Things to Know About Auto Insurance

First, consider the coverage you’d like to have, versus that which you need to have. The biggest portion of your auto insurance premium provides the required liability coverage. If your car is totaled and you still owe money on an auto loan, this coverage must be able to pay off the balance of the loan to the lender. If you have an older vehicle or no auto loan, you have the option of reducing the amount of coverage – but talk to your insurance agent before making that decision.There are also many options available when purchasing auto insurance. It may be tempting to decline them all to keep your premium costs down, but don’t be too quick to make that decision. Ask your insurance agent for the costs, and weigh that against the cost in time and money you may pay in the future. Among these options are roadside assistance, rental reimbursement, gap coverage, uninsured driver coverage, and comprehensive coverage. Some, like roadside assistance, may increase your premium only a few dollars, but can save you much more if you ever need it. Comprehensive coverage, on the other hand, can be rather expensive in comparison, but it is far less than collision or liability coverage. Again, an experience insurance agent will be able to help you assess the costs of the various options available.Another way you can reduce your auto insurance premium is through a higher deductible. This determines how much you will pay out of pocket before the insurance company contributes to a claim. By making this amount as much as you can reasonably afford, you can significantly reduce your premium amount.The type of car you drive also affects your auto insurance rates. Insurance companies use industry statistics to determine the average cost of repairs by make and model. If your car is determined to be more expensive to repair, you can be sure your insurance premiums will be higher as well. Keep in mind too, that car models that are known to be safer and less likely to incur higher costs will enjoy lower than average insurance premiums. Keep this in mind when shopping for a new auto.The rate charged by insurance companies can vary greatly from one to another. A little research up front can save you a lot of money on your auto insurance premiums. You won’t be able to negotiate a better price with a given insurance company (since it’s prohibited by law), but you can compare coverage and rates between companies and find the one that is the best fit for your needs and budget.In addition, insurance companies offer many types of discounts. Be sure to ask which you may qualify for. When it comes to New York auto insurance, you may find discounts for anti-theft devices and other safety features in the car, a safe driving record, payment up front in full or by electronic transaction. In addition, many companies offer additional discounts if you buy multiple types of insurance from them, such as auto and homeowners.Your driving history can have an impact on the price you are asked to pay for auto insurance. Each insurer evaluates applicants during the underwriting phase, and determines the risk associated based upon many factors. These factors and the weight they are given can vary from company to company, which again means you should do your research before selecting your coverage. Some of the factors commonly taken into consideration include your driving history, including accidents and tickets, as well as prior insurance claims. Keep in mind that although such factors can affect your rates for three years following the incident, insurance companies often look back five years to determine whether they want to offer you coverage at all. In addition, your credit history may be used to evaluate what group of drivers you belong with – which determines the risk the insurance company feels you represent to them.Finally, do whatever you can to avoid letting your auto insurance policy lapse. Licensed drivers without insurance are considered a greater risk, and are looked at less favorably than those drivers who have had continuous insurance coverage. When an uninsured driver does purchase coverage again, they are likely to find that their premium has gone up due to this perceived risk.

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How to Succeed at Getting an Investment Green Card in America

The U.S. Investor Visa program, also called “EB-5″, is a popular federal program with two goals: first – stimulate U.S. economy through capital investment and job creation, second – enable foreign investors to obtain their permanent resident visas (“Green Cards”) through such investment. Any investment under the EB-5 program could therefore only be successful if it keeps these two goals in mind. An uninformed investment, which centers only on the amount of investment, and not the end result of creating jobs through a successful enterprise, is far less likely to result in a Green Card.In other words, an EB-5 investor must make thorough due diligence to ensure that his or her investment is a “good investment”. Only then is such an investment more likely to fulfill the rigorous requirements of an EB-5 program. The first step to success in ensuring this is understanding the two different ways to make this investment: investment through a “Regional Center” (hereafter “RC”) and investment through a “traditional” EB-5 program (without a RC).Investment Using a RCIn 1992, the U.S. Government created the Immigrant Investor Pilot Program which provides for economic units known as “Regional Center(s).” These centers are private entities which submit economic growth proposal to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. They explain to the USCIS the mechanism of how their center will have a positive impact on the job market in the geographic region of the center. This allows the foreign investor to piggyback on the RC’s explanation and the economic proposal. The Center then seeks funding from numerous foreign investors, compiling each of their investment to create a more successful economic strategy than the one in which an individual investor attempts to fulfill different job creation requirements.Nevertheless, foreign investors are wary of these centers because the investor does not have a control over their money once they invest through a RC. This is a legitimate fear. However, the advantages in an investment through a Regional Center far outweigh its risks. It is imperative that an EB-5 investor understands these risks before ruling out a Regional Center route to EB-5 Green Card.The first advantage is benefiting from an expansive definition of “creating jobs” in an investment through a Regional Center. An EB-5 investment must create or preserve at least 10 full-time jobs for qualifying U.S. workers within two years (or in some other cases within a reasonable time after these two years) of the investor’s admission to the U.S. as a Conditional Permanent Resident. Usually, these jobs must be direct, that is, these must be identifiable jobs located within the commercial enterprise into which the investor directly invested his or her capital. However, unlike the traditional EB-5 route, an EB-5 Regional Center investor can also take advantage of the indirect jobs that will be created in the geographic region as a result of his or her investment. Indirect jobs are defined as jobs created collaterally or as a result of the capital investment in a commercial enterprise affiliated with a regional center by an EB-5 investor.Secondly, an “approved” RC has a stamp of approval from the US government that the center’s business plans are likely feasible and will directly or indirectly lead to job creation. Although such designation does not mean that an investment in those centers is backed by the government, it is easier to convince USCIS that the investment will lead to its proposed goal of job creation if the RC is approved.Investment through a Traditional EB-5 Program – Without a Regional CenterInvestment in a traditional EB-5 program is generally trickier and more complex than an investment through RC. Here, the investor must come up with the entire business plan of how he or she will generate the requisite number of jobs. The complexity is brought about by the numerous USCIS requirements for such a business plan.Firstly, the capital requirement for an EB-5 Green Card is a usually minimum of $1 million. The exception is that such investment may be $500,000 if the investment is in a targeted employment area (TEA), that is, an area of high unemployment or a rural area. Individual investors often find it hard to explain that the area they are investing in is indeed a rural area or an area of high unemployment. Therefore, they often end up investing the higher amount – $1 million for their green card. On the other hand, most of the approved RCs are approved as TEA investments, and thus qualify for the reduced $500,000 requirement.Secondly, all EB-5 investors must invest in a “new commercial enterprise”, that is, a commercial enterprise established after November 29, 1990, or established on or before November 29, 1990, that is either purchased and the existing business is restructured in a way to result a new commercial enterprise or it is expanded through an investment so that there is a 40 percent increase in the net worth or number of employees. While the definition of a commercial enterprise is broad, many investors do not have the requisite technical or managerial skills required for such businesses, and resultant, their investment is not very successful. Good RCs, on the other hand, have tremendous technical, engineering and managerial expertise at their disposal which allows them to run create new commercial enterprises without much of a difficulty. Consequently, with a Regional Center EB-5, the foreign national does not have to be tied with the new commercial enterprise. He or she can live, work, or travel far more easily than someone who has to continuously manage and control the EB-5 business to fulfill USCIS requirements.ConclusionAs explained above, the standards for individual EB-5 petitions are very restrictive, and therefore, Regional Center EB-5 petitions now amount to more than ninety percent of all EB-5 petitions filed. At the same time, there are more than five hundred Regional Centers approved by USCIS. The benefits of a Regional Center EB-5 do not in any way imply that investing in any Regional Center is always a better strategy for a successful U.S. Green Card. Only a handful of Regional Centers have an established track record of returning positive investments. The investor must conduct a thorough due diligence of different Regional Centers and decide which one to use only after consulting various experts in this field.

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How to Earn Money Through Credit Cards

Many people treat credit card as one of their expenses, something which costs them money. Many people refuse to have a credit card just because they think they can not afford to have one. They think, once they have credit card, they are going to pay more. This is totally wrong. They do not understand what is credit card, what credit card can does for them. Some pay more just because of their own bad habits of using credit card.Credit card may earn more for us if we use it wisely and chose a correct credit card for us. The most two important factors to make credit card earn more for us are, annual fee waived cards and no interest charged card.Before we apply for a credit card, we have to make sure no annual fee will be charged. There are some credit cards which are totally free for whole life without any condition. Some are free with conditions. A normal condition such as, at least 12 purchases made for one year. Another normal condition is, at least certain purchase amount made for one year. Please make sure you may fulfill the condition before you apply for it. Besides this, I will also consider the waive method used. Some credit card issuers just need a call to waive the annual fee. And some need to see your signature on black and white. You have to be very clear about this before credit card application. For me, I will only apply for a credit card which just needs a call because I am not willing to send an application form to apply for the annual fee waiver. This is just because I need to pay more if I need to send out an application compare with a telephone call.Second factor will be, no interest charge. We have to make sure we are able to pay full before we purchase anything, before we use the credit card, such that no interest will be charged. The interest charged through credit card is the highest rate among all banking facilities. If you are using credit card to own something which you actually not affordable, then you are paying more to the credit card, you can not earn through credit card. If you are this kind of person, then you may stop reading this article. We may make credit card earn more for us only when we are able to paying full statement balance.We are not suppose to spend more money in making payment to the credit card. For me, I prefer the payment make through internet banking which is the most convenient and cheapest payment method. If I need to go to the banking hall to do the payment, then I need to pay for the petrol, car parking and I am wasting more time to do so.With three factors above, we are paying the minimum amount, which is maybe one telephone call to get the annual fee waiver and the internet banking charge. If the credit card is a free for whole life card, we even save the telephone call. Below are five factors which may make us earn some money.Firstly, every month we have to make a full payment before the due date, for one amount which consists of many purchases we made. If we pay cash for our purchase, our money will leave our wallet or purse before we have the goods. But if we are using credit card, our money is still in our banking account earning the interest. If we are able to pay the credit card payment after a longer period, then we earn more. For example, if I made a purchase on one day and I need to do credit card payment after 10 days, then I earn 10 days interest just because the money is still in my banking account for 10 days. If I do credit card payment after 20 days, then sure I will be earning more compare with 10 days. So now, how to have a longer repayment period, even for more than one month?You at least must have two credit cards with their statement date almost half month apart. Before using your credit card, just choose the credit card which just past the statement date. For example, one credit card with statement date 5th of every month and another one with 20th of every month. If today is 7th August, then I should be using the credit card with statement date of 5th. If the due date is 20 days after the statement date, then the due date to do the credit card payment will be on 25th of September. This is because the statement date for the purchase on 7th of August falls on 5th of September. How much interest you will be earning because of paying late? The interest you earn will be from 7th of August to 25th of September which is total of 50 days( more than one month ). If you pay your goods in cash, you are losing the chance of earning 50 days interest because your money leaves your wallet on 7th of August. By having two credit cards with statement date half months apart, we will be having a higher average repayment period. Let say we just have one credit card with statement date of 5th of every month and today is 4th of August. We have no choice and have to use this credit card even though we know tomorrow will be the statement date. The due date for this purchase is falls on 25th of August. It means we earn 22 days interest. If we have another credit card with statement date 25th of every month, then we may use that card for the purchase and we may earn 42 days interest from this purchase( assume due date of 14th of September ).Most of the credit cards provide redemption point. We may get something we want by using redemption points we have, without paying a single cent for the goods. When I need some electrical items for my house, I always look for it from the redemption list. But if you refuse to use credit card, you have to pay for everything you need.Many card issuers provides 0% interest installment plan for cardholders to buy expensive items like furniture. This make cardholders more easier to own something expensive (of course you have to make sure you are able to pay the installment full every month). The plan helps you even earn more interest (using the same concept mentioned above) because of the long period of installment plan (from 6 months to 2 years). The most important issue here is, the plan must be interest free. Longer the plan, the more you will be earning.One last chance to earn more will be the cash rebate or cash back. Some credit cards provide cash rebate plan. The cash rebate rate is about 0.4% to 1% of the statement balance. The rebate is reducing the credit card balance. Some cards are giving one flat rebate rate and some are depends on your statement balance.All whatever mentioned above is true in Malaysia. Some may not be true for your country. Please do your verification before any credit card application. Please use credit card wisely to make it earn money for us.

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