Grocery Bill|Compare Health Insurance|Health Insurance|Online Medical Insurance|Medical Insurance|Buy Medical Insurance|Grocery Bills

Ants are notorious for ruining picnics- but they can also be a huge pain in the um, rear, when they make their way indoors. That’s what my wife and I are going through now. Over the last couple of days, we have been fighting back an invasion that makes the Normandy landing look like a stroll on the beach.

If you’re going through the same problem, you might be thinking of hiring a pest control company and then filing a claim with your homeowners insurance provider to reimburse you. Well, don’t count on that plan to work. Ants, termites and other insects aren’t a peril that homeowners insurance covers. In fact, filing too many homeowners insurance claims over small problems could increase the cost of your homeowners insurance policy.

To fight back our invaders, we have deployed multiple defenses. Here are the steps that my wife and I have taken:

1. Clean, clean and clean. Keeping the floors clean of any kind of crumbs, and eventually ant corpses, seems to keep them from striking the same area twice.

2. Find where they are infiltrating your perimeter and stop their incursion. We have put down a couple ant traps where we see them coming from.

3. Search and destroy! There are bound to be a couple heroes who survive the ant trap and avoided the suction of the vacuum to strike out on their own and recon for new spot to invade. For these Rambo ants, a little spray of Raid usually ends their mission. Since we have cats, we are very careful to clean the floor after we spray anything.

Hopefully these tips will help you win your battle against the ants. If you have any tips on how to get rid of ants, please do share.

admin Insurance

Think the Duggars have a big family? On Saturday, a South African man said “I Do” to four different brides in a rare simultaneous marriage ceremony. The kicker? He already has 11 children.

Three of the wives are newlyweds; one has been his wife for 12 years.

Milton Mbhele, the 44-year-old groom, said the joint marriage ceremony was carried out to reduce wedding expenses. South African law recognizes polygamous marriages; even the president has multiple wives.

After the honeymoon is over–and once he finally memorizes the names of his in-laws–he’ll get around to thinking about life insurance. And he’ll need plenty of it.

With a dozen or so kids, four wives, a massive home (I’m guessing) and a fleet of vehicles to haul the entire family around, his financial obligations are through the roof. I won’t speculate on his financial status, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say he needs a hefty life insurance policy.

Let’s consider his expenses. First up: the cost of four wives. If Mr. Mbhele were to die from, oh I don’t know, stress, exhaustion or a mix of both, who would foot the bill for his four lovely brides? Mortgage costs, household expenses, groceries, clothing, automobile costs, health care–it’s a lot to take in. If his income were lost, they’d be on their own to maintain the household financially and support the kids.

Speaking of the 11 children, how much would they cost? Diapers, food, clothing, education, health care–kids are expensive! And once they get older, they’ll want to go to college. I don’t know what the cost of college would be for a dozen or so children in South Africa, but it costs a heck of a lot here in the U.S. And if he has more children (another dozen, perhaps?), his life insurance needs would continue to rise.

So, keeping all this in mind, how much life insurance does Mr. Mbhele need? I’d have to send away to NASA to get the final calculations (they have better computers than we do), but my rough estimate is that he will need a policy worth seven or eight figures in U.S. dollars, and probably a billion or two in South African rand. Yikes.

admin Insurance

A man in England followed the directions of his in-car GPS unit so far off the beaten path that he came to the edge of a 100 foot cliff.

Robert Jones, a professional car delivery person, followed the driving instructions of his Tom Tom GPS unit, driving a $47,000 BMW 5 series along a narrow, steep horse path, making u-turn after u-turn. Jones only stopped following the directions when the BMW hit a fence at the edge of a cliff.

It took 9 hours to rescue the car from the cliff.

Jones was found guilty in court of “driving without due care and attention” and fined $1300 and 6 points on his driving record. He later said that makers of GPS units should warn users that they are not flawless. (The owner of the horse path said he won’t even take his own horses on it because it is too narrow.) Quite miffed at the fine and the points on his driving record, Jones added that “people who drive without insurance get smaller penalties.”

While GPS units are useful, relying solely on them for driving directions is not a good idea. Kevin Clinton, of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, said: “Driving requires concentration and focus and road users should remember that they are the boss, not the [GPS].”

This is just another reminder that a GPS is not a replacement for a map–or common sense.

Related Stories

Can GPS Devices Help Your Teen Become a Better Driver?

admin Insurance