Wednesday, November 17, 2010

How to Find a Cheap Health Insurance Plan and Avoid Scams

A short review on how to choose a good health insurance plan and to avoid scams. It has never been so easy to find a good health insurance plan nowadays because of the progress of internet technology. But it is also easy for scams and fraud to spread over online. One should be careful when choosing a health insurance plan using online search tools. Tips on how to find a good health insurance plan and to avoid scams are provided.

1. Find out and organize your health needs before choosing your health insurance plan. What are your basic requirement such as doctor office visit, emergency, operation, generic or brand medicine, annual limit, maximum out of pocket limit etc. Then put them in order in terms of their importance to you.

2. Determine your budget range for premium payment, deductible, office visit, medicine etc. for your health insurance plan. Usually the higher the premium payment, the better the health insurance benefits. This article helps only if you have limited budget or want to save money. It is difficult to have a precise number for your budget at this phase. But one should at least have an rough estimate for health insurance plan budget.

3. Go online to get quotes for your health insurance plan. Quotes are free and you just need to type in your personal information to get them. There are many tools that claim to help you to find good health insurance plans for you. Just use good tools to get quotas because not all health insurance website provide good reliable insurance plans. Recommendation for reliable good tools is give in resources part of the article. Be careful at this step because some health plans are scams. Read detail in warnings part of the article.

4. Compare quotes and optimize your choice in terms your needs. You can list your quotes in the order of your most concerns such as deductible, premium payment etc. and choose the best health insurance plan that fits your needs. Check carefully that the health insurance plan covers all your basic needs.

5. Apply for the health insurance plan and wait for approval. Usually it will take a few days to 2 weeks to get approved. Some insurance company might call to ask some additional questions. But the process should be simple and easy.

How to Buy Cheap Auto Parts Online

You can save a lot of money if you buy auto parts online to fix your car or do maintenance. I used to spent about $800 to replace my Mercedes break pads. Now it only costs me $260 to do the same work if I bring my own online purchased break pads to the mechanics shop. A 60% saving! The shop only charges me labor fee for the work. It is quite straight forward and no hiding fee. The key is to find and buy cheap and quality auto parts online and bring it to mechanics who will do the repair work.  There are tons of auto  parts providers online now and it is not difficult to find them.  The difficulty is how to find a good auto parts provider which provide good quality auto parts on time with good services.

1. Find out your auto information like make, year, model etc.
2. Go online to find a good and reliable auto parts provider and input your auto information to get quotes. Select the auto parts you need. Check carefully the maker, price, shipping and return policy etc. You can find a good and reliable auto parts provider by reference if you don't have personal experience. I recommend PartsGeek and Auto Part Warehouse, which I use for my car repair myself and many other people do according to some online shopping statistics.
3. Find atleast another online auto provider and do the same as previous step. Compare the maker, price, service etc to determine which auto part to buy.
4. Put your order online and wait. The part usually takes about a week to arrive.

How to Save Big Money to Buy a New Car Using Free Online Tools

A car is an expensive item for most people. The sale price could vary from tens to thousands of dollars from buyer to buyer even on the same car. How to spend less and save money on car purchase? It all depends on how much information one has on the car and how good one use the information to bargain with car dealers. Now it is much easier for buyers to get car information online using free tools to negotiate with car dealers because of the progress of internet technology. That make it possible to buy a car with a much lower price and save money. Following are some directions on how to use free online tools to collect car information for saving money with a car purchase.

1. Find the car model you like. Use free online tools like Edmunds to find the specs for a car such as horsepower, sizes, fuel, mileage, transmission etc. Make sure all specs meet your needs. Read reviews on this car also to get an overview of the car performance. These information are very important and helpful to buy a car. One can use these information to compare and to decide which car to buy in term of car performance.
2. Find out and jot down the car MSRP and invoice which will be used to compare and bargain. Also find prices with options even if you are not going to buy an upgraded car. This is important because a car dealer might not have a car you want exactly. Make sure all these prices are acceptable and in line with your budget even they are not sale prices. Now you should have an idea which car to buy and what their performance and invoice prices are.
3. Get free quotes online. Use free online tools like Yahoo Auto to get multiple car quotes for comparison. What you need to do is to type in an effective address. Quotes from car dealers near that address will be sent to you through email shortly. Compare these quotes with your previously recorded MSRP and invoice prices. These quotes should be above invoice price but below MSRP and should be close to sales price. You can change the address to get different quotes for a different area because car prices in different areas are different from each other. Compare quotes and locations to choose a car dealer. Sometimes one can drive a little longer to a car dealer to save more money.
4. Find car financing online if you want to do car financing. You can get free car financing quotes online and use it as a reference to low your financing rate even if you are going to use the car dealer's financing.
5. Go to the car dealer to negotiate further if you are not satisfied with your online quotes. Now it is much easier for you to bargain because you already have a lot of information on the car. You don't have to play games with the dealer as they expect. You can directly ask for a price which you think is good for you instead of thinking their offers as usual. Please notice that the price you ask should be above the invoice price because the dealer has to pay some transport and processing fees. It can't be too much below online quotes either because the dealer could refuse it if the profit is too small. But sometimes you can still get a lower price if you save the dealer's time by doing the business quickly and friendly.
6. Now you can close the deal. Don't buy extended warranty at this time because you will probably spend more if you buy it in a hurry. There are still a lot of chance to buy extended warranty online yourself later.