How Much Does Long Term Disability Insurance Cost?

April 27, 2021

Recent studies indicate that the average working-class American has a one-in-four likelihood of suffering a disability which will take more than 90 days. This is quite a high probability, that in the course of your entire career, one out of every four persons you know might suffer an incident or accident which will disable him for more than three months.

For most people, this might not be something to lose sleep over. But, this is just an average statistic. In reality, a lot of people do experience suffering a disability which causes them loss of income for longer than three months. Some are even crippled for the rest of their lives. This makes it so much more important to plan ahead for long term disability income in the event that it does happen.

The Cost Of Disability

On average, the cost of a long-term disability insurance policy is around 1-3% of a person’s yearly income. A long-term disability insurance is one of the most cost-effective forms of income protection. Most insurance companies charge a monthly premium of as low as USD$25 up to as much as USD$500 per month.

Here are some sample monthly premium computations:

For a person with an annual salary of at least USD$30,000, the annual cost of disability insurance would range from USD$300-900. This would entail a monthly premium of between USD$25-75.

For a person with an annual income of, at least, USD$50,000, the yearly cost of disability insurance will be between USD$500 and USD$1,500. The monthly premium for this would be from USD$60-125.

For a person with a yearly salary of, at least, USD$100,000, the annual cost of disability insurance would range from USD$1,000-3,000. This would entail a monthly premium of from USD$83 to USD$250.

For a person with a yearly income of, at least, USD$150,000, the annual cost of disability insurance would be between USD$1,500 and USD$4,500. The monthly premium for this would be from USD$125-375.

For a person with an annual income of, at least, USD$200,000, the yearly cost of disability insurance would range from USD$2,000-6,000. The monthly premium for this would be from USD$166-500.

This is just a simplified presentation of the ranges of premiums you’ll have to pay for long-term disability insurance, depending on your annual income. In reality, though, the insurance company will be taking into account several other factors and variables other than your annual salary. There’s a different way for computing short term disability insurance premiums.

Factors In Computing Premiums

Insurance companies factor in a lot of things when they compute for the monthly premium that they’ll charge you for taking a long-term disability insurance. This is understandable because they’re the ones taking the risk of covering you for so much by taking your monthly premiums. Here are some of those factors:

Age – Your age is the first thing that will be taken into consideration when you apply for a long-term disability insurance. In most cases, it follows the same rules as they do with life insurance. The older you are, the higher your premiums will be. You can be sure that the premiums you’ll be paying if you get a disability insurance today will be much lower than if you’re going to get it next year or two years from now.
Health – The next is your health. As a general rule, the healthier you are, the lower your monthly premiums. You’re going to fill out a form when you take a long-term disability insurance. On that form, there’s going to be a check-list of your personal habits which might be deemed detrimental to your health such as the number of years you’ve been smoking and number of packs a day.
Coverage – Another important variable which has a significant impact on the cost of your monthly premiums would be the coverage you want for your long-term disability insurance. This isn’t the retirement income you’re going to receive from your pension plan, but the idea is quite similar. This is basically the monthly income that you’d want to receive if you become disabled and out of gainful employment.
Period for receiving benefits – Another factor which will have a significant impact on the computation of your monthly premiums would be the benefit period. Simply put, the benefit period is the number of years you’d want to receive a monthly disability income. For how long would you want to be receiving a monthly check as your disability pay? Again, the longer you want to be receiving disability income, the higher will be your monthly premiums.
Period for waiting – Another thing that’s factored into the computation of your monthly premiums is the waiting period. This basically refers to the period between the day you suffer a disability and the date when you start receiving your monthly disability check. In the case of waiting periods, the longer you’re willing to wait, the lower your monthly premiums.
Occupation and Location – Other factors which are weighed into the computation of your monthly premiums are your occupation and location. If you’re into hazardous activities, that’s going to push your premiums up. Location affects the premiums in a different way. If you live in a state where more people file claims, then you’re more likely to be charged higher monthly premiums.

Some industry analysts come up with a list of the different long-term insurance policies for long-term disability and their various advantages and disadvantages.

Paying For Disability Pay

What attracts most working-class people who take a long-term disability insurance is the idea of being protected in the event that something happens to you, and you become sidelined from having a means of livelihood. It can be a scary thought, and the assurance that you’ll be receiving a monthly disability income is something that a lot of people are willing to pay for.

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Bridge Loans and How They Are Used Around The World

April 26, 2021

Bridge loans or ‘bridging loans’ are an increasingly popular source of finance, often used to complete on properties that are time sensitive. Where the process of applying and being approved for a mortgage can be timely, bridge loans can fill an important gap and help to complete deals that may have otherwise been inaccessible. However, the process and role of bridging loans varies around the world, as we investigate below.

How Bridging Loans Are Used in the UK

Bridging has grown tremendously in the last decade in the UK. From being worth £1 billion in 2011, the industry is now worth over £8 billion almost a decade later. This has emerged due to greater awareness of the product and the growth of new lenders and brokers advertising the products – but the demand came undoubtedly from the restrictive lending criteria of banks following the credit crisis.

Bridge loans are very commonly used by property developers and investors to complete on property purchases within a tight deadline, with the average loan available for funding within 28 days. Bridge loans can be used for homeowners to help them move house, without selling their own first, but it is very rarely for this purpose. Of course, they can also be used for business purposes, if you need to raise funds whilst using your premises or offices as security, but again, this is less common.

This format is very similar in other western countries such as America and South Africa. However, there have been some famous bridging loan cases for businesses, including travel operator TUI which completed a $1.8 billion bridging loan against its airlines and other assets to stay afloat during covid-19.

How Bridging Loans Are Used in Australia and New Zealand

When you look at New Zealand and Australia, bridging loans are part of everyday life. Particularly in New Zealand, this is the first method in order to buy a new house. If you have found a home that you like and want to move into, a bridge loan can help you buy it and move in almost immediately, using your original home as security. Once your original home sells, then you can pay off your bridging loan.

In Australia, it is not as common as New Zealand in order to purchase your first home, but it is popular to use auction finance.

In the UK, properties and homes typically go to auction when they are struggling to sell or are on probate and you can usually receive funds in 2 to 4 weeks. But in Australia, the average property will sell via auction. As a buyer, you need to have your decision in principle and then you book, turn up and buy the house on the day.

What The Experts Say:

Dan Kettle from UK bridging loans provider, Octagon Capital, commented:

“I can see the real advantages of using bridging loans for everyday home purchases, like they do in New Zealand. It is maybe a little pricey, but certainly fast and effective and good at avoiding all the typical property chains that we face in the UK.”

“I certainly think that the UK’s process for purchasing a property is too long-winded and the process of getting a mortgage approved and processed is a real headache. So it is unsurprising to see the value of the bridging sector grow 8-fold in the last decade.”

“I think there are some things we can learn from Australia and New Zealand to use specialist lending to turn around home purchases in quicker fashion.”

“But not forgetting that bridging can be expensive if you struggle to sell your original home. You could find yourself paying two mortgages or the bridging lender potentially repossessing your home.”

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Why In-Game Items Can be a Good Investment

April 26, 2021

Can gaming be an excellent financial investment? Yes, absolutely. In any game where you can collect rare skins and items, you have the potential to generate wealth, and not just in-game wealth but cold, hard cash.

Understanding how to use in-game assets as an investment can be tricky. How do you know what will hold value and what won’t?

Insane Example

Okay, before we look at what you can do to maximize your in-game investments, let’s take a look at a truly insane digital purchase that has happened in recent years.

Entropia Universe is a Sci-Fi MMORPG that allows players to cash out the in-game currency for USD. Players can spend real money on digital assets in the hope of getting a return on their profit in the future. In 2011, a company called SEE Virtual Worlds decided to take this concept to the next level and bought a planet in the game for a whopping $6 million! This seems ludicrous at first glance, but it makes sense when you consider that planets generate fees and taxes. If the company retains ownership of the planet for long enough, they can earn back that money and generate additional profit.

What Items are a Good Investment?

Discontinued Items

In economics, scarcity of an item can drive up the price, provided that people want that item. Scarcity is extremely powerful because it can make an average-looking item extremely valuable simply because it’s now unobtainable. If you tell people they can’t have something; they will start to want it, even if they didn’t think much of it before.

For example, in Vanilla WoW, the first Epic mounts with 100% speed were only slightly different from the 60% mounts. They were essentially the same skin with a few tweaks. In patch 1.4, Blizzard decided that an Epic mount deserved an Epic skin, so they created new mounts with much more elaborate armor. That way, it was instantly recognizable to other players when you were riding an Epic mount rather than a measly 60% mount. Not many players had obtained an Epic mount at this point because they cost a vast amount of WoW Gold, and Gold was hard to come by. However, for the players with an Epic mount, they created a quest that would allow those players to trade in their old mount for the new mount. And most of them did! So of the already small number of players who had these mounts, most got rid, and barely any of these mounts are still around.

Then you have discontinued items that were part of a specific event—for example, the Christmas Cracker in Runescape. The Christmas Cracker was a holiday item from Christmas 2001. It’s arguably the most expensive and rare item in RuneScape, and it’s rarely sold on the Grand Exchange. Why? Because its value is greater than the maximum amount of coins. The cracker requires two players to use it, and after opening, it will give a partyhat and some other random items. The two players have a 50/50 chance to either get the partyhat or the items.

Just how rare is the Christmas Cracker? Well, the game only dropped it on a particular day in December of 2001, so the pool of players who got a cracker was already small. In the holiday drops after 2001, Jagex announced that the drop items would no longer be tradeable. This meant the Christmas Cracker was not only scarce but occupied a significant place in RuneScape history, further driving up the price. Currently, the Christmas Cracker is selling for over $7,000!

World of Warcraft and Runescape aren’t the only games where unobtainable items go for vast amounts of money. For example, legacy items in Path of Exile can also be super rare and expensive. Some examples of these items include Legacy Shavronne’s Wrappings and Legacy Kaom’s Heart.

Rare Items

Sometimes items are rare because they were designed to be this way. For example, maybe they have a super low drop rate or only drop from a monster with a lengthy spawn timer. If an item has a 10% drop rate, this isn’t low, but if the mob that drops the item only spawns once every month, then there won’t be many of that item in the game.

How Do You Know What to Invest In?

Like all investments, with game funding, you have to take a risk. It’s a good idea to pay attention to the kinds of items other players find valuable and seek those. Additionally, if you’re playing a game that is about to go through a massive design overhaul, then you might want to start collecting “old world” items.

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3 Ways AR Automation Systems Will Make Your Business More Efficient

April 26, 2021

Accounts receivable (AR) are an important part of any business. AR is the money owed to a business by another individual or business in exchange for property, goods, or services provided on credit. The first step of the AR process is sending an invoice to the customer, and the amount goes on the company’s balance sheet under “current assets.”

Alternatively, accounts payable (AP) are short-term debts that a business owns to a supplier for products received before any payment is made. These are listed under the “current liabilities” section of the balance sheet. Once the account has been paid, the item is removed from the liabilities section.

A balance sheet is an important financial statement that a business produces to depict total assets, liabilities, and net worth. The document provides a quick look at financial health. No one said that creating the balance sheet was an easy process. The balance sheet is the “value” of a company based on the books. Lenders, investors, and stakeholders use the information from this snapshot to make the major financial decisions about your business.

What is an AR Automation System?

When it comes to handling the business balance sheet, many components have to be factored in. To do this by hand can be exhausting and tedious, costing businesses more for accounting professionals than is ultimately necessary. What if there was a way to automate AR and simplify your AP workflow with automation?

Three Ways AR Automation Systems Make Business More Efficient

When it comes to repetitive tasks, people grow weary and then begin to make errors. Spreadsheets, invoices, and phone calls can go horrifically wrong if the decimal is in the wrong spot. There is a lot of room for user error – but not with automation. Automation within the AR and AP process can eliminate many business problems and increase accuracy.

Automation Saves Businesses Time and Money

If not for any other reason, the fact that less of the bottom line has to be used should be reason enough to explore automation. Money is crucial for your business and seems to be the determining factor for success. Think about the cost of sending invoices. If your business is creating thousands of invoices for AR accounts, each one has a cost attached.

For example, pretend your cost for a single invoice is $10. If you are sending 10,000 invoices in a year, the total cost is $100,000. You are spending $100,000 to send out bills for people to pay you – the logic seems slightly skewed.

Automation can reduce the amount spend, and the amount of time it takes to process invoices. Industries report automation processing 16 times more invoices per full-time employee (FTE) each month versus no automation in place. Imagine, instead of one employee handling 1,500 invoices manually a month (with a high risk of human error), using software to process 24,000 invoices with little to no error. The employee resources can be allocated to another area that needs focus instead of wasting them on repetitive tasks that can be automated.

Automation Reduced Employee Error

Employee error in AR, AP, and balance sheets can be costly. Even if they are accidental, it doesn’t mean that the funds will be recovered if they are lost. Human error in data entry is not a new concept. Some studies have been ongoing for years, looking at how monotonous tasks can increase human error.

Have you watched an accountant or bookkeeper enter records into a spreadsheet or accounting software? They rarely look at the keypad – because errors happen do not mean that these professionals are not good at their jobs. It does mean that there may be a more sustainable solution to keep errors out of your books.

Automation Increases Overall Customer Satisfaction

Happy customers tend to turn into returning customers. Returning customers spend more money, order more products, services, or whatever your offering is. All it takes is one time sending an invoice with the wrong amount, and they begin to question your professionalism. Even worse, you have someone handling your books, skimming from your customers. If only you had taken the time to look over the invoicing and overall accounting process.

As much as you don’t like to lose money, your customers don’t either. Choosing to automate your process and providing them peace of mind that there is consistency might change how they look at your business as a whole.

Don’t be surprised if you find that it is easier to accommodate customer service efforts when your employees aren’t all bogged down trying to handle the invoicing and AR/AP process. Automation frees up your employees to do more for your customers (and for you).

How Implementing Automation Software Works

It shouldn’t take months to get the ball rolling on automating your process. It should only take a few days to be up and running. Once you have the software solution you know you can’t live without, all you have to do is begin with the professional-grade implementations.

Your new software should be able to:

Capture all documents – from any source, in any format, and automatically route it where it needs to go based on your company rules.
Send you notifications daily with a list of invoices that need to be approved, re-routed, denied, etc.
Once approved, invoices are submitted to AP for final payment authorization.
The AP-authorized invoices are then sent to the financial system for payment.
Documents within the entire system are retained or destroyed based on the rules and regulations of the company or industry.

Using an automated platform shouldn’t be more work than the old process – that is only counterintuitive. Moving forward with automation should be a smooth transition that creates better visibility and creates more transparency for the financial liabilities your business has.

As a business owner, you seek solutions to increase efficiency. You are always looking for the best way to save money, increase morale, and retain your customers. Incorporating an automated software solution into your business infrastructure can do that and more if you let it.

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Ultimate Guide for Long Car Ride in the UAE

April 26, 2021

By Pardeep Garg

It’s the dream of most of the car owners after buying a car in the UAE to go at least once on a road trip to other emirates in the country.

All those people who are specifically new to the UAE will be more enthusiasts and excited as they’re going to explore more beautiful places but unfamiliar road routes. Dissimilar to the old days, where finding the right road route used to consider a daunting task in the long drive, things now have been changed positively. With the help of GPS, any less experienced driver can go on a long car ride confidently within the UAE or anywhere else.

But even if you carefully make all of your travel arrangements, just single trouble with your vehicle can spoil your road trip. Therefore, it is important to prepare your vehicle well already in advance before you plan to go on a long car ride anywhere across the UAE. Here are some useful handy tips that you should consider to make the most of your road trip.

1. Check Your Car’s Condition

Almost about a week before you go on a long car ride, it is highly recommended for you to have your mechanic in order to examine the condition of your vehicle. Let him check the tires, fluid levels, brakes, plugs, engine, and anything else that could stop you on the mid-way and become a hurdle for your pleasant long car ride. In addition to this, a precautionary measure that you can take is to check whether your spare tire is in the right condition so that you can use it anytime in case of an emergency. Finally ensure that you keep the extra wiper fluid, front & rear tow hooks/hitches, wheel-changing tools, jack, tow rope, and jumpers cables with you

2. Keep the First-Aid Kit in Your Car

Make sure, you keep the first-aid kit in your car for yourself as well as co-passengers. However, some of the cars are already fitted with an emergency toolkit but if, in case, it is not kept in your car then you should keep it to prepare well in advance for any medical emergency during your long car ride. Ideally, you should carry a first-aid kit with, at least, your preferred medicines, painkillers, plenty of gauzes, bandage, an anti-septic ointment, medical tape, a heat pack, an ointment for burns, and any other medicine that is suitable for you as well as your co-passengers who are going to travel with you.

3. Have an Apt Car Insurance Policy

Before you leave for a long road trip anywhere in the United Arab Emirates, make sure you have an apt car insurance UAE. The very first reason is that why we are mentioning it that buying car insurance for every car owner is mandatory in the UAE as per the RTA law. In addition to this, it covers your expenses in the unfortunate event of car damage or injuries to other drivers, co-passengers or pedestrians. Therefore, it is good to have the right car insurance UAE so that you can call your car insurer in case of an emergency for assistance. Be sure to cross check your auto insurance policy to assure that there are as such no restrictions to your insurance coverage while you are on the road (for instance, some of the car insurance companies dictate how far from the main road you can go.) In addition to this, your car insurance policy must cover roadside assistance, Oman extension, GCC coverage if you are taking your vehicle for a long car ride.

4. Obey Traffic Rules Properly

When you finally set to go on a long car ride, just make sure that you know all the traffic rules since you already know UAE laws are very strict when it comes to traffic rules. Highways are usually busy with speeding vehicles. In such a scenario, it is quite essential that you obey the road signs, traffic signals, and also drive your car below the speed limit.

In addition to this, align your seat in a proper manner so that you can sit straightly. Don’t let your muscles lock into an uncomfortable posture as you will feel tired shortly and not even able to drive on a long road route. That is why, it is suggested to mentally scan your body for discomfit and adjust your body’s position accordingly.

5. Get Enough Sleep

Research shows that majority of the road accidents caused by drowsy driving happen between midnight and 8:00 AM or from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM. So, if you are driving your car during these times, make sure you have had enough sleep. And whenever you feel drowsy while driving a car, it is ideal that you stop your car to take a short break for you as well as other passenger’s safety. A short break will enable you to stretch your legs, body, and also take a break from constantly concentrating on the road.

6. Don’t Rush

Don’t rush, just enjoy your long car ride. Be extra careful of others, specifically larger vehicles on the road. Drive around big vehicles as they are well-trained to maintain a distance between vehicles since they take a longer time to brake. However, do not drive your vehicle too close to any of the vehicle while on the road.

7. Load Your Vehicle with Some Entertainment Stuff

Your road trip is incomplete without entertainment stuff, right? So before you leave for a long road trip, be sure that you have prepared with a playlist of audiobooks, music, and jokes. This will keep you entertained and hooked on to a memorable journey.

In a Nutshell

If you really want to make the most of your long car ride anywhere in the UAE then keep the aforementioned things in mind. Among all, it is very essential to keep a check of your car’s condition as well as having an apt car insurance UAE. So if, in case, you have not purchased an auto insurance policy for your vehicle, till yet, then you can buy it online by comparing different car insurance quotes. This will certainly help you opt for the best car insurance policy.

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About the Author

Pardeep Garg is an online entrepreneur and an author. He is passionate about market research and loves to write on topics Market Research, Business, Finance, and Investor Information to succeed in life.

5 Reasons Your Website is Slow

April 26, 2021

Site speed plays a significant role in your website’s success and the overall performance of your business. It affects several main metrics, such as the popularity and conversion rate of your platform. Optimizing the website speed is obviously a must, but it can be challenging to figure out how to do so. Fortunately, several easily accessible speed tests are available to assess how your site’s efficiency is measured. Although your site can be slow for many reasons, you can solve several free WordPress plugins and web hosting.

Alternatively, consult with a reliable web design agency that can perform an in-depth website audit, identify the root cause of slow load speed. Whether its JavaScript issues, excessive flash content, unclean, or bad hosting choices, an experienced web designer can help you find out what’s slowing down your website and help fix those issues. Here are some of the reasons your website is slow.

Server distance

Long-distance calls take longer to communicate since the details needed to make the call would be longer. When it comes to a website, it’s no different. If a user from the USA visits a site using a server in Denmark, then the browser ping needed to upload the site must go halfway around the world, access the necessary data, and travel to the visitor’s computer halfway around the world. The longer this gap, the slower the website.

JavaScript issues

JavaScript is a code that makes your website user-friendly and interactive. Your site would be pretty dull without it. However, JavaScript will slow your pages when trying to load them into browsers if left unoptimized.

When a browser attempts to view a web page, any JavaScript files it encounters first must pause and completely load. This results in what is called “JavaScript rendering block” or “JavaScript” that prevents the page from loading fast.

Too many HTTP Requests

If your website contains too much CSS, JavaScript, or a lot of image files, it will result in increased HTTP requests. In this situation, every time your potential clients visit your website, the browser will ping the server with too many HTTP requests to load many files. Naturally, this will result in to slow webpage.

To fix this problem, you can try reducing the HTTP requests using CSS Sprites. Be sure to reduce the number of files that should be loaded on the web page. Ensure that you minify CSS and JavaScript files, which in turn reduces the number of files that a user will need to download when loading a page.

Code density

You can already feel a trend here. Big, dense elements slow your website down. One of the site’s densest elements is the code it produces. If you know CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, you will know that behind your website design is an immense amount of code.

Inadequate caching techniques

Caching is a technology that stores often used data in the browser’s cached memory. This means that the browser does not have to reload all the data when the website is accessed. This speeds up the loading time with quicker data recovery. The website must load all files each time without caching. This is entirely needless and can interfere with user experience when it is easy to resolve.

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Common Plumbing Mistakes that Property Owners make

April 26, 2021

A blocked drain is frustrating, and it makes sense why you would want to get a solution as fast as possible. However, some solutions promise immediate relief, but they leave behind unknown and greater problem(s). Drain cleaners provide instant solutions, which is what you want. Unfortunately, after some time, you will need to deal with corroded pipes.

The truth is, such cleaners have a negative effect on galvanized plumbing material. You, however, do not need to worry about clogged pipes as you can use a plumbing auger or natural product to clear the pipes.

A plumbing auger works like a drain snake. You can also sprinkle some baking soda then vinegar on the pipes work. Give it some minute, then pour hot water. In some cases, the two solutions might not work, so consider calling a home remodelling company that provides plumbing services. Here are other plumbing mistakes that homeowners make.

Ignoring ‘small’ issues

A leading Perth Northern Suburbs plumber explains that most repairs come from homeowners that trivialize a running toilet, dripping faucet, and other ‘small’ plumbing issues in the home. The issues seem minor and sometimes so trivial to hire a plumber to fix (some homeowners treat the issues this way).

But the sad truth is that you can forget the issues even though you have not fixed them. The problems do not go away since you forgot them, sometimes they become serious. The more the plumbing issues are left ‘forgotten,’ the more serious they become, and the more it will cost you to fix them.

This is why it is recommended to identify various plumbing issues in your home early enough and fix them long before a minor leak becomes a big issue.

Forgetting crucial steps

Not all plumbing work is technical, and you might want to save some bucks on hiring a plumber. In this case, the plumbing mistake will not be how you complete the project but forgetting some precautionary measures.

Imagine fixing a leaky faucet, and immediately you start assembling the disassembled faucet, water gushes out. You have no idea where the shut-off valve is located or what you did wrong. Your home will be messy, and who knows how long it will take before you find and turn off the water valve. These are issues that an experienced plumber from plumbing Scottsdale will address within the shortest period.

Not having the right tools.

Unless you have the right tools for the job you intend to handle, there is a chance you will find yourself dealing with plumbing complications that will make the initial problem worse. For instance, if you use a flat head screwdriver rather than a Phillips head screwdriver, you are likely to damage the screw you are trying to remove from the faucet from the faucet and probably make it hard to move.

Failure to follow local construction codes

It is not unusual for property owners who plan to save money to take their own renovation projects. Unless they understand the local construction codes, they may find themselves in trouble, particularly when selling the property or update homeowner’s insurance. You will have to bring the repairs up to code in case the errors are discovered.

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Reasons you Need Travel Insurance during your Next Put-in-Bay Vacation

April 26, 2021

Often known as the ‘Key West of the North,’ Put-in-Bay is a popular travel destination that attracts hundreds of thousands of travellers annually. The island features historical sites, a lively entertainment scene, and breath-taking views. Many travellers often visit the island for a quick trip or an extended vacation that lasts weeks. Unfortunately, some travellers still forget to book the right travel insurance when planning such vacations.

It’s important to mention that there is nothing like a global pandemic to spur the travel insurance boom. Most policies intended to cover overseas trip interruption, medical care, and other unforeseen snafus were a widely demanded commodity in 2020. This trend is set to continue in 2021 and many years in the future. Purchases of cancel-for-any-reason policies increased by several hundred percent in 2020, and more than 90% of most book travels had some form of insurance policy attached.

Travel insurance is not a magical shield that protects every aspect of your vacation, which is why it’s imperative to know what you are insuring against. Here are the reasons you may want to obtain travel insurance if you are planning an overseas trip to Put-in-Bay.

Cancellation of trip

It is common for travellers to make flight bookings and hotel reservations weeks before the travel date. Probably you had booked a flight to Put-in-Bay and probably booked a vacation home, resort, or one of the hotels in Put-in-Bay where you could stay during your vacation. What would happen if you are supposed to cancel the trip?

If you have travel insurance, you can easily get compensated for any flight cancellation due to an emergency or airline delay. Indeed, your travel insurance policy will cover the damage or loss resulting in the curtailment of your trip, including extra expenses incurred on travel expenses, hotel stay, and more.

Cover lost or misplaced passport and other travel documents

Suppose your travel documents are stolen or lost, your travel insurer can compensate you for the money you spend acquiring other travel documents. The insurer can also offer help in the travel document replacement process. For example, the insurance provider can help in coordinating with the nearest consulate office to ensure you get travel documents.

Loss of baggage cover

Supposed you had planned a two-week family vacation in Put-in-Bay and somehow ended up losing your travel bag that contained clothing, medicines, and toiletries for your kids. In this case, your travel insurance policy will cover the cost of essentials that you lost with your bag or luggage. Note that compensation will be provided in case your luggage is lost or delayed in a common carrier or is the airline’s fault.

Note that your travel insurance policy may include the cost of toiletries, medicines, clothing, and other essentials you need until you find your luggage. All you need you need to present to your travel insurer are the payment receipts as proof of the expenses you incurred. Be sure to take the letter of baggage delay from the airline and ensure the time of delay is mentioned.

Travel insurance can also cover some emergencies, personal liabilities during overseas vacations, and more. Whether you are visiting Put-in-Bay for business or recreational reasons, check Put-in-Bay tourist information from local websites and learn more about travel insurance.

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The Guide to PR and Digital Marketing for Tech Startups

April 25, 2021

Managing PR and digital marketing is one of the key factors for the success of your tech startup. Such advertising is used literally in any area of modern business. It’s most common in online stores, in the provision of services, in virtual learning. But how to get the first customers, orders, and sales if you don’t even have a product idea? That’s the purpose of PR services. Let’s find out what steps you need to make to succeed in your tech startup.

Make Your User Persona

Market analysis is the first and most crucial step. Let’s imagine that you want to make your Telegram bot go viral. Without prior research, all marketing activities will be random actions and failing attempts to impress God knows who.

Therefore, first of all, research the market. Analyze potential users and competitors. You don’t need a degree in marketing or a specialist to do basic research. Moreover, it’s the work of the founders of the startup to determine the target audience, value, and product plan. For instance, your user analytics plan may consist of the following tasks:

Create an image of the user;
Find potential users;
Make hypotheses and interview questions;
Chat, make calls, arrange meetings, do an interview, make a presentation or questionnaire;
Analyze information and correct your user persona;
Create a marketing plan. Adjust the product line if needed.

For a launched product, it is important to work with real users and product analytics. Select active users and arrange appointments with them. Manage to get the maximum feedback on the product. Get advice on how and where they would sell your product.

Moreover, do patient-targeted googling of your users. Look at a person’s social media activity, projects, articles, interests, and friends or followers. It’s also great to start talking to the professionals who might use your product. Ask for help about development strategy and high-level feedback.

Ultimately, run product demos at companies and pay attention to feedback.

Positioning

After analyzing your users and competitors, it’ll be easier to create positioning. It shows who you are and how you differ from all other sharks in the market. This is the main message that needs to resonate with your users, teams, and potential employees. Positioning reflects the core value of the product and is linked to the mission of the tech startup.

Ask users what your product means to them;
Find out their role models and people who give them inspiration;
Conduct competitors’ positioning analysis.

Then, try filling out this basic questionnaire:

For (target customer):
Who (statement of need or opportunity);
(Product name) is a (product category);
That (statement of key benefit);
Unlike (competing alternative);
(Product name) (statement of primary differentiation).

PR and Marketing Channels

You have three simple tools at your disposal: public launch, direct selling, and drawing attention to the product in all possible ways. It’s best to use all of the above methods daily. Let’s take a closer look at each of them.

Speaking about the public launch, this could be a site release with the feature to leave mail for early access, a first beta, or simply more updates to an existing product. During a public launch, you should methodically tell about your news product on all online and offline sites where users spend their time. As you’ve done market research, your media listings should be already completed.

Using online and offline direct sales, try building trusting communication with the user and make the whole process as personalized as possible. The general algorithm is as follows:

Conduct research and analyze your user;
Sketch a sequence of steps in communicating with a person and determine the desired result;
Communicate with a potential lead in an informal and friendly way;
Initiate communication. Meet offline and/or write a letter/message/tweet for a special case. For instance, use such drafts as “I saw that you use the competitor’s product…”, “I saw that your company does a lot of cool apps…”, “I’ve read your article on this problem…”
Deliver a clear call-to-action;
Follow up. Build relationships and communicate.

Besides direct sales, you can do free marketing. This is a set of channels and tactics to promote your product. Authoritative companies have spent a lot of time, resources, and specialists to achieve some results. So, you need to be ready to do this too. You may also try out TikTok promotion strategies to advertise your business.

In content marketing, don’t forget about your initial product goals. If you’re focused on the increase in recognition, it’s worth working on the visual component. On the contrary, if you need to get sales, you need to add a CTA in the text. You can do guest posting on tech blogs, and get additional promotion to your product. Also, don’t sleep on republishing content on other platforms.

You should also try influencer marketing. Working with opinion leaders is similar to working with the international press. It’s vital to build relationships and find options for beneficial cooperation for both sides. The easiest option is to invite the influencer to try your product for free, get relevant feedback, and ask them to tell their audience about it.

PR means cooperation with local and international media. Before your product goes public, make a list of the key media resources and journalists who write about similar topics. These can be both analysts of the industry to which your product is related. Besides, it can be those influencers who regularly review technology services and solutions.

It’s important that the author of articles about web applications doesn’t get a pitch about an iOS product in the mailbox. Start a CRM, where you’ll record the name, surname, position, frequency of publications, and writing topics. Do this with a clear indication of the region and language in which the journalist writes.

For instance, an editor-in-chief in an American publication is a person who looks through dozens of editorial publications a day. He or she is unlikely to thoroughly study your pitch and think about an employee who’d take your publication. It would help if you did this by yourself. If the author has a mark “contributor” in the profile, he or she is in charge of offering news about your product to the editor. Respectively, it would be best if you spared some additional time for this.

Start pitching weeks or even months in advance. Write them for each journalist individually, taking into account the range of topics of interest, time zone, and preferred communication channel. Offer a captivating story, give unique data, numbers, and statistics. Don’t overuse emotive adjectives. Believe it, the journalists are sick of this. In other words, offer such a publication that you yourself would love to read.

To sum up, to find users for your tech startup you need to take your time to do some research. It’s the basis for your next steps. PR and digital marketing will work out if you create something worthy of public view and determine your product value.

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10 Actionable Solutions to Get Yourself Out of Debt

April 25, 2021

Being in debt is one of the most stressful situations you can be in, and it can take a lot of effort to get out of. Here are some ways to do just that…

Getting out of debt is crucial for both your sanity and any future financial endeavours you wish to undertake. If you don’t want legal action taken against you by personal debt recovery lawyers and agents, you’re going to need some solid solutions.

In this post, we’re going to go over 10 of the best ways to get yourself out of debt and put this whole ordeal in your past.

What Can You Do to Get Out of Debt?

Some of these solutions might be quite difficult to carry out, but you should try your best to perform as many of them as possible if you really want to make it out of debt.

1. Check what you owe and prioritise

Debt often comes from varied sources, so the first thing you need to do is look who you owe money to and how much you’ll need to pay them every month. If you don’t have your most recent statements, contact your creditor to find out what you owe.

Once you’ve done this, prioritise your debts based on what you feel are the most important things to pay off first. For example, paying off your mortgage is important because if you don’t you could be evicted from your home.

2. Create a budget

In order to know how much debt you can afford to pay off, especially the priority debts, you need to figure out how much you’re actually bringing in. A budget will help you make better decisions and give you an idea of how much you can put towards your debt every month.

Having a budget also helps you find places where you could save money that could go towards paying it off. Then, you can put all the money you can aside every month and use it to pay off your debts in priority order.

3. Earn more money

If you’ve finished your budget and you still can’t save enough money to start paying off your debts, you might need to find new ways to earn money.

Obviously getting a new job or a raise would help, but if it isn’t possible then you can take on a side gig. Some fun examples might include walking dogs, using a certain skill you have to make money, and anything you can fill your extra time with to make extra cash.

4. Sell what you don’t need

At some point, you have to face the fact that your material possessions would be more helpful to you as cold hard cash. Everyone has things they don’t need; even if you use them a lot, you can always replace them later when you’re out of debt. You can easily exchange your valuables for cash like gadgets, jewely or even power tools in pawn shops and use the money to pay off debt or finance a small business.

This isn’t a sustainable idea because you’ll run out of things to sell at some point, but it will help you clear your debt in the coming months whilst you try to make money in other ways.

5. Stop creating debt

Hopefully the shock of your large debt, and the fact that you’re reading this post, means that you’re not looking to get into more of it.

Getting into more debt by taking out loans and credit cards will only create more problems. These new debts increase the payments you have to make and the strain on your monthly income. They’ll also throw your current budget out the window.

Living without credit cards when all your actual money is going towards paying off debt is hard, but it’s a reality you have to face until you’re out of debt.

6. Consolidate your debts

Debt consolidation is one of the most efficient ways to instantly clear it. It makes all the different companies you owe money to happy, and means you only have one loan to pay off.

The only issue is that you have to have a good credit rating to be able to get a low interest rate with a loan company. They might also only give you a very small loan that doesn’t cover the entirety of your debt.

7. Switch credit cards

In the spirit of consolidating your debts and reducing your interest rate, you could also try switching credit cards. Move your outstanding credit balances to a zero-transfer balance credit card with a lower interest rate.

These cards have a specific period where interest rates are at zero, so you have a decent chunk of time to start paying off the money. Pay as much as you can afford during this period so there’s less to pay when the interest rate goes back up.

8. Ask someone you know for help

It’s embarrassing asking someone you know to lend you money because you have to admit that you’ve made mistakes. When you’re in a lot of debt it’s easier to keep it quiet and ‘deal with it yourself’. That said, if there’s a potential to have your debts paid you should take it.

Ask a family member or a friend to lend you the money and agree to pay them back in instalments. The beauty of this solution is that they are unlikely to want interest on the loan they give you. You can even draw up an official contract to make the person feel more at ease.

9. Pay extra

Making extra payments each month on your debt will both shorten your payoff time and improve your credit score.

The quicker you can pay it off, the better. In order to get a consolidation loan or credit card you need a good credit score. This tactic is definitely recommended if you have extra money to pay your debt with each month.

10. Consider consumer credit counselling

If you’ve tried everything above, and none of it has helped, then you should consider speaking to a credit counselling agency.

These agencies can help you work out a debt management plan with your creditors. These plans usually involve lower monthly payments to your creditors and giving your monthly payments to your counsellor who will distribute it to them.

Ready to Pay Off the Debt?

In this post, we’ve shared the best ways to get yourself out of debt, from budgeting to hiring a credit counsellor.

There are many other ways to try, but most of them are centred around lowering interest rates and finding enough money to pay off your debts. Hopefully this article has been useful to you, and good luck!

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