Posts Tagged today

What is Financial Education For the 21st Century?

The answer might surprise you. It requires looking at peoples’ attitude to wealth creation. You see, most people today rely too heavily on others to take care of their finances and investments.

This practise of passing on responsibility for your own financial health is danger laden because the vast majority of people hire commission driven financial planners/advisors who are mainly interested in lining their own pockets. Who can blame them, they’re just doing their job.

If you currently hire a financial planner/advisor, have you ever thought to ask about their financial success? Surely only someone who has attained success themselves is truly qualified to advise you on the topic. I mean, if you wanted information on overseas travel, would you ask someone who had just studied overseas travel or the person who has actually been overseas? Pretty obvious isn’t it?

After all, if your financial planner is promising to get you rich, why aren’t they rich? Wouldn’t you want an advisor who has already created their own financial success before trying to advise you? Hmm, something to think about.

Based on the statistics 95% of us will be retiring on less than $35,000 annually. This tells us something isn’t working. The current wealth plan isn’t working. There is a critical need to self-fund our retirement now and it’s blindingly obvious that our so called financial ‘experts’ aren’t doing such a good job at growing our money for us.

Financial education for the 21st century involves being a little more active in your own finances and educating yourself on wealth creation principles. How good will it feel when you can confidently look after your own wealth accumulation process and know you have control over your future instead of praying that someone else will look after your money.

Let’s be honest, the only person who cares the most about your money is you. In the current financial climate it is more important than ever to take a more active role in your own financial education.

Today, you must step up to the plate and bat for yourself, it’s the only way to get where you want to go plus it’s a whole lot more fulfilling.

Using Social Networking Sites For Health Insurance

What is social Networking?

As paraphrased by the encyclopedia, social networking deals with the building of online communities. These online communities generally consist of individuals that share a common interest or activity and are interested in sharing that with others. Most social networks are web based and have several ways for individuals to interact.

Other forms of social networking have been around since personal computers began in the form of online bulletin boards (BBS’s) and forums. The unique thing about social networks today is that a network an individual belongs to can be made public to others. In other words, one individual can link his or her associates with another that can expose and share his or her associates.

List of social networking sites for health insurance

The advent of true networks began with a site called Six Degrees in 1997. Based on the theory of six degrees of separation, it linked users in a way we are familiar with today. Other major sites of this type include: My Space starting in 2003; Linkedin starting in 2003; You Tube starting in 2005; Face Book starting in 2005; and Twitter starting in 2006. Although none of these is specifically designed for health insurance, you can find health and health insurance related information discussed within them.

Advantages of social networking sites for health insurance

Health reform is taking place now and people have lots of questions. The focus, now, is on fighting over what policies and options should be. But, as an expert in the field for many years I can tell you that regardless of the type of health reform that ends up being law, consumers will need to take more responsibility for their own care. I support reform and believe only good can come of it. But, currently, consumers have no idea of the knowledge they will need to posses to help get good care. This can be a major advantage for social networks. Consumers can learn and educate themselves through the experience of others. The information can be shared almost instantly. It could also be a form of informal health exchanges. The possibilities could be endless.

Disadvantages of social networking sites for health insurance

The main problem with passing information through social networks is that it is vulnerable to rumor and misinformation. This is true with the internet in general. Currently, few real experts actively participate in many of these networks and misinformation is often left un-challenged. Without proper education and knowledge, networking about health could be more trouble than it is worth.