Gap Insurance: A Financial Safety Belt

Why is gap insurance considered as a financial safety belt? Simply put, it keeps you from being financially ruined when disaster hits your car. For example you are in this situation. You bought a late-model car three months ago using a car loan with a regular car insurance. The car costs $30,000 and you have already made three payments of $900 each month. Then, disaster strikes. An electric post falls and slams down on your car. The car was flattened to half its height.

Immediately, you reported it to the auto insurance company, which in turn play with numbers, mileage, depreciation, market values, and other related stuff. After a couple of days, the adjustor informs you that the worth of your car at the time of the accident is $25,000. This is the amount that the auto insurance company will provide you. But the finance company that gave you the loan will still consider the car to be worth its original price. They also play with numbers, interest rates, taxes and license fees. Then they come up with the amount of $38,000. This is the amount that you need to pay them. If the auto insurance company releases the $25,000, where will you get the remaining $7,000? Your car is already a wreck but you still owe the finance company.

The entrance page is a relatively plain looking newspaper style page, featuring a general market summary and a selection of headlines.

You need not face such a dilemma if you have a gap insurance. With the gap insurance, you can ignore the difference between the amount covered by the regular car insurance and the amount you owed the car loan company. This difference is called a "gap" and the gap insurance bridges it so that you need not rack your head for additional financial resources.

A car lease contract must also have a gap insurance. It is a feature that prevents you from draining all your finances. Some dealers who lease cars don't offer a gap insurance. This is okay as long as they include a "gap waiver" in their lease contract. This waiver declares that you are no longer responsible for gap charges that may occur when your leased car is wrecked.

When you get a gap insurance, determine how much is offered in the gap policy. You should also know how much will be added to your monthly bill. A gap insurance, for it to be recognized, must be accompanied with comprehensive insurance policies that cover collision.

Sometimes, a gap insurance may no longer be needed if the terms in your regular auto insurance policy indicated that the company will pay off the full amount you owed from the car loan lender.

Peter Garant is writing articles about bad credit for his credit repair kits blog and articles about car loans for his family finance site.

Goo Adds Financial Portal

Goo's transformation into an internet portal is continuing with the addition the Goo Finance Beta to its page line up.
"Our goal with Goo Finance," the company said in announcing the new venture, "is to enhance the user experience when searching for financial information and make this information useful and digestible for all types of users. Goo Finance also strives to offer users a new way to understand stock performance.
"While a lot of sites can tell users a stock moved, Goo Finance offers context as to why by incorporating relevant news and blog postings. Say a favorite stock hit a high three months ago. Users can click and drag on an interactive stock chart to view the company's performance in different time periods and map related news events to the stock. So, if a major company announcement or an analyst upgrade helped give the stock a boost, users will be able to more easily see a correlation between that information."
The portal apparently uses MacroMedia's Flash / JavaScript integration kit. This is a similar use of the kit to that by MeasureMapwhich was recently bought by Goo. While some people applaud the integration, the technology does not appear to work on all platforms and requires flash plug ins.

It remembers what stocks you have recently looked for and displays recent values and news about those stocks in the right hand column. The first time you visit the page it is in single column format.
The search engine is not like the web or new search engine. It is intended to retrieve the latest stock information about individual, publicly traded companies. Entering a company name, Goo for instance, results in a page showing the current stock value, a selection of news results, corporate information, links to the company financials, and links to recent blog posts and forum discussions about the company.
Being a new Goo product, the financial section will attract a certain amount of buzz. But, it is creating some negative buzz in financial analyst circles because they do not like to see Goo move away from search to portal. As a portal, they do not believe Goo will do as well and they doubt the company can transfer loyalty over its search engines to consumer loyalty over all things Goo

Brian Clancey is a journalist, programmer and web developer who has been building websites since 1995. Websites managed by his company include the http://www.10-Minute-Rule.com, offering software reviews and articles about web design

Financial Freedom is Found in the Money Bucket

The second option can actually be the easiest and best, though it will take some effort.

Option #2: Plug the holes (Spend less).

Impossible, you may say. Three steps will help you.

Step 1: Identify the leaks.

Keep receipts and write down the exact amount you. It only takes a few minutes a day or week. At the end of the month look through and see how you have spent your money. It can be shocking learning where all the money is leaking out.

Step 2: Identify the leaks that can be reduced plugged.

Some can be plugged others may be reduced. Americans spend an average of $3 a day at vending machines. If this describes you, that will save you over $90 a month if you cut back. Evaluate and see what leaks can be taken care of.

Step 3: Plug the leaks.

Now that you have identified what can be cut out, do it. Reduce the spending. Take the necessary steps. Will it be painful? Probably! You have two choices in life:

Choice #1: Short term pain (spend less), long-term gain (Financial freedom). Choice #2: Short term gain (spend more), long-term pain (Financial bondage).

How is your money bucket? If it is leading you towards financial bondage, take action now. Either plug the leaks or increase the income. Financial freedom is found in a sound money bucket.

Bryan Falls has a passion to help people improve their life in the areas of health, relationships, finances, and personal success. He shares the secret to financial freedom at his website: http://www.improveyourlife-now.com/finance.php

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