How Much Are You Over-Paying for Your Auto Insurance?

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You’ve probably seen the online ads lately.  “KALAMAZOO MOM DISCOVERS $9 TRICK FOR AUTO INSURANCE!”

But, how much truth is in these claims, and what really is the lowest you can pay for auto insurance?
It’s an important question because auto insurance is one of the largest monthly expenses for many people after rent, gas, and car payments.

Let’s look at the claims made by some of these ads:

Firstly, when they say $9 insurance, they mean $9 per week, which works out to $39 per month, or $468 per year.  Now, that’s not as exciting as $9 per month – but it’s still probably a lot less than most people are paying.

So, what is the “trick” to get you there?  Well, it turns out all you have to do is have a perfect driving record, no DUI’s, drive very little, drive the right car, and live in the right zip code.

But, the truth is that most people do pay more than they have to for auto insurance. Read more...

IRS issues final rules on Obamacare's 'individual mandate'

A centerpiece of Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is a requirement that all individuals carry some minimum health insurance or pay a tax. The new system aims to provide insurance through state marketplaces and subsidies for tens of millions of Americans who lack it.

If individuals choose not to carry insurance, they are subject to a penalty, starting at $95 per person per year or 1 percent of income in 2014, whichever is greater, and eventually reaching $695 per person or 2.5 percent of income by 2016.

The IRS, which is administering parts of the law involving revenue collection, released the final rules spelling out the details of what constitutes minimum essential coverage, and how individuals are responsible for spouses, children and other dependents, among other topics.

The individual mandate is distinct from the employer mandate, which imposes a fee on most large employers that do not offer a minimum level of coverage. The Administration delayed that provision, putting off the effective date until 2015.

Backers of the law say that, unlike the employer mandate, the individual mandate is essential to ensure enough individuals are enrolled in the system to allow the online marketplaces to function. Read more...

Wal-Mart offers health benefits to U.S. workers' domestic partners

(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Tuesday it will offer health insurance benefits to domestic partners of its U.S. employees starting next year, following the lead of other major companies.

The world's largest retailer, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, also plans to begin to offer vision care to its eligible employees and their dependents, according to information the retailer sent to workers this week.

Wal-Mart is the single biggest U.S. employer outside of the federal government. More than half of its 1.3 million U.S. employees are on its health-care plans. The company said it does not know how many workers would use the new benefits, which also include free hip and knee joint replacements.

Wal-Mart's extension of health insurance to domestic partners comes after the U.S. Supreme Court in June forced the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in states where it is legal. The Supreme Court also paved the way for same-sex marriage in California.

"Since we operate in all 50 states, we thought it was important to develop a single definition for all Wal-Mart associates in the U.S.," spokesman David Tovar said.

Wal-Mart is behind many other large companies on domestic partner coverage. Sixty-two percent of the Fortune 500 already offer health benefits for domestic partners, according to the Human Rights Campaign's 2013 Corporate Equality Index. Read more...

Jobs That Pay 100k a Year Without a Degree

Keywords: Jobs That Pay 100k a Year Without a Degree

Jobs That Pay 100k a Year Without a Degree

With the already high costs of college tuition continuing to rise and job prospects looking more and more slim for recent grads, many are considering the merits of going to college versus finding a job that does not require a bachelor’s degree.

Contrary to the idea that you cannot find a high-paying job without a college degree, there are actually many jobs that are attainable without a degree and have salaries that will rise above $100,000 after you gain experience in the field.

1. Real Estate Broker

While you do need a license to become a real estate broker, you can apply for that license with just a high school diploma. The average salary ranges from $30,144 to $180,434 per year, meaning that while you won’t start out at 100k, you have a strong chance of making it there with experience.

This field is currently highly competitive due to the increase in licensed real estate brokers during the recent housing boom. Read more...

The economy of South Africa

Keywords: South African agricultural industry, South African jobs, Black Economic Empowerment policies

Source: Wikipedia

JSE is the largest stock exchange on the African continent

South Africa has a mixed economy with a high rate of poverty and low GDP per capita. Unemployment is high and South Africa is ranked in the top 10 countries in the world for income inequality,[95][96][97] measured by the Gini coefficient. Unlike most of the world's poor countries, South Africa does not have a thriving informal economy; according to OECD estimates, only 15% of South African jobs are in the informal sector, compared with around half in Brazil and India and nearly three-quarters in Indonesia. The OECD attributes this difference to South Africa's widespread welfare system. World Bank research shows that South Africa has one of the widest gaps between per capita GNP versus its Human Development Index ranking, with only Botswana showing a larger gap.

After 1994 government policy brought down inflation, stabilised public finances, and some foreign capital was attracted, however growth was still subpar. From 2004 onward economic growth picked up significantly; both employment and capital formation increased.

South Africa is a popular tourist destination, and a substantial amount of revenue comes from tourism. Illegal immigrants are involved in informal trading. Many immigrants to South Africa continue to live in poor conditions, and the immigration policy has become increasingly restrictive since 1994.

Principal international trading partners of South Africa—besides other African countries—include Germany, the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom and Spain.

The South African agricultural industry contributes around 10% of formal employment, relatively low compared to other parts of Africa, as well as providing work for casual labourers and contributing around 2.6% of GDP for the nation. Due to the aridity of the land, only 13.5% can be used for crop production, and only 3% is considered high potential land.

Labour market

Workers packing pears for export in a packing house in the Ceres valley.

During 1995–2003, the number of formal jobs decreased and informal jobs increased; overall unemployment worsened.

The government's Black Economic Empowerment policies have drawn criticism from Neva Makgetla, lead economist for research and information at the Development Bank of Southern Africa, for focusing "almost exclusively on promoting individual ownership by black people (which) does little to address broader economic disparities, though the rich may become more diverse." Official affirmative action policies have seen a rise in black economic wealth and an emerging black middle class. Other problems include state ownership and interference, which impose high barriers to entry in many areas. Restrictive labour regulations have contributed to the unemployment malaise.

Along with many African nations, South Africa has been experiencing a "brain drain" in the past 20 years. This is believed to be potentially damaging for the regional economy, and is almost certainly detrimental for the well-being of those reliant on the healthcare infrastructure.The skills drain in South Africa tends to demonstrate racial contours given the skills distribution legacy of South Africa and has thus resulted in large white South African communities abroad. However, the statistics which purport to show a brain drain are disputed and also do not account for repatriation and expiry of foreign work contracts. According to several surveys there has been a reverse in brain drain following the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and expiration of foreign work contracts. In the first quarter of 2011, confidence levels for graduate professionals were recorded at a level of 84% in a PPS survey.

What is Clean-sheet review?

Keywords: clean-sheet review, business process management, business process improvement

Source: Wikipedia

Within business process management or business process improvement, a clean-sheet review reviews the business requirements of the "as-is" organization and reinvents business processes to meet those business requirements. This review works free of the constraints of the existing organization, including the constraints of policy and law, as if there is no "as is" organization and the review team is creating business processes from scratch to meet the business requirements.

Process

Starting with a scope from senior leadership of the business requirements to be met by the processes the review will create, and a deadline for delivery, the review team starts with a clean sheet of paper and defines their own method and schedule for delivering business processes to meet the requirements of the business. Direction of the team is kept to a minimum to encourage creative solutions unavailable to other methods that are constrained to developing from the "as-is" processes. This method therefore protects the opportunity to capture and exploit the creativity in the team.

For the sake of developing creative solutions, facilitators limit their intervention to helping the team create phases of delivery, inventory the changes to policy and law needed to implement the new processes, and help the team stay out of "as-is" thinking based on how the business has worked in the past to stay focused on how they imagine the business "could be." As opposed to other business improvement systems, a clean sheet review only requires minimal definition of the project constraints of scope, schedule and cost.

Clean-sheet-review project-constraint questions

1) Scope: What do you want to accomplish with a clean-sheet review? How do you want the organization to look, sound and behave differently from how the organization looks, sounds and behaves now?

2) Schedule: When would you want the clean sheet review to begin and end?

3) Cost: How much money should we allocate for the clean-sheet review? Expenses can include a meeting space with "stay dirty" privileges, and travel and per diem costs to represent stakeholders from multiple process sites and for the reviewers to experience business processes directly.

What is churn rate ?

Keywords: churn rate, formula, Employee turnover

Source: Wikipedia

Churn rate (sometimes called attrition rate), in its broadest sense, is a measure of the number of individuals or items moving out of a collective over a specific period of time. It is one of two primary factors that determine the steady-state level of customers a business will support. The term is used in many contexts, but is most widely applied in business with respect to a contractual customer base. For instance, it is an important factor for any business with a subscriber-based service model, including mobile telephone networks and pay TV operators. The term is also used to refer to participant turnover in peer-to-peer networks. Churn rate is an important input into customer lifetime value modeling, and can be part of a simulator used to measure Return on Marketing Investment using Marketing Mix Modeling.

The phrase is based on the English verb churn, meaning "to agitate or produce violent motion".

Definition

Churn Rate of a Customer Base

Churn rate, when applied to a customer base, refers to the proportion of contractual customers or subscribers who leave a supplier during a given time period[1]. It is a possible indicator of customer dissatisfaction, cheaper and/or better offers from the competition, more successful sales and/or marketing by the competition, or reasons having to do with the customer life cycle.

Churn is closely related to the concept of average customer life time. For example, a churn rate of 25% implies an average customer life of 4 years. An annual churn rate of 33% implies an average customer life of 3 years. The churn rate can be minimized by creating barriers which discourage customers to change suppliers (contractual binding periods, use of proprietary technology, value-added services, unique business models, etc.), or through retention activities such as loyalty programs. It is possible to overstate the churn rate, as when a consumer drops the service but then restarts it within the same year. Thus, a clear distinction needs to be made between 'gross churn', the total number of absolute disconnections, and 'net churn', the overall loss of subscribers or members. The difference between the two measures is the number of new subscribers or members that have joined during the same period. Suppliers may find that if they offer a loss-leader “introductory special”, it can lead to a higher churn rate and subscriber abuse, as some subscribers will sign on, let the service lapse, then sign on again to take continuous advantage of current specials.

When talking about individual subscribers or customers, sometimes the expression "survival rate" is used to mean 1 minus the churn rate. For example, for a group of subscribers, an annual churn rate of 25% is the same as an annual survival rate of 75%. Both imply a customer life time of 4 years. I.e.: a customer life time can be calculated as the inverse of that's customer's predicted churn rate. For a group or segment of customers, their customer life (or tenure) is the inverse of their aggregate churn rate. Gompertz distribution models of distribution of customer life times can therefore also predict a distribution of churn rates.

If a company (such as a cable TV company) has a fast growing customer base, confusion can arise between the math associated with what percentage of the whole customer base churns in a given year (what percentage of the base of subscribers in all of 2010 churned out?) versus what the churn rate is for a given cohort of customers (e.g.: taking those customers who subscribed in given month, such as January 2010, how many had churned out by January 2011?). Looking at the churn rate for a fast-growing aggregate customer base will understate the true churn rate compared to cohort based approach to the calculation. The cohort based approach will also allow you to calculate the survival rate and the average customer life, whereas the aggregate approach can not calculate these two metrics.

The term 'Rotational churn' is used to describe the phenomenon where a customer churns and immediately rejoins. This is common in prepaid mobile phone services, where existing customers may take up a new subscription from their current provider in order to avail of special offers only available to new customers.

Employee turnover

In some business contexts, churn rate could also refer to employee turnover within a company. For instance, most fast food restaurants have a routinely high churn rate among employees. For larger companies, such as Fortune 500 companies, the attrition rate tends to be much lower compared to a Fast Food franchise. The company size and industry also play a key role in attrition rate. An “acceptable” attrition rate for a given company is relative to its industry. It would not likely be useful to compare the attrition of Fast Food employees with a Fortune 500 company in a corporate setting. Regardless of industry or company size, attrition rate tends to be highest among the lowest paying jobs, and lowest for the highest paying jobs.

Attrition Rate has always played a role in how cash flow is affected for employee payroll.[citation needed] For example, if a company has 10,000 employees, and needs to save money on payroll, it may be wise to simply institute a temporary “hiring freeze” knowing that some people will leave the company through natural attrition, thus saving employee payroll by not replacing or hiring new employees. It could be expected that if the average employee makes $40,000 per year, and the company has 10,000 employees, a natural attrition rate could be between 1% and 5% depending on the size and industry of the company.  A rate of 5% or more for a larger company most often indicates layoffs in addition to natural attrition, early retirement, and firing.

Employee moves/attrition rate

Churn rate can also describe the number of employees that move within a certain period. For example, the annual churn rate would be the total number of moves completed in a 12-month period divided by the average number of occupants during the same 12-month period.

Monthly and quarterly churn rates can also be calculated.

Formula:

Attrition rate (%) = Number of employees resigned for the month/(Total number of employees at the start of the month + Number of employees joined for that month - Number of employees resigned) x 100