UK's Confused.com Offers Free Home Insurance Comparison Service

A new, free and highly useful service is being offered to UK residents who are looking for homeowner's insurance: an online home insurance comparison service by the folks @ Confused.com.

Details can be found below in the following clip from today's press release:

"http://www.confused.com launched the UK's first real-time, full-quote home insurance comparison service this past August. The service, which is free to use, becomes the most comprehensive way to accurately compare home contents and general buildings insurance on a like for like basis in the UK. The site brings back results from almost 70% of the home insurance market in under five minutes, and aims to increase its coverage to 90% by the end of the year.

The new service, thought to be a revelation for home owners and renters looking to cut the cost of home insurance cover, dramatically speeds up the process of finding cheap home insurance, which can take hours, if not days, to find the best rate through traditional search methods. By introducing the new service, Confused.com hopes to transform the way in which people search for home insurance, and in the process help millions of people to make major savings on their annual home insurance premiums.

Confused.com anticipates that people using its home insurance comparison service will be able to make an average combined saving on their home contents and buildings insurance of more than £120 per year, equivalent to a one third saving on typical premiums.

The launch of Confused.com's home insurance service comes in direct response to massive customer demand and support from insurers, and follows the huge success of its car insurance comparison engine, which has more than 1.5 million customers and typically saves drivers £150 a year.

www.Confused.com's Managing Director, Kate Armstrong, announced the new service saying: "Confused.com's aim is to provide a simple and compelling solution for people looking to reduce the cost of their annual home contents and buildings insurance. The service fills a gap that homeowners and renters have long wanted a solution to; a system that can find the best and most appropriate deals instantaneously – removing the tedium of searching for home insurance. With the introduction of this new service, we hope to encourage millions to search, switch and save.

Confused.com’s home insurance comparison site works by asking users to fill in just one form, which can be applied to all insurers. This removes the need for laborious form filling on site after site and generates an accurate like for like price comparison, which hitherto has not been possible."

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UK News: Confused.com Reveals The Worst Locations For Home Insurance Premiums

Some interesting news for you UK homeowners and soon-to-be homeowners: Confused.com has released details of its study related to the worst places in the UK for home insurance premiums. Details can be found below in the snippet from today's press release:

"New research from www.confused.com, the UK's leading home insurance quote engine, has revealed that Wokingham is the UK's most expensive area for buildings insurance, with average premiums topping £292, some £194 more than insurance for a similar property in Caithness. Similarly, Greater London is the UK’s worst area for home contents insurance at an average price of £233, over £164 more than for a similar property in Shetland.

While many parts of Scotland benefit from home insurance premiums at three times less the cost of cover than for properties in Southern England, the average cost of buildings insurance across the UK stands at £151.27, while home contents insurance comes in at an average price of £98.94.

Confused.com's findings show huge differences in average premiums across the whole of the country. They also reveal that the UK average prices are typically £98.77 and £44.57 more expensive for home and contents insurance respectively, than Confused.com’s average cheapest price results, proving that shopping around can bring back major savings for people with homes looking for home insurance.

Commenting on the home insurance index Kate Armstrong, Managing Director of Confused.com said: 'Insurance companies use postcodes because they can match homes with the history of past claims enabling them to give an instant quote. Because of this every area will have a different average premium, and from year to year your insurance premiums may change. The trick is not to find the average price but the cheapest price, and this is where Confused.com can help. While the average price of building insurance in Wokingham may be £292, the cheapest rate we found was £209, while the most expensive was £357, proving that shopping around is always the wisest move.

'If you are looking for home and contents insurance you can buy these separately or combined. Occasionally you can get a better deal by buying insurance policies individually from different providers although, increasingly, combined insurance represents a better deal; only 4% of the 140 areas researched would have made a saving by buying contents and buildings insurance separately.'

Confused.com is the UK’s fastest comprehensive home insurance comparison site, instantly searching and comparing home insurance prices from almost 70% of insurers, bringing back a full list of prices in under five minutes. Since its launch in August 2005, the average annual amount that drivers save using Confused.com to find cheap insurance quotes is £120, equivalent to a one third saving on typical premiums."

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The James Lockhart "Social Security Offset" Case Goes To The Supreme Court

Remember the story about James Lockhart, the 67-year-old guy who's having his meager Social Security (SS) benefits garnished because he defaulted on his student loan debts 20 years ago? Well, Mr. Lockhart sought a legal remedy for his predicament, and now his case has made it all the way to the Supreme Court!

The case is now being decided by the nation's highest court because 2 lower courts have made conflicting rulings regarding Lockhart's case and another similar case.

Let's first consider Mr. Lockhart's case, in which The 9^th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Mr. Lockhart. This particular panel of jurists ruled against Mr. Lockhart because, according to their decision, the Higher Education Act gives the government every right to take a cut of Lockhart's SS benefits (also known as an "offset") in order to satisfy his student loan debts, even though these debts are over 10 years old. The age of Lockhart's debt is very significant here, because according to the Social Security Act and the Debt Collection Act, Mr. Lockhart's SS benefits should be shielded from government collection because his student loan debts are over 10 years old.

In other words, there's some serious conflict between these laws: on the one hand, you have the Higher Education Act which should permit the government to take a portion of Lockhart's SS benefits despite the fact that his student loan debts are very old, while on the other hand, Lockhart's SS benefits should be protected by the Social Security Act and the Debt Collection Act.

So with this critical conflict between the above mentioned laws, it was probably inevitable that another court would rule contrary to the decision handed down by the 9^th US Circuit Court of Appeals. And that's exactly what happened.

Dee Ella of Kansas City, Missouri, had borrowed over $4,000 via government student loans in order to pay for college. Back in 1984, Ella defaulted on her student loans. In 2001, her SS benefits were cut from $814 to $750 as a result of a government offset. Sounds familiar? Indeed. Ella's case is very similar to Lockhart's: student loans debts that are over ten years old; the government offsetting SS benefits despite conflicting laws.

Well, in Ella's case, the 8^th Circuit Court ruled in favor of Ella; the Court decided that the ten-year limit on SS offsets should be applied in her case, and that her SS benefits should be left alone.

So now it's up to the Supreme Court to sort out this mess. The Court's ruling should be interesting, especially because the Court has a new boss. Stay tuned.

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How do you feel about the government offsetting SS benefits in order to satisfy old student loan debts? Should the ten-year rule stick, or should student loan defaulters be responsible for their education loans regardless of how much time has passed? Your comments are welcome and appreciated.

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National Institutes of Health Starts Taking Applications For Its Loan Repayment Program

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has started a Loan Repayment program that repays up to $35,000 of student loan debt per year. Sounds super-generous, right? Well, as you might have guessed, it's a program reserved for highly qualified individuals, i.e. you've got to have a PhD, and you have to satisfy other very specific prerequisites to boot.

Details from a press release issued today are below:

"On Thursday, September 1, 2005, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began accepting applications to its five Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs). Deadline for applications is December 1, 2005.

The five LRPs offered by the NIH include the Clinical Research LRP, Clinical Research LRP for Individuals from Disadvantaged Backgrounds, Contraception and Infertility Research LRP, Health Disparities LRP, and Pediatric Research LRP.

Through these programs, the NIH offers to repay up to $35,000 annually of the qualified educational debt of health professionals pursuing careers in biomedical and behavioral research. The programs also provide coverage for federal and state tax liabilities.

To qualify, applicants must possess a doctoral-level degree, devote 50 percent or more of their time (20 hours per week based upon a 40-hour work week) to research funded by a domestic non-profit organization or government entity (federal, state, or local), and have educational loan debt equal to or exceeding 20 percent of their institutional base salary. Applicants must also be U.S. citizens, permanent residents, or U.S. nationals to be eligible.

'The NIH Loan Repayment Programs offer an easy and effective way for research scientists to focus more on medical research and less on repaying student loans,' says Dr. Norka Ruiz Bravo, Deputy Director for Extramural Research. 'Since 2002, nearly 4,000 qualified health professionals have benefited from more than $225 million disbursed in loan repayment support. Through these programs, the NIH has opened doors for many young scientists to launch careers in research without the burden of student loan debt.'

All applications must be completed by 8 p.m. eastern time, December 1, 2005. Visit www.lrp.nih.gov to apply.

The Office of the Director, the central office at NIH, is responsible for setting policy for NIH, which includes 27 Institutes and Centers. This involves planning, managing, and coordinating the programs and activities of all NIH components. The Office of the Director also includes program offices which are responsible for stimulating specific areas of research throughout NIH. Additional information is available at http://www.nih.gov/icd/od/.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation’s Medical Research Agency — is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov."

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