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... for local service providers or the Federal Communications Commission for long-distance and cellular providers at (888) CALL-FCC or go to http://www.fcc.gov/complaints . Employment. If you believe that someone is using your SSN to apply for a job, call the Social Security Administration's Fraud Hotline at (800) 269-0271. Also call the SSA at (800) 772-1213 to verify the accuracy of the earnings reported on your SSN and to request a copy of your Social Security Statement. Follow up your calls in writing. Driver's license. If you suspect that an identity thief is using your name or SSN to get a driver's license or a non-driver's ID card, contact the Department of Motor Vehicles. If your state uses your SSN as a driver's license number, ask to substitute another number. Bankruptcy. If you believe that someone has filed bankruptcy using your name, write to the U.S. Trustee in the Region where the bankruptcy was filed. For a listing of the U.S. Trustee Program's Regions, go to www.usdoj.gov/ust . You should also file a complaint with the U.S. Attorney or the FBI in the city where the bankruptcy was filed. Original article by Chris Wright Edited by CompleteMarkets editorial team. Login or Register (for FREE) to gain access to thousands of other great articles. Need more reasons to join? Need insurance for you, your business or your family? Get quality appointments - Save yourself a whole lot of time & money when you use our directory of carriers, wholesalers and service providers. Negotiate lucrative contracts with carriers and wholesalers. Net result ...

... own your home, have your own business, and drive a new car. Though you are not rich, you are comfortable. It will be a shame to lose it all if someone sustains injuries by your car or at your home or place of business. You have insurance you say; you have standard auto liability insurance. The limits are $100,000 for a single person and a total of $300,000 for multiple people. Suppose you are responsible for any accident involving a shuttle taking ten people to the airport. Three hundred thousand dollars allows on average $10,000 per person. That is hardly enough to cover the emergency room fees let alone any surgery, rehabilitation, lost wages and other medical expenses. If there is a fatality, you may consider bankruptcy. Your business has a small storefront on a busy street. A middle-aged executive comes into your place of business following a rainstorm. Your floor is wet and slippery, and the executive slips and falls. He strikes his head, loses consciousness, and goes into a coma. Your general business liability insurance has the same limit as your auto insurance - $100,000. It may cover part of the hospital bill, but the official says he is permanently disabled and sues you for future wages for $1 million. Since your business is a sole proprietorship, bankruptcy beckons. Your son invites a friend over for a swim in your pool. He dives into the shallow end strikes his head and suffers traumatic brain injury. Sadly, the damage is permanent- with standard liability ...

... mortgages or dividend-paying stocks. Risk #4 : Stock Market Fluctuations. Because it's practically impossible to forecast what will happen to stocks, many retirees fall prey to major stock market losses. One major stock market downturn, and your nest egg could disappear in the blink of an eye. How to deal with it: First of all, the SOA says retirees and older workers should limit their stock market exposure. If you do invest in the stock market, be sure to diversify your stocks and spread your money among different investment classes and individual securities. This will greatly decrease your risk. You might also consider investing in financial products that invest in stocks, but guarantee against the loss of principal, such as mutual funds. Risk #5 : Disappearing Retirement Funds. If your employer declares bankruptcy, what happens to your pension? If your annuity insurer becomes insolvent, where does that leave you? Many terrible things can happen to your retirement funds but there are ways to manage these risks. How to deal with it: Before you invest your money do your homework. Find out your employer's credit rating to determine if they might be at risk for bankruptcy. Look into your insurance company's claims-paying ability rating. Of course, you are already protected from many of these risks. If your employer does go out of business, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. will insure your defined-benefit pension plan (up to certain limits.) Annuity companies are covered by state insurance guaranty funds up to specified limits which means if the insurer becomes insolvent, the claims will still be paid. Login ...

...t six years. In fact, personal bankruptcies reached a record high of 1.35 mill...

... nondiscriminatory, which usually means you must offer the same package to basically all your employees. Many other rules also apply, such as how much can be contributed. A Non-Qualified plan is much simpler, with far fewer rules to follow. But to be non-qualified it MUST be discriminatory. You must limit it to a group of management or highly compensated employees. UNFUNDED To avoid a number of unpleasant issues, such as immediate taxation to the employee and possible inadvertent classification as a qualified' plan, the plan must be technically unfunded. Unfunded' does not mean that the company cannot set aside money to pay for the future obligation. But it does mean that if the company chooses to do so, any money set aside must remain available to the general creditors of the company in the event of bankruptcy. A Rabbi Trust' is sometimes used to restrict further the way set-aside money can be used. Basically, a Rabbi Trust ensures that the set-aside money can only be used to pay for the deferred compensation obligation, unless, of course, the company goes bankrupt. In the event of bankruptcy, the money in the Rabbi Trust becomes available to the general creditors of the company. Remember, the company does not get a tax deduction for deferred compensation until the money is actually paid to the producer. Any money set aside must be done with after-tax dollars. CONSTRUCTIVE RECEIPT, ' ECONOMIC BENEFIT' The producer must not receive Constructive Receipt' or Economic Benefit. Constructive Receipt means that there must be some chance that the money might not get paid. This is usually met by specifying certain ...

... , financial or otherwise, of the Seller and the assets to be sold to the Buyer hereunder. A material adverse change in the condition of the Seller's business shall be deemed to include (but shall not be limited to) loss of Subject Accounts which, in the aggregate, produced Net Annual Commissions of more than S5,000 in the aggregate. Loss of a Subject Account shall include (i ) expiration of any insurance policy in effect for such account during the 12 months ending November 30, 19_, without the same being renewed, (ii) receipt by the Seller of notice that a Subject Account does not intend to renew its business through the facilities of the Seller when current insurance business expires, (iii) the filing by or against a Subject Account of any petition under bankruptcy or other insolvency laws or (iv) acquisition (or execution of a binding agreement to acquire) of substantially all of the assets or capital stock of a Subject Account. (h ) The Seller shall have purchased, at its own expense, the run-off or tail endorsement under its errors and omissions policy as required pursuant to section 14(z ) hereof. For the period from the execution hereof through the closing hereunder, the Seller shall (i ) continue to operate its business in the normal, usual and customary fashion consistent with the manner in which it has been operated heretofore; (ii) endeavor, to the best of its ability, to renew all insurance coverages scheduled for renewal between the execution of this Agreement and the Accounting Date; (iii) process all renewals ...

...r hand, corporate lay-offs and bankruptcies are being announced almost every d...

... mentioned earlier, unless an experienced producer generates at least $250,000 in premium, the acquirer probably can't count on the producer to grow the agency, no matter how many leads they receive. As a result, the acquirer will need to rebuild the sales force from the get-go. Does your bank have the skill to develop a successful insurance sales force from ground zero? Another skill set is technical. These skills are becoming more critical because insurance companies have lost so many people with good technical expertise. This increases the burden on insurance agency personnel — and will be critical for banks selling insurance. Suppose the insurance agency doesn't or can't (in this tough marketplace) offer adequate coverage to a commercial client with whom the bank has a loan. The client has a claim and declares bankruptcy and/or files an E&O suit against the agency/bank. If the company goes bankrupt, the bank finds itself with a loan that it caused to go bad. Based on the hundreds of agencies I've visited, I'd estimate that more than 90% of all customers have never even been offered the coverages they need, much less purchased them. When buying an agency, make sure the employees have the technical skills required to keep your clients solvent. CULTURE CLASH Cultural differences play a key role in the failure of most acquisitions. This is because the buyer's expectations, and thus the price they pay, usually depend on how the buyer relates to their employees and customers and how the buyer expects customers and employees to respond to the inevitable changes. Reactions rarely meet these ...

...redit rating, including prior bankruptcies unless job-related. Question...

... transfer ownership of an agency, the IRS wants to know in order to assess taxes. Since we've already agreed that the greatest asset in almost every agency is its customer list, the IRS predicates the tax assessment due on the transferable value of that asset. Is this taxable in the form of gain over basis, or strictly ordinary after an initial corporate tax bite? The area of ownership is ordinarily found in employment agreements between owners, as well as producers and personnel, in accordance with such distribution system configurations as independent agent or captive agent. These relationships include: A. INDEPENDENT AGENTS WITH THEIR INSURERS: The agreement states that the agency owns the expirations. The only ownership stipulation concerns an agency that's in default in payment of premiums to the insurer. However during our participation in one bankruptcy court case, the court ruled that the expirations were not the property of the insurer, but rather an asset belonging to the court. B. INDEPENDENT AGENCIES WITH THEIR PRODUCERS: There are several types of ownership arrangement, including: The agency owns all business produced by the producer in accordance with the agency-producer contract. Producers own the business that they brought to the agency in accordance with an agreement. Producers own 50% of the business that they produce while at the agency, with the agency having right of first refusal to acquire the business in the event the producer decides to leave the agency (or a greater minority percentage) . Producers own a percentage of the business that they produce over a period of time, with the agency having the first right of refusal in the event ...