Child Support in New York

Any couple that goes through a divorce has to deal with many issues, but those that have children usually go through even more acrimony when dealing with custody and support for their children. Child support is financial support provided by the noncustodial parent. Child support includes, cash payments (based on the parent’s income and the needs of the child), health insurance for the child, payments for child care, and payments for reasonable health care costs that are not covered by health insurance. Family Court determines the amount of child support the noncustodial parent will pay. Under New York State law, parents are responsible for supporting their child until the child is 21 years old.

There are guidelines in which the court uses to determine the amount of child support that is owed to the custodial parent, based on the noncustodial parent’s adjusted gross income and on the number of children involved. The court first determines the noncustodial parent’s gross income. The court then multiplies the adjusted gross income by the standard guideline percentage for the number of children. These percentages are as follows:
17% for one child
25% for two children
29% for three children
31% for four children
at least 35% for five or more children.
Then the noncustodial parent’s share of child care, medical, and educational expenses is added to the income percentage amount. The combined amount, percentage of income plus share of expenses, is the basic child support amount.

For incomes over $130,000, the court determines whether or not to use the percentage guidelines and may consider other factors in setting the full child support payment.

The main problem that many noncustodial parents have an issue with is that many fill out long and tedious expense forms and when it comes time to determine the monthly the courts do not take into consideration the expenses of the noncustodial parent. If you cannot pay your child support you can file a “petition for modification” with the court that issued the support order. Only the court can change what you owe. Just because you think you cannot pay, do not stop paying. Continue to pay what you can while you wait for the court to make a decision. You should know that the court will only change the amount of support you need to pay if there has been a substantial change in your ability to pay.

Dealing with child support and child custody it can be very emotional, remember that in the end you want what is best for your children.

Ideal Way in Finding Low Cost Auto Insurances

In today’s world, we should not forget our current financially viable situation. And car insurance is considerably a fast becoming a business with tough competitions. One of the ideal things to do to get hold of insurance provider with reasonable plans and best auto insurance coverage is by getting free auto insurance quotes. By doing it, you will perhaps see the best deal and coverage that will surely suits your own needs.

If you are really into getting free auto insurance quotes, here are some of the tips with the purpose of will surely help you.

Firstly, you have to know that shopping online is the superlative way to take free insurance quotes. All you have to resolve is to use the search engines such as bing, google and yahoo in searching what you need. This will help you to make the whole process very easy.

Using the internet gives the opportunity to shop for car insurance quotes by simply inside in an online form. This is really easy compared to searching it from one insurance inflexible to another. It is recommended with the intention of you obtain as many quote as possible to enjoy the benefit of getting affordable rates.

Not all insurance providers give their customers high-quality rates, their rates vary from one company to another. A regard rate can be low cost for a number of customers, but not for you. The amount of the quote is derived from some relative factors.

One example is your being a high risk driver, if you are being the cause of a specific car accident then expects a much higher rate of quote. However, one thing you can do is to acquire all the benefits from free quotes to reduce your premium. You resolve also be surprised that you are likely to prevail on cheap offer if only you took your time to compare from various car insurance companies.

Free auto insurance quotes online will also assist in deciding what plan you need to purchase. Just simply tell what you need and they self-control help you on how to meet an absolute decision. It will moreover help you to manage your time as the process can only take some of our times.

There are lots of websites with the purpose of offers auto insurance quotes as well as they provide some tips and information used for you. You are provided with great information and feedback which help you to be well-informed going on for what they are planning to purchase.

Therefore, shopping for car insurance online is absolutely the best way and the generally excellent procedure to make. Everyone is in search of affordable and cheap auto insurance with great offerings and many settlements. These must be you main goal and objective.

How You Can Benefit from Black Box Insurance

Most young people know that finding car insurance–and more importantly, finding a way to pay for your car insurance–isn’t an easy task. Inexperienced drivers can seem like a liability to insurance providers because you haven’t had the chance to prove that you are trustworthy behind the wheel. Often, young motorists have to pay premiums up to four times as expensive as those that experienced drivers are subject to. From the perspective of the insurance company, this bit of age discrimination is fair because they need to protect themselves financially if you were to file a claim. For you, however, these astronomical fees could prevent you from being able to start driving. After years of struggle, insurance providers have found a way to reach a compromise with younger motorists. Black box insurance plans calculate your rates based on how well you actually drive, using complex technology to track your performance behind the wheel. This type of policy could be the godsend you were looking for to finally attain affordable car insurance.

Every black box insurance plan is a little different, but they all use a similar piece of equipment. A small, “black box”–named after the device that tracks airplanes in flight–is installed into your car, and it uses telematics technology to keep track of how you drive. On a basic level, the black box is a GPS tracker, but it also has an accelerometer inside of it–much like the one in your smartphone. The device is able to keep track of a wide array of data, which it reports back to your insurance provider. The information available from the black box includes how often and how far you drive, how well you obey posted speed limits, how smooth your acceleration and braking tend to be, and how well you handle turns and corners. Knowing these details about your driving habits, your insurance company will be able to tailor premiums to fit your performance.

The way that your driving affects your rates varies among providers. Some black box insurance policies will give you a base premium that can either go up or down each month depending on whether the telematics device reports positive or negative information about your driving habits. Many insurers will allow you to track how you are doing on their mobile app or website so that you know what you need to improve upon. At the end of each month, you may be rewarded with a certain number of points, which translates to your rates increasing or decreasing.

Other plans work a little differently in that the main reason for the black box is to limit how often you are on the road. Studies have shown that the more often you drive, the more likely you are to get into an accident, so some insurance providers limit the number of miles you are allowed to drive each year (and use the black box to make sure you don’t go over your allotment). Common limits for these telematics plans are 6,000, 8,000, or 10,000 miles per year, and you will often be allowed to bump up to the next tier if you are about to go over–though your rate will go up when you increase your mileage. Under these plans, young motorists are rewarded for their safe driving with bonus miles that they are given for free.

Other insurers will quietly use the device when you are just beginning to drive, without it immediately having a positive or negative effect on your rates. Often, these companies will gather all the data over your first year as a customer and then take that information into consideration when you are renewing your policy. If you have been driving safely, you might see a hefty drop in your premiums–often by as much as 50 percent over the first few years. On the other hand, poor drivers will tend to see their rates increase beyond the already astronomical levels. In this regard, you are taking a bit of a risk by opting for a black box insurance policy, but it’s one that will pay off as long as you put the effort into driving responsibly.

Pet Insurance Covers Wheelchair for Dogs Recovery

Craig Hitzelberger was uncertain his dear basset hound, Stub, would make it to his eleventh birthday this past summer considering the health problems he had been facing the last few months. When his elderly pooch was diagnosed with disc disease in the spring and faced an invasive surgery, Hitzelberger prepared for the worst.

Hitzelberger was worried that the surgery would be especially difficult on a dog of Stubs age. With such a valid concern in mind, it was no wonder he was reluctant to put Stubs through the procedure. Fortunately, Stub was covered by pet insurance, which provided Hitzelberger a variety of options to help rehabilitate Stub after the procedure.

“The insurance covered the diagnostics, the medications and even Stubs wheelchair,” said Hitzelberger.

Thats right, Stubs even got a wheelchair to aid him in his recovery. Hitzelbergers pet insurer, PetFirst Healthcare, reimbursed 90% of Stubs veterinary expenses after a $50 deductible, and included a custom wheelchair to help Stub re-learn how to support his hind end.

“Stub was reluctant to use the chair initially, but after he tried it three or four times, he was a natural,” said Hitzelberger. “Now he doesnt even need it. Thanks to pet insurance, Stub is happy and healthy and acts like a dog of eight or nine,” Hitzelberger added.

Hitzelberger has been a long-time believer in pet insurance. He has insured all of his basset hounds since the early 1990s.

“Even when my veterinarian ho-hummed about whether or not pet insurance was a good value for pet owners, I carried it on my dogs,” Hitzelberger said. “Id much rather pay $30 or $40 per month to have the peace of mind knowing I wont have to put my dogs down for financial reasons.”

Claim Settlement Record Of Indian Insurance Companies

An insurance contract between the insurance company and the insured is one of trust. The moment of truth in this relationship appears when there is a claim by the insured (in the case of a non life policy) or by the dependents (in the case of a life insurance claim). Till that moment comes, everything is hunky dory- premiums are being paid regularly by the clients, and the insurance company is only too happy receiving them. However, the moment a claim appears, an insurance company proceeds to evaluate the claim closely, as every claim paid out is an expense for the company, hurting profitability. Thus, there is a basic conflict here: the insured wants the maximum claim to be paid, while the insurance company would like to reduce the claims outflow to the extent possible.

From a customers point of view, it is very important to study the claims settlement history of a life insurance or a general insurance company before deciding to purchase an insurance policy from that company. During the sales process, the sales representatives will be all sugar and honey so that the prospective customer signs up. But the fact of the matter is that if the insurance company you are considering has a bad history of claims settlement, there is a high probability that you will face a claim rejection or reduction when the time comes for you or your nominees to file a claim.
We had a close look at the claim settlement data of the various insurance companies. This is what that data tells us:

LIFE INSURANCE: Apr 09-Mar 10

Life Insurance Company
Total Claims (%)
Claims Paid (%)
Claims refused (%)
Claims pending at year end (%)

LIC
100
96.54
1.21
1.41

Private Insurers
100
84.88
7.6
7.48
Total
100
95.24
1.93
2.08

NON LIFE INSURANCE :Apr 09- Mar 10

Category
Public Sector
Private Sector
Total
Fire
81
73
80
Marine
76
86
78
Motor
88
80
85
Health
120
92
111
Others
57
57
57
TOTAL
88
80
86

The table above clearly reveals that the Public sector insurance companies are more generous in terms of paying claims. The life insurance data shows that LIC pays almost 97% of the claims while the private life insurance companies pay about 85% of the claims. The same pattern is revealed in the non life insurance sector also where on an overall basis, the claims ratio of the public non life companies is higher than that of the private general insurance companies. However, one needs to be careful here before jumping to a conclusion. It could very well be that in the public companies are sourcing the wrong kind of business with lax underwriting norms, whereas the private companies would be more stringent at the entry time itself. However, the worrying part is the claims denied ratio of the private life insurance companies which is over 7%. In the case of a life company, the claim is a death. There can be no ambiguity here- someone is either dead or alive. The repudiation figure of 7% seems mysteriously high here.

In the next post, we will delve deeper and look into the claims breakup at the individual private company level.