As we get into the year of 2009, we have seen that unemployment is now hovering above 7% on a national basis. One of the things that you may want to be considering if you’re working for a small, medium, or even a large employer, is exactly what you should be thinking about in case you end up getting laid off. While we never expect it to happen to us, we always need to prepare for the certainty of uncertainty.

1. Make sure you take care of all of your health items. Health insurance is one of the biggest things to be thinking about. Really knowing what happens to your health insurance plan if you get laid off. Do you understand the COBRA rules? Do you understand what the cost would be if you have to get your own individual insurance? Most importantly, if you feel that the hatchet may be coming, one of the things that I would absolutely do is to take care of all my doctor’s appointments and dental appointments now.

2. Are my insurances portable? If your employer offers them now, and you have things like life insurance or disability insurance or other programs that are kept within the system, you really want to call your benefits or human resources department and find out which benefits are portable. By portability, I mean having the ability to transfer a group plan into something that’s more individual. No matter what the cost may be to you, what you really want to understand is whether this is going to be an option.

3. What happens to your investment account at work? Let’s say that you have programs such as stock options or the company is contributing money into a retirement plan, things that may be important to you in this area. You want to know is what will happen to all of those programs should you be laid off. Will your stock options or 401(k) plans be immediately vested? Do you have a certain period of time you can exercise your stock options, or are there other deferred compensation plans that you need a little information about should you not be working for your employer anymore. What will happen with things such as stock purchase plans? It is important to check in with company policies to find out these items.

4. Make sure that you’ve got your resume ready. You should always be working on having a copy of a resume available. You never know what’s going to happen at your job, and it’s going to be real important knowing that if you have to look for a job, that you get an up-to-date resume to put out in the marketplace. In a tight job market, a good resume from a bad resume may separate the number of interviews that you have for your next position.

5. Don’t get prior management upset. In the game of business, it’s always going to be a nine inning game versus a one inning game. You never know how a former colleague or boss can help you or hurt you. You want to make sure that you don’t upset former employers because the merry go round will come around again. You never know what’s going to hit you in the future. So just make sure that you leave on positive terms.

You can’t predict when a lay off will exactly happen, so the best you can do is to get prepared. We hope this never happens to you and you never have to consider looking for a job if you get laid off from your company, but you never know, so these are just a few tips from the money guys here at Oxygen Financial to make sure that you get yourself prepared just in case something happens in terms of getting laid off.

Ted Jenkin is securities licensed through investacorp, Inc. a Registered broker dealer member FINRA, SIPC. Advisory services offered through investacorp advisory services, inc.

Contact Ted Jenkin and the rest of the expert staff at oXYGenFinancial Today.