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Term life insurance is a simple way of protecting your dependents when you die. You pay a premium. If you die within the nominated term, the insurance company pays out. So what do you need to think about?

Well, life policies are offered everywhere as part of your credit card or loan packages, through membership of clubs and as standalones. As with any other product, shop around with your head fully engaged. Start with sites such as this obtaining free online quotes for life insurance. The more information you collect, the better. Find out exactly what premiums are required to produce a given amount of death benefit. Always compare like-for-like. Some insurers ask for monthly payments. Others go for quarterly, half-yearly or yearly. Similarly, companies usually offer terms from 1 to 20 years. Always get life insurance quotes for the same term.

It's never a good idea to meet with an agent or company rep unless you already have a written quote for the particular companies being touted. Always explore your options face-to-face knowing what the general market has to offer. Never ever sign a binding contract at one of these meetings. Always take time to think about your options before committing yourself.

When you're shopping around, always ask for a guaranteed renewable policy. Say you decide to start with a short-term policy of five years. This looks a good low-cost, affordable life insurance policy for someone young and without too many commitments. Make sure you have the right to renew as many times as you want and no matter how your health may have changed. Equally important, make sure your premiums are fixed during the lifetime of the cover and no matter how many times you renew. Remember premiums are low when you're young because you should live a good number of years. If you're renewing at market rates when you're older, your premium will rise significantly. Make sure you get the benefit of premiums already paid.

Don't go for anything fancy. You want a policy that pays the minimum amount you think your dependents will need should you die. You can always buy additional policies as inflation takes some of the original value away. Don't be tempted by policies that offer different levels of benefit depending on how you die. Finally, always check out the financial health of the company before you buy a life insurance policy from them. It would be unfortunate if the company had no money to pay out when you died.

When you start out on your quest to find an affordable homeowners insurance policy, remember that The Lord of the Rings ran to three volumes. You have not found what you're looking for when your online quotes come rolling in. Nor have you arrived at your destination when you read through the policies. The final part of the journey is always dealing with the endorsements.

An endorsement is cover added to your policy. You pay more but get extra protection.

Be warned. You're the only one with the responsibility to get everything you have adequately covered. Neither the insurance company nor its agent is going to walk you through your home and talk you through all the potential problems. You have to decide what to add to the policy.

To give you an insight into the problems, let's look at the contents. Most insurance companies give you blanket cover - an average amount that covers most of the stuff you'll find in most homes. But if you have anything unusual or more expensive, you should take two steps. The first is to make a detailed schedule of everything you have. This will help you decide whether you should buy more blanket cover. It's not a good idea to guess. As you identify the more expensive items, you should consider having them appraised and agreeing their value with the home insurance company. The more this increases the value of the contents, the more likely it is that you will be asked to improve the security of your home. That brings us to the second issue.

The standard policy terms pay on the actual worth of the property when it is lost. That's not the replacement cost! There's this little thing called depreciation (or fair wear and tear) and, unless you have an endorsement, you are not allowed to "make a profit" on the policy by buying new to replace the old. Ask about the cost of an endorsement for replacement no matter what the actual value of the property may be.

Then we have the quite separate problems of whether your policy will cover the property of non-family members while it is in your home, and what you do with a home office. Suppose you bring work home with you on a laptop owned by your employer and one of the children knocks it off the table. Is it covered? If a neighbor lends you some equipment and it breaks down, who pays for its repair or replacement? As to your own home office, the standard policy covers up to about $2,500. If you have more than this, you should either include the specific items or look for separate small business insurance. Look for online quotes to get the whole picture.

The idea is so simple. You pay a premium and the insurance company protects you. Yeh, right! When you go out shopping, you read the labels before you buy, don't you. Well, the same should be your habit when you're buying a homeowners insurance policy. Never just use a site like this to get online quotes and then buy a policy because it's low cost or affordable. You should read it before you buy.

So what are you looking for? Well, let's get technical. The insurance company protects you against "perils" except where there are "exclusions" telling you that there may be limitations on that cover. Often, those exclusions are the smaller print coming near the end of the policy when the insurer hopes you're attention is wandering. Check out exactly what is covered. If it's not clear, ask someone before you buy. The first part of the home insurance policy usually deals with "property protection". So that covers the structure of the place you call home together with everything permanently attached like the plumbing, the electrical wiring and all the other "stuff" (sorry another technical term including your air-conditioning, heating system, and so on). All the other buildings and structures on the land will be included so long as they're all used for domestic purposes. That covers the garage, shed, patio and fences/walls. Pay special attention to any "loss of use" provisions - that should cover your out-of-pocket expenses if you cannot live in your home while it's being repaired.

Then we get into the everyday personal property (usually called the "contents") owned by you and the family who live with you on a permanent basis. Depending on the wording, you may be covered for the cash value or replacement cost. But watch out. If you have anything unusual that's more expensive or difficult to replace, that's got to be specially endorsed on the policy. Some things may be excluded like a firearm, the car covered under your auto insurance policy, and so on. Other things may be included like the charges the local fire department may claim if it is called out, the cost of removing fallen trees or other debris after a storm, and so on. Everything else will have to be separately negotiated and added on to the policy as an endorsement.

Just when it looks as though you can make ends meet, health insurance costs go up again. A growing percentage of every paycheck is going on health and, for the most part, you're getting less for your dollars. The result? Every month, more people give up on rising premiums and drop into the ranks of the uninsured. Worse, if big bills hit, people face personal bankruptcy. This was mostly affecting low-income working families and those with chronic conditions requiring more continuous treatment like diabetes or depression. Now, it's starting to bite the middle class. Employers are also feeling the pinch and more companies are dropping medical cover or reducing the benefits packages, and introducing wellness programs with teeth. This combination is placing a growing burden on taxpayers who fund Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Why is this happening? Well, let's come down to a short list. The economy is not in great shape. The population is ageing and, as people get older, more goes wrong with their bodies. New technology is producing new treatments but that is often more expensive. The pharmaceutical industry keeps raising prices to maintain its profitability. Put all the causes together and you have a broken system. The real problems start with the "entitlement" trap. Because people pay their health insurance premiums out of their own pockets, they feel they're entitled to get all the medical care they like. This leads to a significant amount of waste as health providers supply expensive services on demand regardless whether those services are needed. Mostly, the providers are driven by the need to make profits to keep their investors happy, and not by the patients' needs. This makes general medical care unaffordable and shifts ever more of the costs on to the insurance companies and the tax payers. Health insurance premiums therefore go up. The Republican approach is to reduce taxes which makes funding public health provision more difficult.

If people are uninsured, they wait longer to see a physician or go to an emergency room when their conditions have worsened. What could have been treated early on for less money suddenly becomes a bigger bill as costs are higher in emergency rooms. Why are costs higher? Because a significant proportion of patients cannot pay. The hospitals costs therefore have to be recovered from those who have the money or still carry health insurance. The moral of this story is for political parties to have the will to fix the problems.

With the price of gas rising, more people driving hummers are finding visits to fill the tank an expensive business. It's tempting to think of trading in the guzzler and buying a hybrid. A Toyota Prius, for example, will give you not less than 45 miles per gallon - drive it carefully and you'll do a lot better.

Better still some of the hybrids qualify for a federal tax incentive. The government may talk big about drilling for oil but encouraging people to buy fuel-efficient cars is a good first step to reducing America's dependence of foreign oil. Check out your own state. Many are also offering a range of incentives to reduce tolls, the cost of parking, and so on. When you add up the savings on gas and in taxes and charges, a hybrid can look a good deal. Auto insurance companies are encouraging the trend with discounts of up to 10%, although the actual discount depends on the type of hybrid you buy. As with all auto insurance, you need to shop around and get as many online quotes as possible before buying.

But before you start looking round the showrooms, take a deep breath. That Hummer (large SUV or RV) is losing its value fast. The secondhand market has collapsed because only a very few buyers want to take on those gas costs. You'll get only a fraction of its value if you trade it in now. So that new hybrid suddenly got a lot more expensive. You'll need a much bigger loan which may be difficult to get at a good rate of interest because of the credit crunch. Once you add in the loss of capital tied up in your Hummer and the increase in borrowing costs, your payback period just got so much longer.

Payback period? If you're buying to make a saving, this is the time it takes for you to realize the saving. In this case, you are probably better holding on to the Hummer. The premiums will fall because the replacement costs are lower on a comprehensive policy. Traffic accidents are less dangerous in something built like a Sherman Tank. Some of the smaller hybrids crumple up in an accident. So don't despair on the auto insurance front. It really may made better economic sense to keep the guzzler than change to a hybrid. To learn more about car insurance, you can get online quotes and find the best policy for you.

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