Cavalcade of Risk #94 - Alert Level Edition

Welcome to the Cavalcade of Risk #94. As the name indicates, this Carnival is about risk - e.g. insurance, health, financial, and other types. Thank you to all bloggers who made a submission to this Cavalcade. (For reference, the number seem to be 1/2 normal, meaning either Blogcarnival is malfunctioning, holiday shopping is taking priority, or there is just less risk in the world today :-) I enjoyed reading every one of the articles. While every post was a great submission, I only included those I judged primarily related to risk management.

For your reading entertainment, I have grouped the articles into five levels of risk, using the Homeland Security designations: Green, Blue, Yellow, Orange, and Red.

And now on to the Cavalcade ...

Green Alert - Low Risk

Tom @ Canadian Finance Blog presents Insurance You CAN NOT Do Without posted at The Canadian Finance Blog, saying, "A look at a few insurance policies that you CAN’T do without."

For our situation, we've learned that the necessity of insurance also depends on life stage. Since taking early retirement in my forties, I have dropped life and disability insurance. I do continue my retiree health insurance, which will continue to be important as we grow older, along with the requisite vehicle and homeowner's insurances.

Jeff Rose presents Why Term Life Insurance is the Best Choice posted at Jeff Rose, saying, "Life insurance is the foundation of a smart financial plan, particularly when there are family and loved ones who depend on a person’s financial support ."

Blue Alert - Guarded Risk

Nancy Germond, ARM, AIC, ITP presents Wage and Hour Suits Heat Up for Heath Care Organizations posted at AllBusiness.com - Risk Management for the 21st Century, which offers some tips to reduce the risk of employment litigation for hourly workers. An important read for employers who let workers continue "off the clock."

Steve Faber presents Preventing Identity Theft - The Next Level posted at DebtBlog which shares a number of tips to reduce the risk of identity theft happening.

Yellow Alert - Significant Risk

June Tree presents Leveraged ETF Investing: More Risk With More Reward posted at The Digerati Life, saying, if "you feel that you can afford to take on some risk to give your portfolio that extra nudge, then there’s a way to leverage by simply relying on the right stock picks you make. By using a little money to make a lot of money, you’ll be able to 'leverage' what you already have. This is possible with a type of exchange traded fund called a leveraged ETF."

My experience is been there, done that, and won't do it again. To me, tracking risk is a major issue of these Ultra ETFs.

Jason Shafrin presents Taiwan’s National Health Insurance System posted at Healthcare Economist, saying, "How does the Taiwanese government handle health care risk for their population. With their innovative National Health Insurance Scheme. The Healthcare Economist gives more details on Taiwan's NHI."

Financial Tales presents A Tale of Two Titans; Financial Tales posted at Financial Tales, which shares an interesting approach for determining an investor's risk tolerance. It's a simple test of choosing among the returns from four different portfolios, over a 21 month period.

Orange Alert - High Risk

Henry Stern, LUTCF, CBC presents Food Pyramid Update: Brew vs Cancer posted at InsureBlog, saying, "Summary: Hey guys: Want to reduce your risk of prostate cancer? Beer's the way!" The post also notes that it would take 17 beers to get the risk reduction benefit, which would probably significantly increase my risk of falling down :-)

Louise presents Reform Worth the Costs at Colorado Health Insurance Insider, saying, "Because individual policies are medically underwritten in Colorado, and because our family is healthy, the individual option is quite a bit less expensive than a group policy would be. If the health care reform bill makes it through the senate and ends up becoming law, that will probably change. We’ll still have a few more years of the status quo, but in 2013 we’ll likely see significantly higher premiums for those of us who are healthy and buy our own health insurance. The difference in premium between a group plan and an individual plan for our family will likely be much less than it is today, due to both the increased benefit mandates and the end of medical underwriting that is expected in the individual market."

Unlike Louise, I have low confidence in politicians developing good, cost effective, sustainable long term health care solutions, but that would be a topic for a different carnival ;-)

Red Alert - Severe Risk

Super Saver presents Avoid Risking Catastrophic Downsides for Low Upsides at My Wealth Builder, saying "I've learned to never do anything that is unsafe, even if the risk of danger is extremely small. The reason is that there is very little upside, e.g. a few seconds saved, versus a catastrophic downside, e.g. losing a limb or life."

That concludes the 94th edition of The Cavalcade of Risk. I hope you enjoyed reading this carnival as much as I enjoyed editing it.

This is not financial or risk management advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

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