If you suffer from migraines or another headache disorder that causes you to miss work like I do, you may be concerned at times, regardless of how great your health insurance benefits are, about losing your job. You’ll be happy to know that the Federal Courts have just made things a bit easier on us who must often take a leave from our jobs.

The U.S. Court of Appeal for the Third Circuit (which covers Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the Virgin Islands) recently held that courts must listen to an employee’s own words regarding his or her illness or disorder in determining if he or she is too sick to return to work under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

FMLA requires employers of 50 or more employees to allow workers up to 12 workweeks each year – unpaid – to take time off from their jobs to care for ill family members or themselves if they should fall ill. The FMLA provides employees with the security of not being fired or disciplined, or being subjected to adverse action because of a medical leave. The employee, of course, must have a physician certify their illness initially; however, the 3^rd Circuit holds that lay testimony (that of the employee’s in regard to his or her own illness or medical condition), in combination with the testimony of medical professionals can establish that the illness is serious enough to justify the worker’s leave of absence.

This decision was made after Rachael Scharr, a medical receptionist, went to her doctor with a severe urinary tract infection. She testified that she was unable to return to work for the extent of her absence. She should have been protected from retaliatory firing under the FMLA after her physician wrote a note stating that Scharr would not be at work for two days, and that it was “possible although very unlikely” that she would be able to return to work after three days’ time. She was absent from work a total of four days; two days she had previously scheduled as vacation days (for which she had been approved). She was subsequently fired six days after she returned to work.

Schaar took Lehigh Valley Health Services to court over the firing where the 3^rd Circuit reversed the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania setting the precedent that workers could provide testimony on their own behalf.

So, if you are unable to work due to chronic headache conditions, you may want to investigate further into the matter and discuss it with your employer. Don’t risk being fired, simply be open and let him or her know that you have rights as an employee under FMLA to retain your position despite long-term absences (assuming, of course, that your doctor agrees that you are unable to work).

Talk of “health insurance reform” is everywhere these days, but all the terminology involved can be quite confusing. If you feel you need a bit of a lesson on the definitions of healthcare insurance reform terms, the following may help:

Fee for Service – this is how the doctors get paid. Each service the doctor provides has a specific fee; this “fee for service” healthcare model has been criticized by those advocating healthcare reform.

Public Option – a proposed government choice for healthcare insurance. This is a part of the larger bill to overhaul the healthcare system that President Obama proposed in his first year of presidency.

Insurance Exchange – the Obama administration’s proposed way of helping with health insurance competition and health insurance reform. The new program is a key component in providing millions of uninsured American with health insurance.

Government Affordability Credits – credits being used to help Americans afford healthcare coverage in the health insurance exchange. The affordability credits are a way to help individuals afford the cost of mandated insurance.

Interstate Insurance – the selling of insurance across state lines. Congress has proposed interstate insurance since 2005; it is still a strong selling point for changing how and where Americans can purchase their health coverage.

Mandated Health Insurance – the requirement to purchase health insurance. This term has been used most often in the new health insurance reform legislation put forth by the Obama administration.

Pre-existing Conditions – having health issues prior to shopping for insurance. This makes finding an affordable policy a difficult task for many Americans.

Unfortunately, there are several myths that surround umbrella liability insurance:

• It is too difficult to coordinate with an existing insurance policy (i.e. your homeowners)
• Premiums are too pricey
• It is only for those who are rich (in other words, have much to protect)

These myths are just that – myths. Umbrella liability coverage is actually quite affordable, is not meant just for those who have more than the average Joe, and coordinate easily with existing insurance policies.

The term “umbrella liability” is so named as it acts like an “umbrella” over your auto and homeowners (or renters) liability policies to provide you with even more protection.

Here are some examples of when your umbrella coverage would give you the extra insurance you need:

• Someone injures themselves while on your property, then sues you under your homeowners insurance.
• An item from your property causes an accident on another’s property because of a natural disaster (i.e. a tree in your yard falls during a storm and hits your neighbor’s car).
• Someone you’ve hit with your car sues you under your auto insurance policy.

Your homeowners and auto policies do have some liability coverage that is part of your regular insurance and would assist you in settling legal claims should the circumstances arise; but what would you do if a settlement/judgment required you to pay the injured person(s) $100,000 and you are only covered with $450,000 of liability? Your insurance company would pay the $450,000, of course, but where would you get the remaining $550,000? You would likely lose everything in an effort to pay off the debt. Some states do protect certain types of assets (i.e. your home) from being taken, but there still is much to lose.

This is where umbrella liability insurance comes into play; an umbrella policy will pay over and above what your basic policy will, so you could potentially have several million dollars worth of coverage you might otherwise be without. And, truly, for the protection it offers, liability premiums are really very reasonable. You can usually find $1 million worth of coverage for just $200 or $300 a year. The cost, as with any insurance, will vary by the criteria you use, like the amount of coverage you choose and your personal risk factors (i.e. if you live in an area prone to tornados or perhaps your credit history).

Umbrella policies do usually carry high deductibles – $300,000 or more is pretty typical – but they are designed not to kick in until your other policies are fully utilized. If you opt to get your umbrella policy through the same company with which you have your auto and homeowners insurance, you will likely receive a substantial discount on your premiums; additionally, you won’t have to deal with several companies if you should ever have to utilize the policies.

It’s definitely worth considering the extra coverage an umbrella policy has to offer. After all, you never know when disaster will strike – it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

Northwestern Mutual’s Optimism Barometer – a tool, which measures the attitudes of those who visit the site and weigh in on how they are feeling about, well… life. One of the statements, for example, says “What a person has is less important than who a person is.” And, to this, you can agree or disagree on a scale of 1 – 5.

The barometer seems to indicate an upward trend in positive outlooks of American citizens, despite – shall we say it together? – the economic difficulties we’ve been experiencing as of late.

The most notable data revealed a 60% year-over-year jump in those who scored highest on the scale of optimism. This was shown by comparing the data of the first quarter of last year (2009), when just 25% of those who answered the questionnaire scored between 8 and 10 (10 being the highest score possible) and the data of this year’s first quarter; today, nearly 40% scored this high on the optimism scale.

Greg Oberland, the executive vice president at Northwestern Mutual says, “These results suggest that Americans are, in increasing numbers, accepting the reality of the ‘New Normal’ while also being able to see beyond the immediate challenges of the current economic cycle and remain optimistic about their long-term prospects. We find it encouraging that Americans appear to be widening their time horizons and bringing a long-term approach to how they pursue their goals. It’s something at the very core of what we believe in, and aim to deliver through our process; and it’s a strategy that also has broad applications beyond finances in people’s lives.”

The optimism questionnaire is very easy and takes just a couple minutes. You can see (and answer) for yourself here. The way in which optimists and pessimists answer the questions that were taken from The American Reality Study, commissioned in 2009 by Northwestern Mutual in an attempt to show how Americans are facing the social, economic, and political changes in the U.S. are actually quite distinctive.

It seems that maybe we are collectively seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and believe that light to be a relatively bright one, I’d say.

Though women have definitely made giant strides to gain equality with men in the work world, it seems we are perhaps still not quite there yet. Well, three women are fairly certain that they are not there yet, at least, as they have filed a suit against Bank Of America/Merrill Lynch for allegedly discriminating against them (for being women, that is) while they were working for the company.

All of the women worked as financial advisors, one in New York, the other two in Florida. The same legal team that represented the female financial advisors who sued Smith Barney in a suit that was settled for $33 million in 2008 is representing these three.

They are claiming bias on the basis of gender in account distribution, partnership opportunities; up-front money, pay-out rate, and other benefits of their compensation plans; as well as other opportunities for brokers to increase their income. They are charging that these violations are systemic and based upon company policies and practices, not simply the actions of particular men.

One of these three women, Judy Calibuso, has stated that she was retaliated against after she filed a complaint of discrimination with the Equal Opportunity Commission in 2007. She did this after meeting with her manager and asking for fee-based accounts; he told her he preferred to disperse them to a male colleague. All three are said to have complained internally, after which they were retaliated against.

The women are seeking class action status for their claims against the company, describing a pattern of “cumulative advantage” in which male advisors are given preferred accounts before female who work in the same positions and who are then repeatedly rewarded for their following successes. The suit blames “subjective decision making” of branch managers for this biased pattern.

The discrimination evidently – according to the women – got even worse when the merger of the individual companies of Bank Of America and Merrill Lynch took place. The women have not one giant glaring complaint of bias, but of hundreds of small slights that have added up to cause them to be at a disadvantage to their male counterparts.

At least we have come to a place where women have the right to speak out against the discriminations we still sometimes face and can trust that we will be heard and even deemed as “right” (in the eyes of the law) when we believe we don’t have to just sit back and be second banana, regardless of long-standing, traditional company policies.

The obesity rates of adults have doubled in the last three decades and tripled for children; obviously, weight has become a “huge” issue, one we can no longer ignore. Two-thirds of adults and more than 23 million children in the United States are overweight, obese, or morbidly obese, costing our country billions – yes, BILLIONS, with a  “b” – in preventable healthcare costs as well as lost productivity.

But obesity in and of itself is not really the problem as far as healthcare and insurance is concerned, it’s the health issues that follow – diseases related to obesity such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Healthcare reform has focused mostly on access to care, and, increasingly, on quality as well; those are the issues that are central to improving the overall health of Americans. Unfortunately, we have gone far too long without preventing individuals from getting sick in the first place. Obesity is not a new problem, but something we’ve watched become “epidemic” according to the CDC.

Obesity is close to overtaking smoking as the greatest single cause of preventable death in the U.S. It is already the biggest factor in the rising healthcare costs that have been central to the reform debate. With eighty percent of obese children growing into obese adults, the potential exponential growth of the problem is obvious.

President Obama created a task force to come up with action plans to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation. He essentially set out to accomplish four main objectives: Access to healthy, affordable food; an increase in the physical activities schools and communities offer; healthier food in schools; and giving parents information and tools that will help them make healthy food choices for their families and themselves.

The hope, I’m sure, is to use money in the area of prevention to alleviate its use after the damage has been done and care has become necessary. There is, after all, a direct relationship between poverty and obesity, therefore, Medicare and Medicaid already foot a great deal of the bill for costs related to obesity. The old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” still holds true – using healthcare reform dollars to prevent obesity, makes a lot more sense than paying all the costs associated with the illnesses that develop as a result.

At the risk of spurring on the pesky population that insists on using their talents for evil, not good, I’ll share with you yet one more reason you should consider purchasing identity theft protection (“insurance,” if you will). It seems that some of these criminals have recently been able to steal others’ identities by diverting individuals’ mail; they simply fill out the change-of-address card and poof! They are getting your mail along with all your account information delivered right to their door.

A recent investigation done by the New York television station WCBS found that no ID was required to accomplish this (nor were there any other real roadblocks set up to run interference if one decided to attempt this illegal activity).

Though WCBS found during their investigation that only about 100 out of the 45 million change-of-address forms filed each year are found to be fraudulent, the impact on those whose identities are stolen is huge.

This time of year, with W-2s coming and taxes being mailed out, is an especially risky period. The forms, of course, include your Social Security number, your employer’s name, and perhaps bank account information that you wouldn’t want to fall into the wrong hands.

With more than 670,000 identities reported stolen last year alone, you may want to take steps to avoid having your information taken without your knowledge.

Tips:

• Pay close attention to whether or not you are receiving mail in your name (not resident, occupant, etc.) regularly. If you don’t receive any for a few days check with your local post office to find out if a change-of-address card has been filled out.
• Get your mail as soon as it arrives in your mailbox if you possibly can. Don’t leave your mail in the box overnight. You might even purchase a sensor that will tell you from inside your home whether or not your mailbox has been opened.
• Consider getting a locking mailbox.
• Shred mail that comes to you; don’t throw away information that contains anything regarding your personal identity (Social Security number, birth date, account numbers, etc.).

It’s always best to visit a doctor when you are experiencing anxiety or extreme, unexplained sadness – only a doctor can diagnose what might be going on – but you should be aware that this can affect your life insurance rates or possibly result in a denial of your application.

Because The Centers for Disease Control says that those who suffer from depression and anxiety are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease, diabetes and asthma, and have life-altering bad habits such as smoking, binge drinking and eating, and don’t usually get proper exercise, life insurance companies may consider you at greater risk for an early death.

At the time of your policy application, a life insurance company looks at your medical records; they will generally receive a summary of your diagnosis, the treatment you’re being given, and the current outcome. Within this summary, an underwriter will look for key details if he or she sees depression or anxiety listed on the applications, which includes whether or not the applicant has been diagnosed with “chronic” or “situational” depression, anxiety, or both.

Ed Hinerman, owner of Hinerman Group in Salida, Colorodo says, “If it’s just simple anxiety and depression and they take a single medication because they lost their job or a spouse, a fair number of companies will offer preferred rates. Underwriters are looking for whether the anxiety and depression is based on a sudden, temporary life event or has been going on for quite sometime. Long-term anxiety and depression might indicate something much more serious, such as an underlying mental disorder. If the applicant has to stay on meds for the rest of their life in order to function, that would be considered long-term. They would typically get standard to plus standard rates.” He stresses that individuals diagnosed with “situational” anxiety or depression should not have difficult in getting preferred rates.

It is usually not too difficult to get preferred rates from life insurers if you suffer from depression and anxiety if:

• You keep your symptoms under control with just one medication.
• You don’t smoke.
• You haven’t missed work because of your anxiety or depression.
• You have never been hospitalized.
• You haven’t attempted or considered suicide.

The more recent your diagnosis, the more concern an underwriter will have about your affliction. The insurance company may delay your application with a first-time diagnosis of depression or anxiety, but it will depend on what the physician’s records show; what the diagnosis plan is and if you’ve been recently hospitalized are two major factors. If you go on and off medication of your own accord, keep changing types of medications, or have difficulties that lead to a hospital stay, most insurers will be less accepting of your application and may not approve you; if they do, your rates will be higher than they might otherwise be.

There are essentially three kinds of insurance available that can help you protect your business: liability, property, workers’ compensation.

All 50 states require businesses to have workers’ compensation insurance, while property and liability are not always mandatory. It makes a lot of sense, however, to protect your company with as much insurance as possible; after all, it is your livelihood.

Business Owner’s Policies

Insurance packages that offer both liability and property insurance for one premium are known as Business Owner’s Policies (BOPs). Most small and medium sized companies can attain a BOP and usually are more affordable than purchasing the policies separately.

Larger companies are typically considered a higher risk, so they don’t usually meet the criteria for a BOP. Whether or not you are eligible for a BOP will depend on the size of your premises, the limits of liability you need, the type of business you run, and the extent of your offsite activities. Your premium will be based on these types of factors as well.

Coverage of a BOP

A BOP will provide property coverage for your building as well as its contents and the property of others who bring items into your business. The policy will include standard peril – fire, theft, etc. – though certain exclusions may apply, such as flood or earthquake damage.

You will need to determine the amount of liability coverage you need based on your assets. Your liability coverage will help pay for your defense and injury or property damage should someone sue you. This policy will also pay medical expenses for individuals not employed by you who are injured as a result of your business operations.

A BOP will also cover you for business interruption and replacement costs in case your business is destroyed or you are unable to keep the business running due to medical difficulties, injury, or death. This coverage will continue to pay operating expenses – like payroll – even if your business activities have ceased.

You may purchase additional coverage for any particular risk your business may carry – for example, if you own a business that relies on special equipment, you can add coverage to protect it specifically.

Making Sure You’re Covered

Be sure you make a list of ALL your company’s assets – equipment, inventory, property – as well as how many employees you have, and any other relevant information specific to your business so you can take it to your insurance agent who can help you determine how much coverage you need.

It’s a waste of money to have too much insurance, but too little and you may find yourself in serious trouble should disaster strike!

Being convicted of driving under the influence (DUI) can pose some serious challenges when you need to insure your car. Your insurance will increase, but there are ways to find affordable insurance, even after making this kind of mistake.

DUI Forgiveness

There are some auto insurers that will forgive a first at-fault accident, but, unfortunately, there are none that will ignore a DUI conviction. There are variations of penalty, however. Some may cancel or refuse to renew your policy, which, sadly, will make two strikes against you – a DUI and a cancellation.

There are companies that will offer you insurance – at a higher premium, mind you – so it will pay to shop around. Spokesman for the Insurance Information Network of California, Pete Moraga says, “Make calls. Go on the Internet and eventually you will find a company that best suits your needs until the DUI disappears from your record.”

Several insurance companies work on a case-by-case basis and will weigh a number of factors into their decision on what premium they will charge you – things like gender, age, vehicle model, and driving history can go into their decision.

How Long Will a DUI Affect My Insurance Rates?

DUIs will usually stay on your criminal record for life, however, insurance companies will look at what’s on your state’s DMV record; when your DUI is cleared from this record, you’ll be eligible for lower auto insurance rates.

How long your DUI stays on your record will vary by state – anywhere from five to 10 years, typically. There are states in which it could remain much longer. Your local DMV will be able to give you information in this regard.