Bills, loans, fees and expenses that exceed your income will lead you into debt. You try hard to repay these loans and bills, but in the end, you usually end up taking extra loans with the hope of covering these loans. Eventually, the only option you used to have lies in seeking the help of financial advisors like that found in debt consolidation companies and debt settlement companies.
A debt consolidation loan is a loan which is meant to cover all the debt that you have. All the loans and credit card debts that you have are merged into this one debt that loan. The advantage of a debt consolidation loan is that instead of paying off all the individual creditors you have, you just have to make a single payment to the debt consolidation company every month.
It is then up to the debt consolidation company to make payments to your creditors with the money that you hand over to them. This way, you do not have to face the nagging and questions of your creditors as it is the debt consolidation company that meets them.
In the realm of debt consolidation loans, there are two varieties: the secured and the unsecured loans. A secured loans means that loan has something backing it up in case someone doesn’t pay. This “something” is called collateral. Think of collateral as being similar to a security deposit that one has to put give when they rent an apartment. But instead of one month’s rent, the collateral can be one’s house, car, boat, or bank account. Generally with a secured debt consolidation loan, one can borrow as much as one needs as long as the debt consolidation company is provided with some form of collateral.
So what happens if one doesn’t pay a secured debt consolidation loan? If by the end of the loan term the loan is not paid off, then the debt consolidation company can seize one’s collateral. However in exchange for this collateral, one usually gets a lower interest rate and higher loan amount than an unsecured loan would.
As one can now surmise, the unsecured debt consolidation loan, unlike its counterpart, has no collateral backing up the loan. As a result, the interest rate is much higher than if the loan that was secured. Usually the debt consolidation company winds up loaning an amount that is less than what one has requested. This way if the loan is defaulted upon then the debt consolidation company does not stand to lose as much money. They are essentially protecting themselves from loss. The higher interest rate is also an example of the loan company protecting themselves. Because they assume a higher risk they expect a higher return.
However from a borrower’s perspective, it is less risky to have an unsecured loan than a secured loan because while they may not get as much money as they need, they are not jeopardizing their home, car, or whatever else they used as collateral should they fail to pay their loan.
