Life insurance in the United States is the most developed in the world.
In the U.S., everything can be insured, from appliances when you buy them to life insurance. Insurance in the U.S. is a kind of culture.
At the level of mentality: insurance is not a waste, but a guarantee of a peaceful life.
In fact, in the U.S. you can insure everything. The set of insurances depends on the line of business. Store chain owners need some insurance, construction companies need others, offices need others. There is no standard coverage.
It all depends on the specific company and facility: how many people work, how big the building is, how many cars the company has, etc.
The websites of insurance companies (e.g. Allstate, Progressive, State Farm) ask the client to look into the product himself and understand what he really needs in order to build his insurance package. However, this is not enough.
The more information the insurance company has about the client, the more favorable the terms can become. That is why Americans turn to insurance brokers who compare offers from different companies and select the most favorable one for the client.
Personal insurance, which has developed steadily, stands out against the general background.
It includes life insurance, annuity or pension insurance, as well as health and accident insurance.
Life insurance is now a strategically principled industry that provides investment in the economy and solutions to society’s social woes.
Life insurance has long been more than just an inventory through which people can save money, get a return on investment, provide pensions and medical care has become a specific industry aimed at a variety of customer needs: buying a home, paying for children’s education, minimizing taxes and much more.
It is typical in the U.S. that people often trust life insurance companies more than they trust banks.
An important area of focus for U.S. insurance companies is life insurance.
What Life Insurance in the United States Offers?
Life insurance offers a wide range of insurance guarantees and investment services to help people solve a whole range of social and economic problems. Conventionally, these problems can be divided into two groups: social and financial.
The implementation of the first allows overcoming the inadequacy of the system of state social insurance and provision. The implementation of the latter, on the one hand, contributes to an increase in personal income, and on the other hand, provides the necessary guarantees in several financial and credit operations.
There are different types of personal insurance in the United States
- Ordinary life insurance provides for payment of the premium over the life of the insured;
- Limited-term life insurance provides for payment of the premium over a certain period in installments or as a lump sum, after which the policy is deemed paid up. The amount specified in the insurance contract is paid in a lump sum in the event of the death of the insured;
- Insurance that provides for payment of the entire sum insured after the number of years specified in the policy or the event of the death of the insured;
- Conditional death insurance for only a certain short period of time (usually a few years). A typical case of insurance is life insurance of a debtor for the duration of the loan;
- The most popular type of insurance is universal insurance. Its essence is that the amount of annual payments is determined independently by the person who takes out the insurance. The company distributes these payments into three categories: one part goes to accumulate the principal payment in the event of the death of the insured employee, another part goes to a special bank account, to which the interest accrues, and the third part is used to cover the company’s expenses. In the annual reports, the company indicates to which accounts and what amounts were received during the year.
Here I would like to say a few words about another type of personal insurance: health insurance.
American health care is one of the largest industries in the country. In the U.S., health insurance is voluntary and almost entirely provided by employers.
Health insurance is the most common type of workplace insurance, but employers are not required to provide it at all.
Not all U.S. employees get such insurance. Still, at the largest companies, health insurance is almost mandatory, and in 2005 about 75 per cent of the U.S. population was covered.
There are many types of health insurance. The most common is what is known as workers’ compensation insurance, or “fee-for-service” insurance. With this form of insurance, the employer pays the insurance company a premium for each employee covered by the policy.
The insurance company then pays the checks submitted by the hospital or other medical institution or physician.
This pays for the services included in the insurance plan. Usually, the insurance company covers 80% of the treatment costs, and the insured must pay for the rest.
There is an alternative, so-called managed care insurance. The number of Americans covered by this type of insurance is increasing rapidly. In this case, the insurance company contracts with doctors, other health care providers, and institutions, including hospitals.
For all services covered by this type of insurance. Usually, medical facilities receive a fixed amount, which is paid in advance for each insured person.
The differences between the two types of insurance described are very significant. In “fee-for-service” insurance, the cost of services that are actually provided to patients is paid.
With “managed care” insurance, health care providers receive only a fixed amount per insured patient, regardless of the volume of services rendered.
Thus, in the first case, health care providers are interested in attracting clients and providing them with a variety of services, while in the second case they are more likely to refuse to prescribe additional procedures to patients, at least unlikely to prescribe more than necessary.
The U.S. government also currently pays more than 40% of the cost of health care through the major programs, Medicaid and Medicare.
Medicare covers all Americans over the age of 65, as well as those approaching that age and who have serious health conditions.
Medicare is funded in part by a tax levied on all workers, both employees, and employers. Overall, this tax is about 15% of the income of employed Americans. In addition, Medicare is funded by general income tax revenues.
Medicaid provides insurance for low-income Americans, mostly women, and children from poor families. It also pays for nursing home stays for those who require constant care and cannot do without daily assistance.
However, there are many Americans who are not covered by any type of insurance. Many of them work, but their employers do not provide them with health insurance.
At the same time, these people are too young to qualify for Medicare, are not classified as uninsured, and are not covered by Medicaid.
Estimates of the number of uninsured Americans range from 20 million to 50 million (8-20% of the population). (8-20% of the population).
Most of the cost of medical services in the U.S. is covered by voluntary health insurance, which is paid for by employers as well as the government.
Nevertheless, citizens account for a significant part of the costs for medical services provided.
These payments are generally considered a mechanism for regulating and appropriately reducing costs (if an employee pays part of the costs himself, he is less likely to go to the doctor).
One of the basic principles of health insurance is the high efficiency of medical care.
As far as treatment costs are concerned, the insurance company covers the costs associated with the application of the only correct method of treatment with a high rate of positive results.
Of course, the cost of heart surgery is very high, but it’s still less than the cost of medications that need to be taken for quite a long time.
And the effect of conservative therapy is not always desirable. Therefore, insurance companies prefer to incur high costs, but only once.
Americans are notable for taking their health seriously.
On the one hand, insurance companies protect their clients from unprofessional medical care, and on the other hand, Americans trust their doctors and do not buy medicines without the recommendation of a specialist.
According to the latest data, there are 373.5 million insurance policies in the United States. But that’s 100 million more than the entire population of the country.
The fact is that this number includes both individual insurance and group insurance, and many Americans have both.
The total amount Americans are insured for is $13 trillion. 200 billion dollars. The average amount a single American family is insured for is $165,800.
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