CBG Group Looking To Buy Corporate Insurance Brokers

LONDON (Dow Jones)--U.K. insurance broker CBG Group PLC (CB.LN) Tuesday said it is hoping to carry on its buy-and-build strategy in 2010 by acquiring corporate insurance brokers as potential vendors become more realistic on pricing.

Speaking to Dow Jones Newswires, Group Managing Director Mike Askew said the Manchester-based firm will continue to focus on buying businesses in the northwest of England, adding that there are "tremendous opportunities" to buy small corporate insurance brokers.

Askew said there are no plans to raise money from investors at the moment as it has enough headroom in its banking facilities, adding that any acquisitions would likely have a share incentive included too.

Company Web site: www.cbg-group.co.uk
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Premiums Aren't Going Down Under Obamacare

"When it becomes law, families will save on their premiums," President Obama declared in his weekly radio address before Christmas, pitching his health care reform.

If you've got health insurance, get ready for higher premiums.

If only that were so. Nobody who tracks health insurance sees any sign of softening premium prices for people who already have insurance, Obamacare or not. Premiums for 2010 were up 10% and are predicted to keep growing at the same rate in coming years.

Health insurance is beginning to resemble air travel--where deep-pocketed business passengers subsidize penny-pinching vacationers. Insurance companies, under the measures in Congress, would be forced to take all comers, young and old, healthy and sick. Over ten years they would confront $871 billion in spending on uninsured and newly subsidized customers, costs that would be passed along to the young and healthy. The federal government isn't going to pick up all of that tab. So those now insured through a private plan at work or one bought individually will have to chip in.

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Know your alternatives > Corporate Insurance Plans

4 Reality Checks For Your Finances

A few simple calculations can tell you whether you're doing fine or staring at debt disaster. And be sure to see how your peers are handling their burdens as well.

"It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept." -- cartoonist Bill Watterson

People in debt often fool themselves about how bad things really are. They think they can afford their obligations if they're able to swing the minimum payments. Or they assume their credit card bills are about average, when in fact they owe way more than the norm.

Many carry these illusions to the brink of disaster, realizing only too late how deep a hole they've dug for themselves.

Even if the truth won't set you free immediately, it should give you the motivation to stop digging and start paying off your debt -- or to get help if you're really in over your head.

* Compare your credit

To that end, here are four money ratios you should figure out so you really know where you stand.
Leverage ratio
Leverage ratios, which measure total debt against total assets, are used in investing to evaluate relative riskiness. The higher a company's leverage ratio, the riskier that company is as an investment.

The same holds true for household finances.
Learn How To Calculate Your Leverage Ratio.

Obama Reads Letter To Insurance Executives To Shame Them

President Obama walked in today on a closed-door meeting between Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and top insurance industry executives, and read the executives a letter from an Ohio woman whose case he thought demonstrated why the industry needs more regulation in the form of a comprehensive bill.

The letter Gibbs described from Natoma Canfield, 50, talked about how she'd been cancer-free for 11 years but nonetheless had last year paid $6,075 in premiums and about $4,000 more for medical care, co-pays and prescriptions, and her insurance had paid out only about $935. Then she was informed her 2010 premiums would go up 40%.

Sebelius is asking insurers to provide actuarial data justifying large rate increases.

Expect to hear the president to talk a lot more about that letter in the coming weeks as he travels the country to whip up support for Democrats to pass a health care overhaul on a bare-majority vote.

Here's the text:

Dear President Obama:

I am 50 years old. I was diagnosed with carcinoma in-situ 16 years ago and following my divorce 12 years ago I became self-employed. After my Cobra ran out I was able to find costly, but affordable health insurance. As a responsible individual, I have struggled to maintain my individual coverage and have increased my deductible and out of pocket-limits in an attempt to control my cost and keep my health insurance.

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