Articles Posted in Employee Benefits

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When you look at which employee benefit is the most valuable you have to look at more than convenience. Yes it is great to have health insurance that lets you worry about getting healthy rather than paying the doctors’ bills but are you really getting an amazing deal with health insurance offered by your employer? Studies have shown that over thirty percent of people who have medical coverage through their employer are actually paying more than they would if they found their own policy elsewhere. People assume that having legal service plans provided through their employer is a less valuable benefit than medical coverage. However, if you compare the two there is a clear cut winner and that is pre-paid legal services at Countrywide. The reason this is the clear cut winner is because it is impossible to get the same kind of service for the same price without using prepaid legal services.

If you have to deal with any legal matter, personal injury, divorce, bankruptcy, foreclosure, buying a home, identity theft, legal documents, or anything else then you are going to need the assistance of an attorney. Without the assistance of an attorney you could be putting your financial wellbeing in serious jeopardy. However, signing up for legal service plans through your employer just so you have access to an attorney at all times is not the main reason why you would want this benefit. The main reason you would want this benefit is because there is no possible way you will find a better deal financially for the assistance of an experienced attorney.

The way Countrywide works is that it gives you unlimited access to a network of qualified, reliable, and experienced attorneys who specialize in the field you need assistance in. Rather than searching through the phone books to find someone all you have to do is tap into the network that is available to you at all times. And what is the cost of this great resource? You do not have to worry about that because prepaid legal services are covered through small payroll deductions. The shock is that these small payroll deductions are actually much smaller than that of medical coverage yet people still think that the best benefit to have is health insurance. Some skeptics may also believe that you will not need legal assistance as much as you will need medical assistance and they may have a point. However, ask anyone who has recently gone through a rough divorce what was more expensive for them the past year, their health care or their attorney’s fees? The answer may surprise you.

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People make the mistake of labeling anyone who has needed to declare bankruptcy in New York as someone who has lost their job. The fact is that over forty percent of people who declare bankruptcy still have their job; the problem is they no longer make enough money to support themselves and therefore have to declare bankruptcy. You cannot declare on your own and there are too many legal matters to address. There are dozens of things that can play a part in declaring bankruptcy while you still have your job. A spouse loses their job, interest rates on loans sky rocket, you are being sued, you have suffered from identity theft, your savings was drained due to poor investing, and so many more possibilities. Finding the right legal help is important but it will not be cheap. There is a lot of work that needs to be done and if you are unable to find the right representation this matter can grow even more complicated for you.

This is why people who have prepaid legal services offered through their work have an easier time filing for bankruptcy than those who do not have some type of prepaid legal services. The numbers do not lie; the majority of people who have pre-paid legal services offered directly through their employer are able to have all legal matters taken care of within half the time when compared to those who do not have this service offered to them through work. Another interesting fact is that this service also is much cheaper than if you are forced to find legal assistance on your own. The way Pre-Paid Legal Services at Countrywide works is that it is an employee benefit offered through your human resources department. That means it is paid with small payroll deductions which makes payments much easier on you. Also rather than having to find your own attorney which can sometimes feel like playing pin the tail on the donkey with a phone book, you are connected to a vast network of qualified, certified, and experienced attorneys. The great thing about this network of attorneys is that you will have access to someone who has direct experience in the area you need help with. So if you need to file bankruptcy, you will have a bankruptcy attorney to help you. These services cannot be beaten if you are searching for help on your own, and there is no way you will find more affordable legal services.

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Superior, happy employees are a business’ greatest asset. Sure, a good business might look like a well-oiled machine, but if one crucial part stops working, the entire mechanism is halted. It goes without saying that not enough importance can be placed on valuing employees who work toward the organization’s common goal. Pre-paid legal services can help you show your value.

As an employer, you already offer your employees a great benefits package. You make sure they and their families can get affordable, quality health care. Heck, you might even make sure they get vacation time so they stay super-charged and efficient at work. Why not, then, include a valuable legal services package in your employees’ benefits program?

One in two couples will divorce eventually. In Pennsylvania alone in 2009, there were 121,242 reported car accidents, 87,126 of those resulting in injuries. Just these two common situations alone cause a significant amount of strife in an employee’s personal life. When an employee starts to worry about solving and paying for any legal issues that shall arise, they start to become a broken link within the organization.

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If your human resources department in Baltimore, Maryland offers you the benefit of prepaid legal services you should consider it. You may think about the fact that you have never needed an attorney’s service in your entire life and that is why you are not interested in the benefit. However, if you really think about it there have been plenty of times when you really did need an attorneys services but you decided not to use one or decided to try and do it yourself because the cost was too great. How often have you had a ticket you had questions about, or were curious about setting up a will or other documents and you just couldn’t bring yourself to pay those high prices for an attorney, especially one you knew nothing about? This happens to everyone and the sad part is, you are doing things on your own and hope for the best. That’s not the way to go and there is a solution to this problem. Countrywide Pre-Paid Legal Services will give you the best legal assistance possible at the lowest price possible.

The way prepaid legal services work is that they are paid by very small payroll deductions. This benefit is much less expensive than others like health insurance or financial planning. Once you are signed up you have access to a huge network of attorneys who specialize in various fields like; divorce, bankruptcy, foreclosure, identity theft recovery, legal documents, wills and trusts, and much more. Finding a qualified attorney in any of these fields on your own will be very time consuming because you have to go through a large number of attorneys before you find the one who fits your needs the best. Then you have to worry about the cost of consultations and especially the cost if you need to go to court. With legal service plans you do not have to worry about anything of the sort. You simply look at the qualified attorneys available to you via the network, contact which one specializes in the field you need their assistance in and everything will be taken care of. Also, these are not over the phone attorneys who live in another state. These are local, qualified and experienced attorneys who will assist you with any legal matter you have and they will get the job done for you. The benefit of legal service plans will save you time, effort, and especially money when you have to deal with legal matters. It’s better to have a professional available to assist you with these matters rather than try and handle them yourself.

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There is a great opportunity in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and other parts of the country to purchase a home for a great low price, and there is a way prepaid legal services can help if you have access to it. Due to the foreclosure problems many people are facing today, banks are willing to let properties go for a third of the price they were originally sold for or even less. Interest rates are low, and even though they are playing a little hard to get, banks and lenders are desperate for your business. If you have a solid credit score, quality history of income, and cash saved up for the down payment you should have no problem getting approved for a loan. However, there are always some problems that come up when you are talking about buying a home that is in foreclosure. Are there unpaid taxes, utility bills or other liens on the home that have to be taken care of by the new owner? What are your rights as far as having the home inspected for damage prior to making an offer? These are questions you need to have answered and you will probably not get those answers from the bank.

This is where you would want the help of an attorney and if you already have legal service plans available to you from Countrywide Pre-Paid Legal Services you are ahead of the game. The reason pre-paid legal services are so great is because they are an employee benefit that is paid through small payroll deductions and it gives you access to a network of qualified attorneys who practice in many legal areas. So if you did not have prepaid legal services offered through your employer and you needed to consult with an attorney about buying a home in foreclosure you would have to find an attorney, pay high rates, and wait for them to get back to you. With legal service plans the cost is already covered, you can find the right attorney within a matter of minutes, and they give you immediate and free consultations for many legal issues including real estate law. The benefit is not only helpful and free, but it can save someone countless hours of having to find a qualified attorney on their own and consult with them. The process of buying a new home, especially when it is in foreclosure, is very time consuming and the more help you can get to speed up the process while also saving money is a great deal for anyone.

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If you needed an attorney today what would you do? Probably open up the phone book and start searching ads trying to decide who to call. Your first concern might be the cost of a face to face visit or knowing how truly “qualified” this attorney is. Another concern would be availability, are you going to be an important client or one of several thousand who have sent in their check but are still waiting on that phone call. That’s not help, that’s taking your money and making you wait in line. The worst part is the fact that you had to waste so much time finding this attorney and waiting for them to assist you that chances are you had to take time off from work. So now you’re suffering more, and your company is suffering because you are not doing your job. From a company’s standpoint they need you to get back to work as soon as possible but this is a legal matter you cannot ignore.

This is a situation where both sides, employer and employee, would greatly benefit from prepaid legal services like the ones offered by Countrywide Pre-Paid Legal Services. The Pittsburgh phone book is loaded with attorneys in every field but how do you know which one to call? Wouldn’t it be great if your company offered benefits that save you the time needed to find such an attorney? Wouldn’t it be even better if you didn’t have to worry about the price of a face to face visit because that has already been covered in affordable and small payroll deductions? This isn’t just a hypothetical situation, this happens every day. Throughout Pennsylvania, thousands of people have to come in late, leave early or even miss an entire day’s worth of work in order to find an attorney for their legal matters. That is a serious waste of time and money.

Pre-paid legal services will not waste your time and certainly will not waste your money. It is a valuable resource which is at the disposal of the employee. When someone has a legal matter they need assistance with they can tap into a network of highly qualified attorneys who can help them with any issue. These attorneys are not just available via phone; they are available for face to face meetings and can save you a lot of time, making it easier for you to get back to work.

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Everyone is well aware of the value of company benefits offered to employees. Retirement plans, health and life insurance, dental insurance, and other benefits are valuable assets to employees due to the fact they help them save money and add to their base salary. The costs of these services can be staggering if you work for a company that does not offer these benefits. This is why companies that offer benefits to their employees are more attractive to work for than companies that do not offer such benefits.

Another benefit which is a valuable asset to employees and employers is prepaid legal services. This service allows an employee access to a network of attorneys. This network is comprised of attorneys who specialize in all areas of the law and are qualified to handle all legal matters an employee may need. Some of the areas of law include: real estate, wills and trusts, family, traffic, general, identity theft,and much more. All attorneys go through an extensive credentialing process to become part of the network.

Regardless of the reason why someone would need an attorney the cost is still high. That is why having pre-paid legal services is a priceless benefit. An employee can save thousands of dollars on legal services. They can also save countless hours trying to find an attorney who specializes in the area they need assistance in. There is a common misconception that you can use online tools to find out important legal information. While this may work with something like filing your taxes, when it comes to serious matters like real estate, wills and trusts, family planning and much more, you need to have a certified attorney helping you. However, these services are not only beneficial to the employee but to the employer as well. Most times the legal plans are offered on a voluntary basis with the full cost is paid by the employee through payroll deduction.

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Gas prices show no sign of stopping their climb. This fact, coupled with the ever-increasing presence of personal technology infiltrating every aspect of life makes it easier to shop and pay bills online from your home or the office. Sure, the internet is convenient, but what is the cost of using it?

In some cases, the cost might be your very identity.

According to a study conducted by Javeline Strategy & Research, 8.1 million people are victims of identity theft every year. Though privacy protection has increased, the bad guys are equally as savvy -often, they are even more savvy than those developing the privacy protection strategies themselves.

Each case of identity theft ends up costing $37 billion every year. On an individual level, that amounts to approximately $631 per case, as reported by Fox Business. The toll that identity theft takes on credit can sometimes take years to correct. Of course, the emotional toll that such a crime takes on an individual is hard to measure. In some cases, financial loss is not the only risk.

As Kristen Hamill details on CNN.com, sometimes identity theft can turn violent. Frankly, it is no wonder that even more home invasions do not occur as a result of identity theft, since the information that cyber-savvy crooks get often details financial assets, employment location, and most scarily -one’s home address. Hamill’s article details the unfortunate death of two victims of identity theft who were killed by the thief.

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Children’s clothing, hair salons, expensive leather high heels, and other women’s clothing. For Collin Jeffries, the aforementioned all showed up on his credit card statement like normal purchases. The only problem? He is a 24 year old man from Philadelphia, who sports a shaved head and has no children. Jeffries was one of the over 70 million Sony consumers who had their personal information revealed via internet hacking criminals looking to steal identities.

In the previous part of this two part blog post, we detailed a story that has been plastered across news outlets over the last few months -Sony’s PlayStation Network and PlayStation Store’s lack of property online security. This failure to keep up with ever-savvy internet hackers on Sony’s behalf has wrecked havoc on the company and their customers. Customers, who were using the above mentioned Sony products in order to stream media online, paid for it by entering personal information like credit card numbers and addresses.

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Last week, we detailed the ways in which identity theft can strike anyone. As the blog described, living in a lesser known location like Allentown, PA does not mean one is any less susceptible to the crime than a person living in a very urban area like Philadelphia.

Identity theft is awful not just because it is a crime, but because it is a crime that so often takes place right in your own home! Often, we hear tales of one having an identity theft crime committed against themselves involving faulty internet security, or even when a criminal preys upon mail that was not thrown away properly. Unfortunately, the criminals who commit identity theft have found new ways to target and attack their victims -one way, as a security break with a major electronics company has shown us, is through video gaming capabilities.

Video games are not just fun for children anymore. Many adults use gaming consoles to unwind and to stream the internet to download and enjoy not just games, but music, television shows, movies, and more, right on their televisions. Of course, such a luxury comes at a cost, which often involves the electronic transferring of credit card and other banking information. One would think that because video game consoles turned online media centers have become so popular amongst the public and major retailers, the connection when paying for the service would be secure -unfortunately, as a recent Sony case shows us, one is always vulnerable.

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