

The issue of funding an early warning system for earthquakes may become an issue for Representative Ken Calvert (R-Corona), who recently became the chairman of the Interior subcommittee. Calvert has said that he will support funding for the USGS’s earthquake programs if he can be convinced that it works. He added that he is concerned about funding a program that later turns out to be ineffective.

Referendums calling for a popular vote are another option for financing earthquake detection systems. Ballot measures have a record for effecting major changes in California law.

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Vacation checklist

Vacation checklist

A vacation is your time to relax and enjoy life.

Use our h andy vacation checklist next time you go away on vacation so your mind can really stay where it belongs – a million miles away.

  • Make sure all electrical appliances are turned off.
  • Clean the refrigerator of all perishable foods, and take out the garbage.
  • Lock all windows and doors.
  • Arrange to have the newspaper and mail held until your return, or have them picked up by a trusted neighbor.
  • Arrange to have your lawn mowed (or snow shoveled) while you’re away. Ask a neighbor to set out your trash on collection day and then retrieve empty cans and recycling bins the same day.
  • Let a trusted neighbor know you will be away and have them keep an eye on your home. It’s a good idea to leave your vacation address and telephone number with a neighbor so you can be reached in case of an emergency.
  • Never leave your house key hidden outside your home.
  • Set timers on interior lights.
  • Make sure to unplug televisions, computers and appliances susceptible to lightning and power surges.
  • Advise your alarm company and local police if you will be gone for an extended period.
  • Store jewelry and valuable items in a safe-deposit box.
  • Arrange for the care of pets.
  • Set the heating system to provide minimum heat of 55 degrees.
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HIV Life Insurance

Well, here we are again. It’s time to discuss our favorite topic; insurance. Okay, honestly, it’s not our favorite topic. To most people, dealing with insurance is like going to the dentist. Although no one wants to talk about it, insurance is a vital element of financial stability and crisis management.

Another topic that no one wants to talk about is HIV. HIV is like the bad word of health conditions. Now, I have been asked to discuss both of these topics in one post. Somebody somewhere loves me, or maybe not.

The research and subsequent data on HIV has moved us light years from where we began when the disease first surfaced in America. There was a time when those who were diagnosed with HIV could not get life insurance. Those days are a thing of the past.

HIV is a term that will make you think. I cannot remember anything that struck fear into people like HIV. I remember in the late 1980’s and the early 90’ when the HIV/AIDS scare was in full swing. Here I was with my analytical mindset. HIV had become so significant that it had replaced my continuous obsession with the person that keeps setting the brush fires in California. If this is your first time reading my posts, you are probably wondering what in the world that is all about. I have this theory that all of the annual brush fires in the state of California is the work of one man. That is another story for another time. The important thing is the HIV epidemic had my attention.

I was so consumed with the growing numbers that I had become an HIV actuary. That’s right I was crunching HIV numbers like they were going out of style. I had convinced myself that I could predict who would become infected with 98.9 percent accuracy. My prediction ratio would have been higher, but he CDC (The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention [somebody please tell me how you get all of that out of a three letter acronym]) kept switching up the criteria.

During that time, there were a lot of people that were wondering why I was giving them the side eye. Little did they know that I had crunched the numbers and the outlook was looking pretty bleak for them. The truth of the matter was that there were certain people that were a part of a certain high risk group and there were others that were a part of multiple high risk groups, yet they escaped that era unscathed. On the other h and, there were those that did not meet any of the high risk criteria that contracted the disease. It simply serves to show that life and death moves on their own accord and they play by their own set of rules. We can take all type of precautions and measures, but we have very little say in the end.

As research caught up with the panic and people realized that HIV was not a death sentence, it changed the l andscape of the American culture on so many fronts. People became more tolerable of those who were HIV positive. Insurance companies offered life insurance policies to those who contracted the disease. Most of all, my family’s toleration of me increased.

Update: Life Insurance now available for HIV+ people living with HIV – https://lifeinsurance.rocks/life-insurance-for-people-living-with-hiv-2/

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Whole Life Insurance

Everybody gather around; it’s time to talk life insurance. Okay, don’t everybody come running up at once. Today we are going to discuss whole life insurance. For those that don’t know me, I grew up in an era in which salesman came to your home to sale you everything. There was the vacuum cleaner salesman, the linen service salesman, the milk man, the encyclopedia salesman and the ever-dependable insurance salesman.

What was so cool about the insurance salesman was the fact that after he sold you the policy he would save you the $0.02 postage by stopping by and picking up the premiums every month. So, as a youth, I heard all kinds of discussions about life insurance. You guys know that I am extremely analytical; which is a simple way of saying I am a master at transforming a mole hill into a mountain. With that being said, I took the term “whole life” to an entirely different level.

Before I get too carried away with my story, let me just explain that whole life insurance is simply a policy that has fixed premiums with a set payout. What makes whole life insurance different is its investment component. As you pay your premiums, you policy builds a cash value that you can cash out of borrow against. Sounds pretty simple right? Not for a 10 year old kid with a conspiracy complex.

When the insurance salesman leaves, with my mother’s money, I might add (I swear this woman bought an insurance policy every month. We had a lot of relatives in California, I wonder could this all be tied to the annual brush fires there? Na! [Inside joke with the publisher, read my other posts to catch up]). I asked my mother if what she just bought was a whole life insurance policy, what she was going to do with the partial one’s she had. I also wanted to know how many partial policies did it take to equal a whole. You should have seen the puzzled look on my mother’s face. For the average mother, the puzzled look would have simply been in response to the question. My mother knew that at least a two hour discussion was about to ensue.

I don’t know why she was so shocked that I had those questions. You can’t expect a child that is being taught fractions and decimals to hear the word “whole” and not have questions.

What is she getting all flustered for? It’s a simple question, and if you can’t answer it, you probably should not have given that man your money. I am sure dad is going to want to know why you have been buying partial life insurance policies anyway. Can you partially die? Can you partially be buried? I am going to need something concrete to work with here, mother.

In case you are wondering, I was not the child that you could tell, “Let’s talk about it later.” No, I needed answers to bring some type of symmetry to my thought processes. I needed to reconcile this entire “whole life insurance” concept. Once she explained it to me, I just said, what in the world does “whole” have to do with it?

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Disability Insurance Prepares You for the Just in Case

So, you were taking out the garbage when your startled cat bolted out the door chasing what might have been a mouse, making you slip on the step, twisting your knee with a yelp. Now you are in bed for four months with your leg propped up on a pillow. Guess what, the bills keep coming in and your boss says you can’t collect because it didn’t happen at work. Now you are up the financial creek without a paddle.

Sound far-fetched? Not necessarily, it happens to millions of Americans who thought they were covered only to find out they weren’t. Better to plan ahead and expect the unexpected less an accident outside of work pulls the financial rug out from under your feet. Disability insurance covers you when the unexpected passes by your door and you find yourself unable to work for an extended period of time.

Is Disability insurance worth it? Ask Carl who had been working full-time as a manager at a grocery story until he tore his meniscus playing soccer with his ten and eleven-year old sons, and has been laid up for the past five months. Fortunately for him, he had already researched his company’s insurance coverage and had picked up extra Disability insurance the year before, just in case he was injured outside of work. Not only are his mortgage and bills being covered, but he has been able to get a lot done around the house without having the worry about where his next paycheck is coming from. Scheduled to return to work next month, he hasn’t missed a beat and his wife is as happy as a pig in the mud.

Why buy Disability insurance? AARP explains “We buy insurance to protect something. Homeowners insurance to protect our dwellings. Auto insurance to protect our cares. Disability insurance” protects us from when the “just in case” happens. While AARP focuses on persons 50-years-old and older, Disability insurance for persons in their prime working years, between 30 and 50 makes the ultimate sense. Why should you experience a serious financial setback right when you are in your prime working years?

New York Times Wealth columnist and author Paul Sullivan explains, “Death and disability are two of the most difficult things for a family to discuss. But insuring against both is an important part of safeguarding a family’s future.”

If you still aren’t convinced ask Carl’s second cousin Roger. He was hanging curtains for his wife when he stepped a bit too high on the step ladder and found himself face down on the floor. He broke two fingers on each h and in the process, and was laid off from his work as a machinist in a company that made parts for off-set presses, and couldn’t get back to work for close to a year. He lost his car and is at least four months behind on his credit cards. Back to work after 11 months, it is going to take him at least a couple of years to get back on his feet. Carl, on the other h and, had learned from his favorite uncle that “wise people learn from other people’s mistakes” and he took the cue from his unfortunate cousin, preparing himself for what might happen. Two years later, Carl and his family are planning two weeks in Cancun, while Roger is working double shifts to pay off his bills.

Disability insurance is a small investment that can provide stability and peace of mind. Preparing for the unexpected pays off in the long run!

Words from title: Disability Insurance

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Out of This World Discovery Made by Alien Hunters! It’s Not What You Think!

Josh S anders, a 31 year-old resident of Los Angeles, and Marie Miller, a 29 year-old resident of Brentwood have been working as amateur alien hunters for the past five years. Their efforts to find proof that life on other planets or even the galaxy has turned up empty. That was until a recent trip in July.

S anders and Miller received a lead that there was possible proof that aliens existed somewhere along the beautiful and scenic Pacific Coast Highway. Packing up their car with tons of clothing, recording equipment, and top secret alien hunting gear, the alien hunters set out to see what proof they could find.

After several hours of driving, the duo encountered what appeared to be a r andom burst of light came out of a densely wooded area. S anders and Miller pulled the car to the side of the road and started to explore.

The dynamic duo is unsure what happened during that search or if aliens were ever found. Even to this day, they claim to have no memory of what happened.

Arriving back at their car several hours after leaving to explore the area, Miller immediately started showing signs of an odd looking rash. The rash appeared to be spreading over her back, legs, and arms. It even appeared that the rash was starting to spread out in some oddly shaped pattern that has never been seen before. Unable to account for what happened during that time, the duo immediately assumed the worst – the rash was a symptom of a rare alien based disease.

If this were the result of some r andom alien disease, it would explain why the duo could not remember a huge chunk of time.

The rash became so itchy and bothersome that S anders took Miller to the hospital. After running several tests, it was determined that a rare alien disease was not discovered. The discovery was that Miller apparently had a severe allergy to oak tree leaves.

While it may not have been the discovery the alien hunting duo was looking for, it can be helpful to them in the future. The couple credits this r andom discovery of oak wood allergies to the fact that Miller was able to obtain cost-effective health insurance.

If she had not happened to have the health insurance policy in place, she would have chosen to treat it at home and would never know just how dangerous oak wood leave could be. The alien hunting duo is even planning on listing health insurance as a requirement for future alien hunters, as you never know what health problems you may run into when hunting for aliens.

The alien hunting duo is not letting this near miss get them down. There are too many unanswered questions, such as what happened during that time in the woods, what caused the white light, and why did the rash appear in a shape of a pattern. These questions and much more will be explored by the alien hunting team in the future. Of course, both will be protected by health insurance in case something should happen again.