Cheap car insurance - is it real using telematics

We have to start off with the reality that there's no "one black box fits all sizes" rule for drivers. Yes, these are clever pieces of kit that do measure some of the aspects of how well we drive. For example, it remembers how fast we drive (not always a good thing), how quickly we accelerate, how sharply we brake, and whether the car leans over alarmingly when we go round bends. Now let's come to the reality of everyday driving. Are you really going to hold to the 40 speed limit on an empty section of dual carriageway? Are you able to avoid creeping over 70 on a motorway? This takes superhuman powers.

Then have you ever found yourself in the wrong lane and, with that left turn coming up fast, you need to push past the car inside you, then corner tightly? Or has there ever been an emergency with Moggy Dog managing to eat half your rubber duck before you could intervene? That drive to the vets was like you see in The Fast and the Furious, but it saved Moggy Dog's life and there were no cameras to catch you, so it was alright. Except none of these routine driving events are understood by the dumb black box in the back. You can't lean over and whisper Moggy Dog's name in its shell-like before you start driving. All the box knows is you broke the speed limit and were a hazard to every other car on the road. Ah, and that's another thing. The stupid box has no idea whether there are any other vehicles on the road. You could be driving with absolute safety given the road conditions, but the box would tell your insurer you were a menace to navigation and your car insurance premium rate would explode through the ceiling.

So here comes the hard truth. If you drive like an ordinary human being, the chances you retaining cheap car insurance are poor to zero. Even if you drive like the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof, what seems safe to you may not seem safe to the box. The only way to guarantee cheap car insurance is not to drive when it's dark and only maintain the speed favoured by the Popemobile when carrying His Holiness to prayer.

Why Pursue a Career in Finance?

In the olden days a career in finance did not offer anything more than a back-office recording keeping job. A finance person was understood to be a record-keeping person in an organization.

However, with the evolution of business landscape, the role of finance has evolved and become more challenging. In today's organization a finance person occupies a much broader role involving decision-making, planning, controlling the financial operation of a business.

Within finance, one can find a variety of job roles that are not limited to just the accounting field. You can explore financial career options in various industries such as financial service, financial planning, fund management, regulatory compliance, trading, financial management, and so on.

These different jobs require you to have completely different skill sets, and you can choose a financial career that suits your personality and skill level.

If you are analytically oriented, you can choose a career in risk management, where your job is to measure and manage the risk faced by a bank or a financial institution. Alternatively you can also join the insurance industry as an actuary where you ass the risk of loss, and design and price new insurance products. These jobs require number crunching skills. You are also expected to be very diligent as a small mistake can turn into big losses.

On the other hand, if you are a very outgoing person and like meeting people, you may be better suited for selling financial instruments. You may want to join a bank or an insurance company, and promote their financial products to prospective customers. In a bank, you are expected to sell their financial products such as deposit accounts, credit cards, personal loans, home loans, etc. For a career in sales, most organizations provide you a thorough training on their products and common techniques for selling. You are expected to be a go-getter with the ability to close deals quickly. In most financial services institutions, you are paid a decent salary and a commission, which is based on your sales targets.

One more lucrative career option is in trading. As a trader you use your employer or client's funds to trade in financial products such as equity, bonds, currencies and currencies in an attempt to make a profit. Traders study the financial markets and identify opportunities to make profit. This is a high stress job and requires you to have strong analytical skills and a tough attitude. A career in trading also offers good salaries with bonuses and incentives linked to your performance.

The Future of Finance Jobs

In the not so long-gone past, many career advisers were advising young people seeking to start out a career to go into finance. The financial markets were doing well then, finance jobs were in plenty and MBA schools were bursting with young students seeking to build a career in finance. And the finance jobs were, of course, not limited to the financial markets. With a strong economy, finance graduates who couldn't get jobs in the financial markets and investment banks could quite easily be absorbed into commerce and industry accounting jobs. Other would get middle office finance jobs in the public service, and going was good.

Then the bubble burst.

The economy went into recession mode, the financial markets shrunk and finance graduates who had taken up jobs with investment banks found themselves facing the axe, as the investment banks are the worst affected by turmoil in the financial markets. And as if on cue, companies, in a bid to cut costs, were also cutting on their head counts, thus also shaking the fortunes of the finance graduates who found commerce and industry accounting jobs in the private sector. In the midst of all this, it seems that the only secure finance graduates are those who took up middle office finance jobs in the public sector, but even this is not fear-proof for we do not know for sure what the full effects of the economic turmoil will be on civil service staffing.

So in the face of all this, what is the future of finance jobs?

It might seem counter-intuitive to say, but the future of finance jobs is still bright, in spite of the current turmoil in the financial markets. As it were, economists tell us that the current economic turmoil is largely short-term to medium term, which is to say that it won't be with us forever. Which means that the people who chose to pursue a career in finance need not regret their choice, as better times are coming. But even before the better times arrive, the people with finance backgrounds who are currently getting laid off might not find themselves in the cold for too long.

As governments unveil the various economic stimulus plans, there will be need for people to manage the money as it goes into various sectors - which translates to some finance jobs. Of course the finance jobs created in this way will be for the best brains in finance.

And then there is the fact that all companies, like human beings, have a native survival instinct, which they are likely to find handy in these hard economic times. One survival strategies for companies in crises is to hire the experts who are likely to navigate them through the particular crises. And since the current crisis is financial, the companies are likely to find themselves hiring financial experts to help them address the economic crisis. Of course, the companies are not likely to be overtly looking for finance experts to help them address the financial crises. What we are likely to see is an increase in commerce and industry accounting jobs, but the accountants so hired are bound to be almost exclusively tasked with cost and revenue management tasks, geared towards helping their employers sail through the turbulent times successfully.

And finally the good times will surely come back again. If the history of the financial markets is anything to go by, we know that all bursts are always followed by booms.