There are three different categories of sickness funds: primary funds, substitute funds and “special” funds. Some workers are required to be members of the primary funds, e.g. if they earn less than the than the income ceiling (2006: EUR 3,937.50 per month / EUR 47,250.00 per year). Those earning more than that ceiling may be members on a voluntary basis, or they may have a choice of funds. Some of them automatically become members of a particular fund for example because of their occupation (company-based funds) or place of residence (local sickness funds). Some occupations have their own “special” funds, e.g. farmers or sailors. Substitute funds are divided into two kinds: they provide health insurance to both white collar workers and blue collar workers earning more than the income ceiling. Membership is voluntary. Both, employers and employees pay half of a member’s premiums, which in 2006 averaged between 13 and 14 percent of a worker’s gross earnings up to the contribution assessment ceiling (2006: EUR 3,562.50 monthly / EUR 42,750.00 p.a.). Premiums are fixed according to earnings rather than risk and are unaffected by the respective member’s marital status, family size, or health. Premiums are the same for all members within a particular fund with the same earnings.

About eleven percent of Germany’s residents pay for private health insurance provided by some 40 for-profit insurance carriers. Many of those choosing private insurance are civil servants who want to secure percentage of their medical bills not covered by the government. Some sickness-fund members buy additional private insurance to cover such extras as a private room or a choice of physicians while in a hospital. Otherwise, the medical care provided to the publicly and privately insured is identical. In both cases the same medical facilities are used. Self-employed persons earning above the income ceiling must have private insurance. Members of a sickness fund who leave it for a private insurance carrier are not allowed to return to public insurance. As opposed to the statutory heath insurance, contributions to the private insurance depend on the member’s age, gender, occupation and health status, that is, the individual risk. Although private insurance companies pay health care providers about twice the amount paid by the primary sickness funds, private insurance is often cheaper than statutory health insurance, especially for younger policyholders without dependents. As is the case for members of sickness funds, employees who have private insurance have half their premiums paid by their employers.

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Disability insurance works within a fairly simple framework. In the event you become disabled in some way and cannot do the job that you are trained for and accomplished in, your insurance will pay you some amount of tax-free replacement income. Disabilities come in many shapes and forms, and anything from vertigo to obesity to any other condition that interferes with your ability to work can potentially make it possible for you to file a disability insurance claim. To many people, disability is a word that brings to mind hospitals and medical costs. To be certain, you may require a substantial level of care in order to recover from the injury or illness that has made it impossible to work, and having good health insurance is an important part of making it through this kind of situation with your bank account still in the black. However, it is all too easy to forget about the fact that if you find yourself in this situation, medical costs are just one piece of the financial pie. If you cannot work because of a health condition, trying to keep your home, car, and other assets can be a serious struggle without the assistance that a disability insurance claim can offer. The exact amount of money you will receive as income replacement varies depending on the kind of policy that you have, but most people who have disability insurance are insured for roughly half of their normal gross income. This kind of helping hand during the difficult period of recovery after an injury or illness can mean the difference between being able to make ends meet or falling deeply into debt. Although few people enjoy planning for a worst case scenario, spending some time figuring out how you could financially weather becoming disabled may lead you to put some important plans into place. This kind of forethought can help make a difficult period much more bearable. Many people find that knowing they are prepared for the worst helps them enjoy more carefree times; so consider taking out disability insurance for your peace of mind as well as for its other benefits.

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Large scale enterprises are not the only ones who have discovered the benefits of outsourcing their business processes. In fact, because of the leaps and bounds made by the Internet, even small and medium scale enterprises have joined the outsourcing bandwagon. As a result, they are raking in millions of dollars in terms of productivity outputs and cost savings. More often that not, these companies found in developed countries outsource their business processes to developing countries, where labor costs are way lower and where there is an abundance of people with good English skills. These countries include the Philippines, which is slowly taking a bigger share of the global outsourcing market. The global outsourcing market is divided into the Information Technology (IT) outsourcing and the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). The former kind of outsourcing was more popular in the first boom of the dotcoms in early 2000. In this model of outsourcing, multinationals have relied on the skills of IT professionals from developing countries such as the Philippines. The IT infrastructures of the companies were managed no longer by in-house IT personnel but by people whose offices are located abroad. The development of IT applications for the use of companies was among the services being used for this purpose. In addition to this, Technical support, Data center, and the management of IT infrastructure were likewise outsourced.

During the early years of business process outsourcing, only the non-core processes were outsourced. This included call centers, accounting processes, payroll management, and even the collection of receivables and payables. Upon knowing of the limitless possibilities of outsourcing, the Philippines started out in the year 2000 with only a handful of call centers and less than 5,000 employees. The global outsourcing market is not yet saturated. Actually, the industry still has a lot of room for growth and improvement. The growth rate for the market is expected to be at 43% in 2008 because of the increasing awareness among companies in the United States and Europe of the benefits that outsourcing brings. The Philippines is expected to play a bigger role in this market as the worlds outsourcing market becomes even bigger.

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