The world of car customization has gone mainstream with TV shows like West Coast Customs, OverHaulin and Pimp My Ride. But when you shell out the cash for your custom 24′s, the widescreen headrest LCD’s and the hood bling, what happens if (when) it gets stolen? Will your car insurance company pay you the actual cash value of your pimped out ride or the original shell of a car it was before you pumped 30 grand into it?

Custom parts and equipment are an often overlooked part of auto insurance, and many consumers mistakenly assume their new spinners are automatically covered by their car insurance policy. You need to know that car insurance companies settle losses on an actual cash value basis, which means they take the cost to replace your car and subtract out depreciation or “wear-and-tear”. If you tricked out your ’83 Olds, you will get paid the actual cash value of your ’83 Olds… which isn’t much. Read the rest of this entry

I thought I’d write a bit about an experience I had with Progressive car insurance. Keep in mind that I’m an independent insurance agent and I can insure my family’s vehicles with any of about 15 different insurance companies. I chose to insure my cars with Progressive, primarily because their rates were very competitive. From an agent’s standpoint, Progressive is one of the easiest companies to work with due to their investment in their agent website.

I’ve read plenty of claim experiences where consumers take delight in bashing their former insurance company. I thought I’d put this one out there as a positive experience, for what it’s worth. My wife and I were traveling down I-80 to a college football game one September morning when we were passed by a Chevy Suburban, the driver of which proceeded to veer off the left side of the interstate, over correct and slam head-on into a concrete construction barrier on the right side of the road, completely blocking my lane.

There was one vehicle ahead of us in the left-hand lane and they collided with the rear of the Suburban. I couldn’t stop in time and our Honda Accord collided with the Suburban right between the front and rear passenger side doors.  Our airbags deployed and there as an eary silence before we heard the screetching tires of a car preparing to sandwich our car with the Suburban. Luckily, the car that rear-ended our’s was about the same size and did not completely sandwich our car. Had the 18-wheeler behind that car not seen the accident and slowed down, it would have plowed through the accident and who knows if I’d be writing this today. Read the rest of this entry

Women may get the brunt of jokes from their husbands about how bad their driving is, but do insurance companies actually give lower rates to women because they are better drivers?

If you compare male and female drivers in the same age groups, female drivers tend to have fewer accidents and traffic violations as compared to their male counterparts. Men tend to exhibit riskier driving habits such as being more aggressive, driving faster, and getting behind the wheel while intoxicated. These tendancies are the difference between males and females, as males tend to vent their anger more directly than women, as well as show an increased disregard for traffic laws. Read the rest of this entry

If you’ve had a bad experience with an insurance company, how do you go about making sure other consumers don’t have the same problem? Your state insurance regulators are responsible for making sure admitted companies handle your claims fairly and to the letter of the law. If you feel you haven’t been treated fairly, you don’t have to take the insurance companies decision as final. By taking your complaint to your state insurance department, you can hold your insurance company accountable and help other insurance consumers in the process.

Most states have specific proceedures for filing complaints against insurance companies. The first step in the resolution process is to contact the company or your agent to try to achieve a satisfactory conclusion to your problem. If you get nowhere, which is probably why you’re here reading this, then it’s time to file a formal complaint with your state’s insurance regulating department. Read the rest of this entry

There seems to be an unsubstantiated fear among consumers that switching between car insurance companies is a difficult ordeal. You can switch to a new auto insurance company at any time, even during the middle of your policy term, but there are a few snags you want to avoid.

With any insurance policy, it’s easiest and cleanest to switch carriers at the renewal date of the policy. This makes it easier on everyone involved because you don’t have to worry about refunding of unused premium or a short rate penalty for cancelling mid-term. Read the rest of this entry

For the third consectutive quarter, RateWatch from Insurance.com has shown an upward trend in car insurance rates, reversing the downward trend of 2007. On average, the lowest car insurance rates for the third quarter of 2008 rose $56 over the previous quarter.

Does this mean your car insurance rates are going to go up? Not necessarily, and actually it could mean your rates are going down! The national average rate increase was 3%, with the largest increases coming in Washington D.C. (8.3%), Nebraska (8.0%), Rhode Island (7.4%), Kansas (6.6%) and Florida (4.9%). The largest car insurance rate decreases came in North Dakota (-7.8%), West Virginia (-7.0%), Wyoming (–4.5%), Alabama (-3.3%) and Vermont (-3.2%). Read the rest of this entry

The stock market has sank 40% in the past year, your 401K has probably fell a similar amount. You hear about how bad things are every day in the news, but one positive thing you can do to help your personal financial situation is to review your home and auto insurance coverages. There isn’t much you can do to bring the markets back, but you can make sure you have adequate coverages at the lowest rates available on your home insurance and car insurance policies.

People have a tendency to put off the occassional financial tuneup, thinking their coverages are adequate. But with increases in construction costs over the last few years, your home may be underinsured and you may not know it. It’s important to recalculate the replacement cost of your home every few years. Your home insurance policy may have an annual cost of living increase, which bumps up your home’s insured value automatically. If it doesn’t, however, then you need to make the adjustment yourself by increasing the insured value by an amount you are comfortable with. You agent or insurance company can help you calculate the replacement cost of your home using sophisticated replacement cost software that is continuously updated by the software provider. Read the rest of this entry