Understanding the Importance of Mortgage Protection Life Insurance – Mortgage
Understanding the Importance of Mortgage Protection Life Insurance
Claire Bowes
Your house is a big investment - probably one of the biggest youre every likely to make. It is also the place that you and your loved ones call home; a shelter and haven from the outside world. Thats why it is so important to ensure that your home and family are protected in the event of your death. Its not a topic that any of us like to dwell on, but the sad fact is that should you die and the family are no longer able to afford repayments on the house, they will lose the property and the roof from over their heads.
Having a good life insurance policy in place to protect your property in the event of your death is vital. When you die, your family will have enough to worry about without the added stress of how they are going to hold on to the family home. Your life insurance policy will ensure that this problem is eliminated, with the mortgage balance being paid in full upon your death.
The main types of mortgage life cover
The type of mortgage life insurance cover that you require will depend upon what type of mortgage you have, a repayment or an interest only mortgage. There are two main types of mortgage life insurance cover, which are:
Decreasing Term Insurance
Level Term Insurance
Decreasing term insurance
This type of mortgage life insurance is designed for those with a repayment mortgage. With a repayment mortgage, the balance of the loan decreases over the term of the mortgage. Therefore, the sum of cover with a decreasing term insurance policy will also go down in line with the mortgage balance. So, the amount for which your life is insured should match the balance outstanding on your mortgage, which means that if you die your policy will hold sufficient funds to pay off the remainder of the mortgage and alleviate any additional worry to your family.
With the decreasing term insurance, the cover is usually taken out over the term of the mortgage, and payment is made should you die during the term of the policy. Once the policy has expired, it becomes null and void, so you will receive nothing at the end of your policy if you are still living. There is no surrender value on this type of cover, but it does provide a cost effective means of protecting your home and family during the life of your mortgage.
Level term insurance
This type of mortgage life insurance cover is for those that have a repayment mortgage, where the principle balance remains the same throughout the term of the mortgage and the repayments made by the property owner cover the interest payments on the mortgage only.
The sum for which the insured is covered remains the same throughout the term of this policy, and this is because the principle balance on the mortgage also remains the same. Therefore the sum assured is a fixed amount, which is paid should the insured party die within the term of the policy. As with decreasing term insurance, there is no surrender value, and should the policy end before the insured dies no payout will be awarded and the policy becomes null and void.
Terminal illness benefit
Both of the above types of cover normally include terminal illness cover, which means that the mortgage is cleared should you be diagnosed with a terminal illness rather than waiting until you actually die. This helps to ensure that you do not have the additional worry of trying to meet repayments when a terminal illness takes away your ability to work and earn money, and at a time when the whole family has enough to worry about without having to stress about meeting mortgage repayments.
Critical illness cover
Critical illness cover is another type of insurance policy that can be added on to either of the above mortgage life insurance polices and provides an extra element of protection and peace of mind. This type of cover can also be taken out as a stand-alone policy, but usually proves much better value if simply added on to a main insurance policy.
With critical illness cover you will be eligible for a payout in the event that you are diagnosed with a critical illness. If you then go on to recover from the critical illness, the payout is yours to keep but the policy becomes null and void following your claim. The illnesses that are covered by this type of policy are defined by the insurer so you should ensure that you check the terms when taking out critical illness cover.
Adding critical illness cover to your policy will only increase your repayments by a small amount, but can provide valuable protection if you are diagnosed as critically ill and are therefore unable to work. With your mortgage repaid from the payout of this policy, you will not have the additional worry of trying to keep a roof over your head at a time when you should be concentrating on trying to make a recovery.
Summary
As indicated by the features of the two main types of mortgage life insurance cover, the policy you go for will depend largely upon the type of mortgage you have. Both types of cover offer value for money, with some really low cost deals available. Of course, the amount that you pay will ultimately depend upon the level of cover you require. For total peace of mind it is always advisable to go for a policy with critical illness cover incorporated into it.
Having some form of mortgage life cover is essential to protect your home and your family. After working hard to buy your own property, the prospect of it being repossessed in the event of your death can be worrying both for you and for your family. A mortgage life cover policy will ensure that this does not happen, and will give your family the security of knowing that whatever happens they will still have a roof over their heads.
About The Author
Claire Bowes is a successful freelance writer and owner of http://www.a1-life-insurance-quotes.co.uk where you will find further information on critical illness, life insurance, and unemployment cover.
Password Protection with PHP, MySQL, and Session Variables – Web
Password Protection with PHP, MySQL, and Session Variables
Dan McConkey
One of the great promises that actually came true when our Internet-enabled world reached the twenty-first century is efficient customer-to-business interaction. Each day, I find a new way to go through lifes errands without ever waiting on hold for a bank teller, a pharmacist, or an insurance agent. I do it all online.
Internet savvy consumers are coming to expect such web empowerment. And while these information transactions usually require some sort of private data traveling the ether, you, as the webmaster, bear the burden of keeping that data away from those who have no right to it.
Since retina scans and brain wave signatures are still properties of James Bond flicks, were stuck using plain old boring passwords.
Is this really secure
Lets get this out of the way first. The only truly secure computer is one thats unplugged. Kind of like "the only safe car is the one that sits in your garage." Life is a risk/reward proposition and, lets face it, this probably isnt Fort Knox, were securing.
The security measures listed here are suitable for garden-variety data. Ive used these schemes to write back-end website administration pages for online shopping carts. Ive used them to write "partner" pages where retailers can download ads and sales data from wholesalers. I wouldnt use them to secure credit card numbers, social security numbers, or nuclear launch codes.
So what are PHP, MySQL, and session variables
PHP is a programming language used in this case to write HTML. MySQL is a database. Session variable are used by web servers to track information from one page on a domain to another. This article isnt a how-to for either technology. If you arent very comfortable with them, you could just copy and paste the code samples in this article and build yourself a basic password protected website. You could also just read the Cliffs notes for Pride and Prejudice and get a C+ in literature class. Your choice.
Lets get started with sessions
Its often been said that the web is "stateless", meaning that each web page is entirely independent, needing no other page to exist, and taking no information from the previous page. This is great for anonymous surfing from one site to the next, but it stinks for password protection. Consumers want password protected information, but they dont want to enter their password on every page. So we turn to our web server to keep track of a user while hes on our site.
Ex. 1.
<php
session_start;
>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN http:// www.w3.org/ TR/ xhtml1/ DTD/ xhtml1-strict.dtd>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head><title>Dan McConkeys Free Web Marketing Guide</title></head>
<body>
<p>Dan McConkeys Free Web Marketing Guide</p>
</body>
</html>
end Ex. 1
session_start is a PHP function that looks to see if a session has already been started then does one of two things:
1. If a session has been started, it does nothing.
2. If a session has not been started, it begins one.
It is important to note that session_start must occur before any other PHP on the page, if you want it to work. Begin every password-protected page with it.
Validation
Now lets think basic validation. What sorts of things do we need to accomplish
* First, we need to check to see if the user has already logged in, so we dont ask for a password on every page. If our user has already logged in, we pass him or her through to the secure content.
* If the user hasnt already logged in, we need him or her to do so. So we need to write a log-in form.
* We need next to compare log-in form results with a known list of usernames and passwords. If the user checks out, we pass him or her along to the secure content.
* If the user doesnt check out, we direct him or her back to the log-in screen.
* Lastly, we need to provide the user the ability to log out.
So lets start with a basic frame-work that well fill in later.
Ex. 2
<php
// start session if not already started
session_start;
// check to see if user just logged out
if $log_out
{
}
function write_log_in $text
{
} // end write_log_in function
function verify
{
// check to see if theyre already logged in
// if yes, return true
// if no, check to see if visitor has just tried to log on
// if yes, verify password
// if it worked, return true
// if it didnt, send them back to log-in
// if the user didnt just log-in, she needs to
} // end verify function
>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN http:// www.w3.org/ TR/ xhtml1/ DTD/ xhtml1-strict.dtd>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head><title>Dan McConkeys Free Web Marketing Guide</title></head>
<body>
<p>Dan McConkeys Free Web Marketing Guide</p>
<php
// check for valid user
if verify
{
// begin secure content
echo "<p>Clatu, verata, nicto</p>";
// end secure content
} // end if verify
>
</body>
</html>
End Ex. 2
As I said, this is just a frame-work. I like to start all my projects this way. It allows me to get a grand view of what Im doing before getting mired down in the details.
Basically, so far, all weve done is place some secret content inside an if statement. If the user is valid, we show the content, if not, we dont.
Writing a log-in form
The first thing we should flesh out is our log-in function. This is a basic form, with no bells and whistles, so it should be pretty straight forward.
Ex 3
function write_log_in $text
{
echo "
<p>$text</p>
<form method=post action=>
<p>User ID: <input type=text name=user_name /></p>
<p>Password: <input type=password name=password /></p>
<p><input type=submit value=Log In></p>
</form>
";
} // end write_log_in function
End Ex. 3
No problems, right All this is is PHP writing a basic HTML log-in form. Two things are worth noting:
1. The method attribute to the <form> tag is post. We could have used get, but that would add our user name and password to the URL as varibles. ie our_urluser_name=bob&password=truck64 . This shows the password--in plain text-- right there in the URL. Why spend all this time on security if youre just going to put peoples passwords out for display
post is much more secure, forcing the server to keep track of form data, rather that the URL. Any time you can keep information out of the URL, youre one step closer to a secure web page.
2. Next you want to look at the action attribute to the <form> tag. Leaving it blank tells the server that you plan to process these form results with this same page.
Checking the log-in values
Now lets flesh out our frame-work a little more.
Ex. 4
<php
// start session if not already started
session_start;
// check to see if user just logged out
if $log_out
{
}
function write_log_in $text
{
} // end write_log_in function
function verify
{
// check to see if theyre already logged in
// if yes, return true
// check to see if visitor has just tried to log on
$user_name = $_POST["user_name"];
$password = $_POST["password"];
if $user_name && $password
{
// verify password and log in to database
$db = mysql_pconnect "localhost", "$user_name", "$password" ;
if $db
{
// register session variable and exit the verify function
$valid_user = $user_name;
$_SESSION[valid_user] = $valid_user;
return true;
}
else
{
// bad user and password
$text = "User Name and Password did not match";
write_log_in $text ;
}
}
else
{
// if the user didnt just log-in, she needs to
}
} // end verify function
>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN http:// www.w3.org/ TR/ xhtml1/ DTD/ xhtml1-strict.dtd>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head><title>Dan McConkeys Free Web Marketing Guide</title></head>
<body>
<p>Dan McConkeys Free Web Marketing Guide</p>
<php
// check for valid user
if verify
{
// begin secure content
echo "<p>Clatu, verata, nicto</p>";
// end secure content
} // end if verify
>
</body>
</html>
End Ex. 4
First, well check whether the user has just tried to log in.
$_POST is a PHP superglobal array that keeps track of data sent to a page via a <form method=post> tag. In the log-in function, we named our inputs user_name and password, so we can access the user input by calling $_POST["user_name"] and $_POST["password"].
We next run an if $user_name && $password statement to see if both $_POST["user_name"] and $_POST["password"] hold values. If they do, the user just tried to log in.
Our next section of code is the part that actually checks whether the user name and password are correct. Here, we use MySQLs User table part of the mysql database to keep track of our users. This is, perhaps, the best route, as MySQL is already set up to control access permissions. However, this can present problems when you want to keep the database connection open across pages. Also, some hosting companies wont give you grant access let you make new users to the mysql database.
In those cases, you can accomplish much the same thing by setting up your own users table in your database. You would then need to write an SQL query that compares user names and passwords. That would look something like this:
Ex. 5
$select = "select user_name from users
where user_name=$user_name
and password=PASSWORD $password ";
$query = mysql_query $select ;
if mysql_num_rows $query == 1
{
// validated user and password
...
End Ex 5
Getting back to our validation using MySQLs built in features, we know that the user name and password checked out because the connection attempt returned true.
Registering a session variable
Now that we know our user name and password check out, we need to store that information and allow our user to continue surfing our protected area without logging in each and every page. Looking back at example four, we notice another of PHPs superglobal variables: $_SESSION.
$_SESSION is an array that holds all of our session variables. By setting the valid_user session variable, we can later make a call to ession_is_registered "valid_user" to see if our user has already logged in successfully.
Logging out
The last thing we have to attend to is allowing our users to log out of our system. In this case, weve used a simple link inside our protected area.
Ex 6
<php
// start session if not already started
session_start;
// check to see if user just logged out
if $log_out
{
session_unregister "valid_user" ;
session_destroy;
session_start;
}
function write_log_in $text
{
} // end write_log_in function
function verify
{
} // end verify function
>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN http:// www.w3.org/ TR/ xhtml1/ DTD/ xhtml1-strict.dtd>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head><title>Dan McConkeys Free Web Marketing Guide</title></head>
<body>
<p>Dan McConkeys Free Web Marketing Guide</p>
<php
// check for valid user
if verify
{
echo "<p><a href=log_out=1>Log out</a></p>";
// begin secure content
echo "<p>Clatu, verata, nicto</p>";
...
End Ex 6
First, looking in the HTML body, we see a simple HTML link that adds a variable to the URL. In this case, the variable name is log_out and its value is 1. We use 1 as a value because its easy to store in a URL, but really any value greater than zero will work.
Once we pass a log-out request to the page, we need to process it. Thats what the if $log_out part is for.
The if statement checks if a log-out request was passed. Once it sees that one was, it unregisters the valid_user session variable, then it destroys the session entirely.
Ironically, it starts a new session right back up. Thats in case the user decides to log in later without closing the browser window, or log in as a different user.
The final code
Putting it all together we get this:
Ex. 7
<php
// start session if not already started
session_start;
// check to see if user just logged out
if $log_out
{
session_unregister "valid_user" ;
session_destroy;
session_start;
}
function write_log_in $text
{
echo "
<p>$text</p>
<form method=post action=>
<p>User ID: <input type=text name=user_name /></p>
<p>Password: <input type=password name=password /></p>
<p><input type=submit value=Log In></p>
</form>
";
} // end write_log_in function
function verify
{
// check to see if theyre already logged in
if session_is_registered "valid_user" return true;
// check to see if visitor has just tried to log on
$user_name = $_POST["user_name"];
$password = $_POST["password"];
if $user_name && $password
{
// verify password and log in to database
$db = mysql_pconnect "localhost", "$user_name", "$password" ;
if $db
{
// register session variable and exit the verify function
$valid_user = $user_name;
$_SESSION[valid_user] = $valid_user;
return true;
}
else
{
// bad user and password
$text = "User Name and Password did not match";
write_log_in $text ;
}
}
else
{
// user must log in
$text = "This is a secure server. Please log in.";
write_log_in $text ;
}
} // end verify function
>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN http:// www.w3.org/ TR/ xhtml1/ DTD/ xhtml1-strict.dtd>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head><title>Dan McConkeys Free Web Marketing Guide</title></head>
<body>
<p>Dan McConkeys Free Web Marketing Guide</p>
<php
// check for valid user
if verify
{
echo "<p><a href=log_out=1>Log out</a></p>";
// begin secure content
echo "<p>Clatu, verata, nicto</p>";
// end secure content
} // end if verify
>
</body>
</html>
End Ex. 7
Thats a pretty hefty code block to put at the head of every web page. Typically, I would put my verify and write_log_infunctions into a seperate file and reference them with an include function. That provides the added benifit of updating your entire website by editing one file only.
Hope that helps.
Copyright C 2005 Dan McConkey
About The Author
Dan McConkey is a freelance web marketing professional, working in and around Charlotte, NC. In the web, Dan has found an amazing potential for lead generation for businesses. Using traditional advertising theories, appropriate technologies, and a little common sense, your electronic marketing campaigns can easily be your most effective.
Dan maintains Dan McConkeys Free Web Marketing Guide at http://www.dmcconkey.com
dmcconkey@yahoo.com
Legal Protection for Same-Sex Couples – Legal
Legal Protection for Same-Sex Couples
Johnette Duff
Has anyone considered a compromise solution to the issue of legalization of same-sex marriages
As an attorney who has spent years conducting research on the advantages and disadvantages of marriage vs. living together, my viewpoint is a legal one, unobscured by religious or moral questions. Legal recognition of a status for these couples is called for, as is their current need for self-help in making the laws work for them while they are still in flux.
Traditionally and legally, marriage has been defined as a union of a man and woman. Changing that definition is at the heart of the problem. Marriage, throughout history, has had more to do with procreation than romantic love or legal convenience. This legal definition and the issue of procreation have both been used to bolster the denial of the right of same-sex marriage.
What same-sex couples need, and should have, is the ability to form a legal relationship. The semantics used to describe this relationship should not matter as much as the rights and duties arising from it. Denial of these rights is the discrimination same-sex couples decry. We should not forget that only during the last generation was the denial of the right of marriage to members of different races overturned. The law is meant to serve the needs of the members of society - including same-sex couples.
My compromise solution is a law which allows same-sex couples the right to a legal relationship without the hot-button title of