Load Up on Life insurance: Three Tips for First-Time Buyers

If you’re looking to purchase your first ever life insurance policy, chances are you’ve hit a bit of a quandary at one time or another. 

After all there are plenty of different policies to choose from, all seeming to cater to different needs and circumstances, so it’s no surprise some people are left scratching their heads when it comes to deciding on suitable coverage. 


However, choosing the right policy doesn’t have to be difficult, or in fact confusing. What is needed is a little help from a friend. Below are three simple tips that could help you pick out and choose the right life insurance policy for you and your family.  Note: for the purposes of clarity and understanding, this article imparts advice based on life insurance policies only. It is therefore important not to imply that the tips given apply to mortgage life insurance, critical illness coverage or even over 50s coverage, which offers funeral plans, for example.

1. Life insurance: should you break the ice?

What first-time buyers should realise is that life insurance could act as an important financial safety-net. If others depend on your income for support, life insurance coverage will ensure your loved ones are financially secured in the event of your death. It’s therefore vitally important you do your homework. Many insurers often segregate their products in order to cater to specific customer needs; although this provides a wider selection of policies to choose from, it can become confusing for first-time policy buyers.

2. Forget mental maths, use a calculator

The amount of money your family or heirs will receive from insurers after your death is commonly known as a death benefit (sounds a little oxymoronic doesn’t it?). Many insurers have quick online policy calculators, which can help you better understand the amount of coverage (or death benefit) available to you. Such tools provide calculations based on personal and financial circumstance, i.e income, health issues, etc, so it’s mindful to remain truthful in order to attain the most accurate results. Nevertheless, even if you’re simply using the calculator to educate yourself on the workings of life insurance, such tools can help you feel more comfortable when discussing your needs and policy options later on.

3. Take out separate policies

If you’re married, planning on getting married, or in a serious long-term relationship, you might be considering taking out a joint life insurance policy. All well and good, however joint life insurance is commonly available as a joint life ‘first death’ insurance plan, which means that the insurer will only pay out for the first death in the partnership; leaving the other surviving partner without coverage. 

So, depending on the current insurance policies available in the market, it’s often more logical to opt for two single life insurance policies instead. This will obviously eradicate the ‘first-death’ rule, often associated with joint life insurance, and cover the second death in the partnership as well. 

In addition, individual life insurance policies can be customised to suit the lifestyle of each person. However this flexibility cannot be reciprocated by having a joint account, since the plan covers both individuals in the policy. 

Currently experts in the industry are calling for a revamp of joint policy accounts in order to stem the tide of customers currently taking out single life insurance coverage instead. 

Tomorrow’s Sports Stars: Buy Top Level Domains, Build Fan Sites, Create Value

A while ago I posted a short article about domain squatting discussing the buying and selling of URLs to an interested party. 

A domain squatter could build content rich websites around these web addresses and monetize them with targeted advertising, or maybe a PR firm with bigger ideas will outright buy a domain from the person who had the foresight to purchase it.


I would like to recommend that should you decide to register a few (or maybe many) URLs, you might concentrate on an industry where there is already a lot of revenue being thrown around – sport.

Pick a card, but not any card

I’m not particularly interested in sport as it happens, but when the prospect of making decent cash looms large my web research skills go to work and I learn a lot quickly. I have been paying attention to the English football youth academies known to groom promising young players from England or elsewhere in Europe. They take kids as young as 13 and breed them to become the soccer stars of their generation. Imagine being able to have made an informed decision to register davidbeckham.com or waynerooney.co.uk back when they were playing in the Milk Cup, or any similar “little league” tournament long ago - years before they were known to anyone but those who had seen them playing as youngsters.

The English Premiership is the richest football league in the world and as such takes this grass roots stuff very seriously; Manchester United and Chelsea are two clubs who like to inject cash into scouting and developing new talent.
You can register domains so cheap these days that it’s silly. It could just be the best investment you ever make. Some people waste money on horse racing or roulette where there is no real skill and pure chance takes over, whereas “domain squatting” owes much to cunning, strategy, research and intelligence with a long term view. Even if your chosen footballer, rugby player, personality, or whoever, ends up with a luke-warm career plagued with injury, marital issues or drug problems, you won’t have spent a lot of money.

Manchester United striker/midfielder Ole Gunnar Solskjær retired in 2007 following surgery to a persistent knee complaint, but there was a good 13 years of interest in this outstandingly talented professional. One of his defining moments was during injury time when he scored the winning goal in the 1999 UEFA final against Bayern Munich. I remember watching that match on TV on holiday and the bar showing the game was packed with excited English holidaymakers. That sort of performance from a sports personality is going to drive a lot of traffic to a website bearing their name.

The boring technical details…

If you’re going to give this a try, learning a thing or two about DNS (Domain Name Servers) is an absolute must. Anybody can purchase a URL, but then they don’t know how to manage it or migrate it around the web.

There are webhosts out there that allow you to build and design a cheap website and then “map” your newly bought domain name to that account. Go Daddy has an amazingly easy to use DNS manager (in my opinion) and if you buy through them they throw in a free email inbox, for which you will need to set up email server “MX” records. I won’t bore or blind you with the science at this stage because better guides regarding the technical stuff are out there. You just need to know that it CAN be done and means you could and should keep your costs down.

One more thing: for your sports personality URL set up RSS feeds using Google Reader or something similar to stay up to date on breaking news. I am monitoring certain young players in the English football youth squads, but you might be researching swimmers, racing drivers, tennis players etc if that’s your thing. Remember: any fool can gamble and most fools do. Taking risks on the other hand - as far as I’m concerned - depends on some amount of skill.

Putting the price of a web domain that you own on someone’s name is stacked in your favour assuming you do the research and be in it for the long term. One day you might receive a phone call or email asking you to name your price to transfer the domain to a PR agent. And in the world of English football, we know how much it would be worth to them.

Useful links

Go Daddy - Register URLs for as little as £6.49 per year Special offers run most weeks so you could get a domain for around £5. The average price I pay for a new domain is around £8 per year. You can add SSL certificate, privacy etc at extra cost.

000WebHost - Free webhosting compatible with Go Daddy domains They provide hosting absolutely free, there is no catch. You get 1500 MB of disk space and 100 GB bandwidth. They also have cPanel control panel which is an easy to use website builder. Moreover, there is no any kind of advertising on your pages, unlike some providers.

Yola - Easy to use site builder Fantastic online website builder. It really is easy to set up and build a site with the added option of registering a domain through them if you don’t fancy fiddling with DNS.

Sell Your Phone

Finding yourself in need of money can be frightening and overwhelming, but you may be sitting on easy cash in the form of your cell phone and not even realise it. 

Sell my phone, you might be thinking, really? Yes, there is a market for used cell phones, even older styles and models, and you can often get a decent price for your old phone by selling it online. 
Whether you want your cell phone to be recycled or refurbished and reused, you will find a site online that can offer you the best price for your phone and get you the money as fast as you need it.

Why sell your Cell Phone?

There are as many reasons to sell a cell phone as there are types of cell phones. The most obvious is to make some quick and easy money. Browsing the internet and looking at the electronics and auction sites will give you an idea of what pricing is fair for your model and style of cell phone, as well as what models are selling quickest and for the best prices. You may choose to place your phone on one of these sites to sell it. If you’re firm on price, you can place a reserve, meaning the bidding must reach that price before the item will sell.


Taking your cell phone to a pawn shop is another option which results in quick money, but you will get a half to a third of what you could get for the phone otherwise. Electronics stores may give you a better price, particularly if you have the original phone box and materials and everything is in good shape. Keep in mind that some models of phone, such as Nokia, Motorola and iPhones, are more in demand than others. Another reason to sell your cell phone may be concern for the environment. Many recycling organizations will take a used cell phone off your hands for a decent price and resell it to companies who breakdown your cell phone and use the metals and components within it. 
 

Benefits of selling your Cell online

You may decide to sell your cell phone online for a variety of reasons. General auction and electronics auction sites are always looking for new items to sell and offer many consumer protections, including secure monetary transactions and the ability to track your item from posting to sale and delivery. Your money can be quickly and safely delivered and there is less chance of returns because of the website quality assurances and resources. Many websites offer cash for phones programs of varying sorts. You can send your phone to these companies at their expense and they will either recycle them or refurbish them for reuse. Some are sent to foreign countries or are resold online. Several programs even give these refurbished phones to soldiers serving abroad so they can call home.

Of course, a big plus of selling your phone online is the competition. With so many companies and sites looking to buy your phone, you can be sure to get the best price possible for your old cell.