Free FACT Consumer Reports: Banking, Insurance, and Employment History

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Annual reminder for 2013. The most well known part of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act) is that you can get a free copy of your credit reports from all three major credit bureaus once every 12 months. However, there are also several other consumer databases that you should check as well which are also available absolutely free once every 12 months, and they can also have a significant financial impact. If you got one last year, you can now get another one and reset the 12 month clock.

ChexSystems Banking History
ChexSystems is a consumer information database used by an estimated 80-90% of all banks to help determine the risk of opening new accounts. Think of it as the bank’s version of a credit bureau. If a person commits check fraud or overdraws their account, it will be listed here. In addition, the simple act of opening or closing a bank account may be recorded in their database. Getting a negative ChexSystems record can leave you blacklisted from opening bank accounts at most major banks.

Get your free ChexSystems consumer report here.

Medical History Used For Insurance Underwriting
MIB (previously known as Medical Information Bureau) is run by 470 insurance companies and has a “primary mission of detecting and deterring fraud that may occur in the course of obtaining life, health, disability income, critical illness, and long-term care insurance.” They record information of “underwriting significance” for those who have applied for life and health insurance with MIB member companies. If you have not applied for individually underwritten life, health, or disability income insurance during the preceding seven year period, then you probably don’t have a record.

Get your free MIB consumer file here.

Insurance Claims History
CLUE stands for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange, and they collect information that is used to calculate your potential risk of loss and thus your insurance premiums. You can also find out about previous claims on the house you are currently renting or recently bought, even if they weren’t made by you.

The C.L.U.E. ®Personal Property report provides a seven year history of losses associated with an individual and his/her personal property. The following data will be identified for each loss: date of loss, loss type, and amount paid along with general information such as policy number, claim number and insurance company name.

The C.L.U.E. ®Auto report provides a seven year history of automobile insurance losses associated with an individual. The following data will be identified for each loss: date of loss, loss type, and amount paid along with general information such as policy number, claim number and insurance company name.

Get your free CLUE Auto and Personal Property Reports here.

In addition, you should also request your free A-PLUS report (Automated Property Loss Underwriting System), which is a smaller database that also contains information about property loss claims.

Employment History
When a potential employer runs a background check through LexisNexis (formerly known as ChoicePoint), this is the information they see. It doesn’t seem to claim be comprehensive, and they may have only limited or even no data about you, but I would still check for potentially negative data.

LexisNexis Screening Solutions Inc. provides Employment History Reports to employers only with a job applicant’s or employee’s consent. Employers utilize a variety of companies to obtain employment history information. Our files would only contain information on you if LexisNexis provided your Employment History Report to an employer.

Get your free LexisNexis employment history report here.

Tenant History
This report can be important if you are a renter and someone runs a background check on you at LexisNexis (ChoicePoint).

LexisNexis Screening Solutions provides Resident History Reports to housing providers that have the subject’s consent. Housing Providers utilize a variety of companies to obtain tenant history information. Our files would only contain information on you if LexisNexis provided your Resident History Report to a housing provider.

Get your free LexisNexis tenant history report here.

LexisNexis Full Disclosure File
You may notice that LexisNexis is involved in many different areas above. As one of the largest personal information databases in the US and a for-profit company (part of Reed Elsevier), they should just rename themselves Big Brother, Inc. You can request a “Full File Disclosure” that supposedly includes all of the information that they have on you – including public records, real estate transaction and ownership data, lien, judgment, and bankruptcy records, professional license information, and historical addresses on file.

Request your LexisNexis Full File Disclosure here. You’ll need to fill out a PDF form and snail mail it in.

This is part of my annual checklist at the beginning of each new year.

Find more in Banking, Insurance, Real Estate | 1/2/13, 12:01pm | Trackback

Consumer Guide to medical tourism

When buying a new car or even a small inexpensive object, you are probably buying guide or try to learn what others are saying, who bought the product in the past about it to make a smart shopping decision. But when it comes to buying health, you are doing the same thing? You should.
Global health was held today. The rising cost of health care in the United States has led many Americans to search for health services in other countries. There are vendors worldwide, selling health-care services, packaged in attractive and exciting packages on the Internet. And people shopping for health on the Internet the same way as they shop goods. The market is becoming increasingly important to undergo a medical tourism consumer guide before you install to your medical visit travel.
Here's a quick consumer guide for your reference when purchasing the services of medical tourism.
Medical tourism can solve your problem?
Firstly, finding the correct medical tourism to solve the problem. For most people this high price, which asks them to a local hospital due to a lack of insurance or long waiting for surgery. You may have another problem but medical tourism will help you solve that? Find out if medical tourism is suitable for you, read the facts and frequently asked questions about it.
What are your expectations from a medical procedure, are you looking for?
This is a procedure that you are looking for elective or medically indicated? Learn all you can about the medical procedure in question. This will help you answer a few questions: the right treatment for your condition; You are a suitable candidate for this processing; You should get this treatment abroad; What is physical therapy and follow-up care you need; You need an urgent procedure or can it wait, or in other words, when the right time for assistance; how much time you'll need to take off from work (which will include not only the time that you are abroad for surgery, but the recovery time after returning); and so on.
The fact that all countries are, where you can get treatment?
Check out the various international destinations that offer treatment that you require. Some countries are known to offer good orthopaedic treatment, some of their cardio-vascular surgery, some cosmetic procedures and others for their dental work. Travel and accommodation expenses add your final account thus consider these costs not only in the calculation of the expected savings, but also in selecting international destination for your treatment.
How do you smell good provider from the bad?
The Internet gave anyone and everyone has the right to sell their services, making all too easy for the consumer to land in the wrong place. When examining a specific hospital or clinic are not slick web sites offering services for sale. This, of course, this does not mean that the slick websites offering health services in the sale are not authentic. The thing that you should do your research properly on a hospital or clinic, you are looking at. Ask people around who used their services in the past. Read their clients testimonials. Learn about certification of their doctors, qualifications, training and experience. Call them and find out what equipment and technology they use. All this will give you a fair idea of the quality of health care provider. Ask for quotes from different providers and compare them. As you will notice, costs vary from country to country and from provider to provider. You should not automatically choose the one that offers the lowest prices, but should base its decision on the quality of care offered.
There are medical records?
Get all your health records in order. During the pre-consultation doctor foreign may ask your digital medical records so he can assess your condition and treatment.
You have your passport and visa yet?
Next, get your Passport if you don't have one. Any companions travelling with you also need to purchase them. Depending on the destination that you headline may require an entry visa and must therefore also apply to this for you and any companions.
Booking your transportation and lodging
Book your tickets and hotel rooms in advance. After your operation, you can recover in a hotel or resort or go traveling in a foreign State, if allowed by your doctor. However, travel or tourism should always take a back seat to your medical trip abroad.
Taking appropriate follow-up care
Finally, remember that your treatment doesn't end with your surgery. As you follow the subsequent rituals as important as your surgery. If necessary, prepare your home for recovery before leaving for the surgery, like rearranging furniture. In addition, if you even limited insurance cover, to find out if your Insurer reimburses you and how they will recover. Even small amounts can help.
Higher medical tourism consumer guide will help you make the right decisions when purchasing foreign medical assistance. To facilitate your work, you can use the service provider medical tourism to research, plan, organize, schedule and book your medical travel journey. Medical tourism providers like Healthbase connect you to the Hospital of your choice and give you and many other services related to this saves precious time, resources and money.
You can learn more about medical tourism, international healthcare workers and details of the medical tourism http://www.healthbase.comlogged in. Healthbase is medical tourism facilitator, pledged to provide inexpensive high-quality medical services to the global health of the consumer.