Chex Systems-Why Every American Needs To Guard His Checking Account

Most Americans have been brought up to be concerned about a good personal credit rating, because of role a positive rating can play in your long term plans; purchasing a home, buying a car, getting a business loan, etc. They have also been made to understand that premier organizations that pretty much hold key to their financial futures are Equifax, TransUnion and Experian.

However, there is another organization operating “behind scenes,” that is recording information about a singular aspect of every American’s financial life, that, if you’re unfortunate enough to mishandle, can get you on their list of offenders, which will mean an almost immediate change in your quality of life. The name of this organization is Chex Systems, and information they record is your banking history, specifically, your negative banking history.

Negative banking history can mean many things, but typically following are what banks report, and what Chex Systems records in its database:

• Honoring a payment you may have made without sufficient funds (atm charge, check payment or automatic debit).
• Abuse of your atm cards, debit card, or savings account.
• Check fraud.
• Lying on your account application.

Most people reported to Chex Systems, typically fall into one of categories above, but it is still your duty to find out exactly what your bank deems as a reportable offense.

If you’re wondering what penalty is for landing in Chex Systems, I’m about to tell you.

Life Insurance Settlements-Capitalizing On Your Policies

Unneeded or underperforming life insurance policy holdings? Ever thought or heard of a financial services valuation tool and strategy called life insurance settlements? Well, if not, capital markets certainly have heard and taken notice. Life Insurance Settlement companies purchase unwanted or un-needed life insurance policies from individuals and ultimately collect death benefits. These payments are passed on to third-party institutional investors who are looking for returns that are not correlated with existing portfolios. A key component to this growth expectation is that business is conducted in a responsible manner. Poor sales practices by settlement firms could hamper growth and spark a new wave of litigation. At present, there is roughly $13 billion of total in force settlement business. While small compared to $9 trillion of individual life business on industry’s books, settlement market has grown about eight times faster than non-traditional life insurance. This growth rate differential will continue and could expand over next few decades, which will draw more attention to settlement business and senior life settlement in particular.

Here is a description of dynamics at work and a little background detail about process:

•A life insurance settlement is a transaction in which policyholders sell rights to death benefits associated with their insurance policies to third party settlement companies. In other words, this process in effect creates a secondary market for life insurance products – like life insurance settlements. The typical market for these products includes individuals over age of 65 with life expectancies of 4-10 years.