guaranteed group health insurance plan

This is insurance that is usually overpriced and incorrectly sold. This is how it works: Have you ever taken out a mortgage, personal loan, credit or store card? If you have, it's probable that the salesman, brochure or website “strongly recommended” that you also buy payment protection insurance (PPI), right? In fact, it's likely that you have a PPI policy and don't even realize it, as it is the UK's third-biggest general insurance product for personal customers, after motor and household cover.

But like all products that are given the hard sell, with PPI you have to be very wary of what you're buying, otherwise you're going to get robbed. You may even have seen in the press that these plans are under investigation, and it’s about time.

PPI is an optional insurance policy – you do not have to have it. It is usually sold alongside credit agreements, although there are a few stand-alone policies available from insurers and brokers. PPI is often called accident, sickness and unemployment cover (ASU), as it protects us from these risks. Borrowers receive monthly benefits if they have an accident, fall ill or lose their jobs. Life insurance to pay off the debt is also included in personal loan and credit card PPI, but not normally in mortgage PPI..

Some of the other commonly used names for PPI are: mortgage payment protection insurance (MPPI), personal loan protection (PLP) and credit card repayment protection (CCRP).

Just because insurance can be useful, it doesn't mean the price is worth it. Would you pay £750 per year to insure £45,000 of household contents? Of course you wouldn’t. It would mean that on average the insurer is taking more than four-fifths in profit. That's why you'd pay a much fairer figure closer to, say, £150. But that's the sort of scam people are facing when they buy PPI from a lender, be it a mortgage company, personal-loan provider or credit-card provider. The premium is out of proportion to the risk. It's not unusual for these companies to charge an extortionate £20 or more per month for every £100 of cover.

But stand-alone providers offer much cheaper cover at around a quarter or a fifth of the price you'll pay through the lender. One of the cheapest on the market offers, for a typical 30-year-old, charges of just £2.15 per month for every £100 on personal loan protection and £2 on mortgage protection. This means that many providers are charging ten times more than they need to, and that’s disgraceful!

Since 9/11 US businesses have being insuring themselves against once unimaginable possibilities. Right after the 2001 attacks, many businesses couldn't afford the insurance. The cost of terrorism insurance immediately skyrocketed and some insurers simply refused to provide coverage. Businesses were left exposed to economic chaos in the event of another attack. Eventually congress stepped in and guaranteed that losses over a certain amount would be covered if they were due to a "certified" terrorist attack and if insurance companies would make such coverage available.

Now debate rages about whether the federal government should have a permanent role in the terrorism insurance business. The debate comes down to a single question: Who should provide insurance against terrorism: the private marketplace or a public-private partnership?

The big-city liberals are lining up with the corporate insurance industry against Republican conservatives and consumer advocates. "The industry and the left want a long-term program with some subsidies, but the White House and some Republicans are afraid that it would create another bureaucracy. They want the market to handle it," says a spokesman for the Consumer Federation of America.

Everyone agrees on some factors of the argument. The first is that the damage caused by a terrorist attack with a weapon of mass destruction - nuclear, biological, chemical, or radiological (known together as NBCR in insurance jargon) - would be so great it would bankrupt the insurance industry, and therefore such risks are uninsurable.

Take this example: If New York City was hit by a nuclear bomb, insured losses could be as high as $778 billion, according to an analysis by the American Academy of Actuaries in Washington, D.C. The other point that everyone agrees on is that terrorism insurance for other types of attacks is needed to ensure economic stability and growth.

The White House and the Consumer Federation's Mr. Hunter believe that in the years since 9/11, the market has proved it is capable of covering most losses due to a conventional terrorism attack. "The insurance industry is rolling in money, but the taxpayers aren't. There are huge deficits in the private and business worlds," says Hunter. "Why should we subsidize an industry that's making record profits right now?"

He contends that since "the big stuff", like nuclear, biological, and chemical damages aren't covered anyway, there's no reason for taxpayers to continue picking up part of the tab for conventional attacks like airplanes or truck bombs crashing into buildings.

There is a potential problem in regard to the use of personal health records or PHRs online in that the companies that offer this service are not under any federal laws. There is a federal law called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, which is referred to as HIPAA, but it does not apply to these companies. The law relates to information that is traded between health-care providers, health insurers and those clearinghouses that are involved in the processing of health care payments. Since the companies processing health care records and data are not included in this list, the law, according to Kevin Lyles, who serves as a partner in the health-care practice of law firm Jones Day's in Columbus, Ohio, does not apply. You deal with these companies on faith hoping that they won't do anything with your personal health information.

Protection for the Consumer

It seems that the legal system is still behind when it comes to how patients are employing health information. Lyles says that at the present time a congressional bill is pending in Congress directed are broadening the authority of HIPAA so that it will be able to cover all health information. He system that when all health information is available online, this is the direction that we will be taking. It will become necessary to protect that information that can be anywhere on the Net.

Google and Microsoft, which are providing a health records service online, will be working to allow those using the information to control the degree of access that they will allow various parties to have. This will include the ability to revoke that access at any time.

Georgetown University's Joy Pritt say that it is still however, necessary or the consumer to be aware of two important documents, the privacy policy and the terms of use. Lyles says that there needs to be clarity regarding ownership of the information being made public. He believes that it is the consumer who is required to make sure that the companies using their data are honest and straightforward because companies change their policies at any time. It is even doubtful that you will be aware of any sudden changes of policy that can affect your personal health data. Few companies send out privacy policies every year and most consumers anyway do you read them for changes.

SAN FRANCISCO There are a large number of well known companies today that are offering opportunities for individuals to help them to maintain control of their personal health-care information. They are also making it possible for people to make better use of this information.

For example, it was last fall that the giant software company Microsoft released a platform directed toward consumers, with regard