Etaoin Shrdlu

Tenants' insurance is available from any number of insurers in Thailand, but you would need to take out an annual policy and it probably won't cover your property while it is being moved by the moving company. If you have high-value items or specialized equipment that is difficult to repair or replace, you would probably have to declare them specifically on the application form. Insurers may or may not agree to cover them if they are very expensive or very difficult to repair or replace. Some of the more professional moving companies may have agreements with insurance companies to offer insurance to their customers for their goods being moved.

I wonder whether he is closely related to the Ruparelia family that has extensive business interests in Uganda and elsewhere. If so, his family is wealthy. Not sure why he would work as a receptionist, though.

In order for the mark-to-market rule to apply, one has to be a "covered expatriate". A covered expatriate is one who has an average income tax obligation over the previous five years of over $190,000 per year or over $2 million in assets or fails to certify that they have complied with US tax laws for the past five years. Failing to meet these tests, no mark-to-market or "expatriation tax" would apply.

"Riyan mentioned that his parents were “supportive” of his decision to move...." In other words, they gave him an ultimatum.

If you already have a good health insurance policy, critical illness cover might be a worthwhile addition. The lump sum benefit could be used to cover the deductible or co-pay along with things that aren't covered by the health policy. Without a health insurance policy, the critical illness by itself isn't very broad in cover and the lump sum benefits may not be adequate to address a serious illness.

Yes, a visa is necessary to transit the US. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/other-visa-categories/transit.html

A family member had a medical procedure in the US a year ago that was billed for a total of just under $100,000. The insurance company paid about $36,000 and we had a deductible/co-pay total of about $3,000. The hospital wrote off the rest. I can only assume that it was intentional over-billing in order to extract the maximum from the insurance company. I'm sure that without insurance we would have been pressured to pay the full invoiced amount. Sounds as if Dr. Adams is in a similar position, but with a high-deductible policy.

I awake for an hour or so in the middle of the night, too. There are quite a few articles on the internet about biphasic sleep. It seems that this has been a thing since antiquity. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220107-the-lost-medieval-habit-of-biphasic-sleep https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/medieval-sleeping-habits-insomnia-segmented-biphasic/621372/ Monophasic sleep might be the result of artificial lighting in the evening and fixed schedules in the morning made necessary by the Industrial Revolution, with biphasic sleep the metabolic default.

It isn't a matter of choosing to pay taxes in the US instead of Thailand. The Thai-US tax treaty specifies which country has first right of taxation. In the scenario you mentioned, in all likelihood your friend would be required to pay tax to Thailand first and then use the tax paid to Thailand as a credit against US taxes.

The glowing lights after the switch is turned off.

I think it might be the way the switch is wired. If the switch disconnects the neutral wire and not the phase, you could have this problem.

This and a few other things: https://www.mediaite.com/trump/welcome-to-the-end-of-democracy-trump-booster-jack-posobiec-vows-to-finish-what-began-on-jan-6-as-steve-bannon-cheers-on/

The name was changed to Sylvan Hotel some time back. Operating normally.

Many international schools seek to attract children from Thai families and are expecting to work with students in the early grades who don't arrive with great English skills. My children had classmates in pre-school, kindergarten and first grade who came from families where English wasn't spoken in the home. You might want to contact the schools that you are interested in from a curriculum standpoint and ask.

Perhaps consider this school: https://www.mandarin.ac.th It looks like they teach in both Mandarin and English.

I once had a similar situation with a family member who booked through a different aggregator's website and had difficulty getting a favorable response to our request. We ended up calling the airline's Bangkok office and got things sorted. Qatar's Bangkok phone number is 02 618 0400

Yes, only something like 20 percent or so are.

An interesting article about "do your own research": https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2023/12/20/why-doing-your-own-research-may-make-you-believe-fake-news/?sh=2ddae4391233

I will concede that not al muslims are Arabs, but many are: https://globalnews.ca/news/10035853/israel-hamas-conflict-islamophobia-antisemitism-canada/

A proper reportage of anti-semitic incidents would need to include attacks on Arabs and Ethiopians and their homes, businesses and places of worship, as they are Semites, too. This article seems to only mention anti-Jewish incidents.

I haven't been able to find much in the way of claim settlement ratios apart from those of Indian insurers, but I tend to agree that the total percentage of medical claims paid is probably in excess of 90 percent. It may differ a bit from market to market, but a denial rate of greater than 10 percent or thereabouts on a market-wide basis would surprise me. The Indian regulator seems to do a good job of getting insurers to be transparent. It would be nice if regulators in other jurisdictions were as good.

Even in heavily-regulated markets like the US, it is extremely difficult to obtain information on the percentage of claims that are denied or not fully paid by insurers. Here are a couple of links to articles that discuss this issue: https://www.propublica.org/article/how-often-do-health-insurers-deny-patients-claims https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/issue-brief/claims-denials-and-appeals-in-aca-marketplace-plans/ These articles mention that the denial rates can range between 2% for some insurers, to almost 50% for others. A company co-founded by the brother of Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner in one year denied 66% of claims according to the ProPublica article linked above. Given the lack of transparency on the part of insurers, and legislators' apparent unwillingness to pry open that black box, it isn't possible to determine what portion of claims are denied for completely legitimate reasons and which part are denied due to bad faith or unethical practices by insurers. The ProPublica article mentions that less than 1% of policyholders whose claims were denied appeal the denial, which may or may not mean that most denials were for legitimate reasons. While hard data on claims denial rates is difficult to come by, an insurance broker will usually know how well or poorly his clients have been treated and will avoid placing his clients' business with insurers that have poor claims-paying attitudes. Not surprisingly, insurers that charge higher premiums tend to have better claims-paying attitudes than those that charge lower premiums, but not in every case. This whole issue highlights the drawbacks of having to rely upon profit-driven private sector insurers to spread the risk of healthcare costs, especially when regulatory oversight is poor and insurers are not held accountable for their misdeeds.

IMG is a well-established insurance broker and Sirius Point is rated A- by AM Best, which is a good financial strength rating. Sirius is most likely the one that will decide whether a claim is payable. Brokers usually do not have claims settling authority. IMG should be able to help you if you have any issues with Sirius. I'm not suggesting that they can get claims paid when the illness or injury isn't covered, but they can assist with communications and understanding what is needed. IMG should also have enough commercial influence with Sirius to allow them to see things in a favorable light. One way to head off disappointment is to read and understand the insurance policy before you give the order to bind coverage. Make sure you understand your obligations under the policy, especially your duty of disclosure when completing the proposal form. Under the law of agency, an insurance broker is your agent, not the insurance company's, and should be your advocate in all matters when it comes to dealing with the insurance company. You might want to ask for a scope of services agreement or engagement letter from IMG so that you know what you can expect from them in terms of service. Good luck.

This company is a managing general agent and not a retail insurance broker. Their website states that if you make an inquiry, they will refer you to a broker that has a distribution agreement with them. I don't think it is possible to know how good the broker's service is in this instance since we don't know to which insurance broker they would refer you or which you might select from their list of "providers". They are up front with their providers, which includes the names of brokers or other agents they may work with and the AM Best ratings of the insurers that these providers use, although they do list a broker that uses an insurer that isn't rated by AM best. With the exception of Cigna Global, all of the providers listed have US addresses, so one could presume that they fall under the state insurance regulator in their respective states. This is probably better than trying to hold a broker responsible if they come under the regulation of an insurance authority on a Caribbean island or under no regulation in a Middle Eastern free zone. Cigna Global would be regulated by the PRA and FCA in the UK, so that's ok. You are probably going to be ok if you contact this company and they refer you to one of their providers, but I would avoid an insurer that does not have an acceptable AM Best financial strength rating.

A bit longer than that. In the Georgia election racketeering case in which he is a defendant, the RICO sentence is five to twenty years.