Reputable credit counseling organizations advise you on managing your money and debts, help you develop a budget, and usually offer free educational materials and workshops. Their counselors are certified and trained in the areas of consumer credit, money and debt management, and budgeting.

A reputable credit counseling agency should send you free information about the services it provides without requiring you to provide any details about your situation. If a firm doesn’t do that, consider it a red flag and go elsewhere for help.

If you do accumulate debt, you can take steps to improve your credit history by consolidating debt and paying off outstanding loans. But be warned, applying for new credit and opening new accounts frequently can make things worse. The number of inquiries on your credit report will affect your score as a large number of inquiries on your report will make lenders think you are planning to run up a lot of debt.

Your credit history is all the information—such as credit accounts, balances due and details of your payment history—contained in your credit report. This information is collected and updated regularly by the three reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion). Your credit report also contains information about bankruptcies, overdue debt from collection agencies, foreclosures, liens and judgments. Whenever you apply for a loan or a line of credit, you authorize your lender to ask for a copy of your credit report.

Your proven ability to manage your money and meet your financial obligations is the basis of your credit score. The best way to build a solid credit score is to make a habit of always paying your bills on time in full each month. Your goal should be to build a long history of reliable bill paying behavior.

Insurance scores and credit scores differ. Credit scores predict credit delinquency while insurance scores predict insurance losses. Both are calculated from information in a credit report, such as outstanding debt, bankruptcies, length of credit history, collections, new applications for credit, number of credit accounts in use, and timeliness of debt repayment. Insurers or scoring agencies then calculate the insurance or credit score by assigning differing weights to the favorable or unfavorable information in the credit report.

Para la temporada de huracanes de 2006 el Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.) recomienda que todos residentes de las zonas costeras de Estados Unidos desde Texas hasta el estado de Maine tomen ciertas previsiones en caso de verse amenazados por la llegada de un huracán o tormenta tropical mayor en su área.

El I.I.I. aconseja que todos preparen un P-L-A-N con los siguientes pasos:

Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI) covers businesses against claims by workers that their legal rights as employees have been violated. These claims can include:

Yes. Floods, earthquakes and acts of terrorism are generally not covered.

Protection against flood damage.

Property insurance policies usually exclude coverage for flood damage. Find out from your local government office or your commercial bank whether your business is located in a flood zone. Also ask around to find out whether your location has been flooded in the past. Government projects to map flood zones may be slow to keep up with new developments.

Most people would never consider opening a business without first purchasing property insurance to cover the cost to repair or replace a building or equipment that’s been damaged due to a covered peril. But too many business owners fail to think about how they would keep their business afloat if they were forced to temporarily close. Business income (interruption) coverage also known as business income coverage (BI), can help with operating expenses during the period of restoration, and includes:

Insurance companies selling business insurance offer policies that combine protection from all major property and liability risks in one package. (They also sell coverages separately.) One package purchased by small and mid-sized businesses is the businessowners policy (BOP). Package policies are created for businesses that generally face the same kind and degree of risk. Larger companies might purchase a commercial package policy or customize their policies to meet the special risks they face.