General FAQ

Sherman and Associates, Inc. is located at 681 Encinitas Blvd. #314, Encinitas, CA, 92024. We may be reached by phone at (760) 634-1700 and toll-free at (800) 776-6651. Faxes should be sent to (760) 634-1992.

Useful email addresses:

Orders can be placed via the phone or email. We will work with you and your insurance company to set up the handheld computer or PC software according to your loan and credit insurance specifications.

That's a great question! The price is determined by the complexity of the programming involved and the quantity purchased.

The time needed to process an order is approximately one week after all necessary information has been received.

We always keep you advised of the status of the order and you can always call or email to inquire.

Perhaps the most frequently asked questions we have received, over the years, relate to the difference between the interest rate used to compute loan payments and the Annual Percentage Rate, or APR, in the Truth-In-Lending disclosure required on all consumer loans. Many people think that, in the absence of finance charges other than interest, such as service charges and prepaid finance charges, which will affect the APR, the interest rate and the APR should be the same. This article explains why that can be true, but is usually not the case.

The APR is designed to provide, as an annual rate, a measure of the true cost of a loan. It's purpose is to enable consumers to do comparison shopping of overall finance charges, regardless of how individual lenders compute their loans. To calculate an APR, we need following data from a loan:

1. The dates and amounts of all advances of amounts financed made by the lender to the borrower.

2. The dates and amounts of all repayments made by the borrower to the lender.

From these "cash flows" back and forth, the APR can be computed. Note that the calculation of APR does not require knowledge of the method of computing interest that the lender used, or any additional fees the lender might have imposed on the borrower. These are all reflected in the cash flows.

There are two kinds of APR, Actuarial and U.S. Rule.

Actuarial APR

The rules for computing an actuarial APR are specified in Appendix J to Regulation Z, along with numerous samples. These rules include a special calendar method, commonly called the "Federal Calendar", for counting time between cash flows, as well as how loans are to amortize. We could calculate payments for a given loan using Actuarial APR as the interest rate, following the calendar and amortization rules that define the method. Even so, these payments would still differ from those computed by the standard interest methods in use today. You see lenders do not generally use the Actuarial method in computing loan payments. It is for this reason that we cannot expect the disclosed actuarial APR to match the interest rate, for the vast majority of loans.

U.S. Rule APR

Regulation Z also allows the lender to disclose an APR computed according to the U.S. Rule. This rule forbids the capitalization of interest during the amortization of a loan, but does not specify the calendar method to be used in counting time between cash flows. Many lenders employ the U.S. Rule method to calculate their interest accrual, but different lenders can use different calendar methods for counting time. If a lender discloses a U.S. Rule APR and uses the same calendar method to compute interest, the APR and interest rate should be the same, providing there are no contributions to finance charge other than interest.