Car insurance can be expensive, and the last thing consumers need in a depressed economy is to throw hard earned dollars down the drain. You can insure for less by knowing about auto insurance discounts that may be available from your insurance company.

Multiple Vehicle Discounts

If you own more than one car, truck, SUV or minivan, you can receive a discount on all vehicles on your policy by insuring them with the same company. Even if one of your vehicles is older and you carry liability-only coverage, the cost of insuring that vehicle may be more than offset by a multi-car discount.

Multi-line or Multi-policy Discounts

Insurance companies want all your insurance coverage, both for increased revenues and also for proper risk protection, and they will give you a discount on your insurance for insuring your cars, home and recreational vehicles with them. The savings can be substantial, so if you currently have your insurance coverage with multiple companies, it may pay to quote your coverage with the same carrier. Read the rest of this entry

GEICO and Allstate are two of the more recognized car insurance companies in America. Each year they spend millions of dollars are spent on print, television and internet advertising in an attempt to lure you into one of their car insurance policies.

Have you fallen for their advertising tactics? Are you a current customer of GEICO or Allstate? If so, why did you move your auto insurance business to one company over the other? Was it the cute little gecko, the allure of Allstate’s stand, or did you tune out all the advertising gimmicks and base your decision on an apples-to-apples car insurance comparison quote? Read the rest of this entry

New tests conducted by the Institute for Highway Safety have rated the Chevrolet Silverado 1500, the Dodge Ram 1500 and the Nissan Titan pickups poor for side impact crash protection.

The Ram, equipped with standard side air bags, earned the second-lowest score of marginal. The Titan and Silverado received the lowest mark of poor when tested without optional side air bags.

When optional safety equipment was added, the Titan’s rating improved but the Silverado still received a poor rating. The results were the same for the GMC Sierra 1500, which is the twin vehicle of the Chevrolet Silverado.

The top safety picks were the Honda Ridgeline, the Ford F-150 and the Toyota Tundra. All units tested received good ratings for frontal crash tests. For more information on the tests conducted by the Institute for Highway Safety, visit their website.

Since Colorado moved from a no-fault auto insurance system in 2003, drivers involved in auto accidents have often found they didn’t have the medical payments coverage they needed to pay for treatment of their injuries. A new law for 2009 requires car insurance companies to automatically add $5,000 of medical payment coverage to every Colorado car insurance policy.

Sounds good, right? Here’s the catch. The coverage costs approximately $60 a year and is automatically added to your Colorado car insurance policy. If you don’t need this coverage, you can simply sign the opt-out form and the coverage will be removed from your policy. But how many people actually read their auto insurance policies? Read the rest of this entry

These are trying economic times and simply turning on the television can put you in a state of depression. You may be a casualty of a layoff at work, a downsizing or a flat out firing and you still have to pay that stack of bills that are piling up on your counter. The temptation to cut your car insurance coverage to save money may end up costing you more in the end than it saves you today.

You may be tempted to raise your auto insurance deductibles to save a few hundred dollars on your car insurance, but is this really a good idea? Let’s take a look at the benefits of both scenarios. Read the rest of this entry

Progressive Insurance has some changes coming to their car insurance policies that may lower your car insurance bill. Drivers will now be rated by averaging the driver risk across all the vehicles on your policy rather than on a specific vehicle. The changes include:

• Household Averaging Driver Assignment – This change means drivers are averaged across your vehicles instead of rating a specific driver on a specific vehicle. Occassional driver status will be taken into consideration when factoring these rates.
• Occasional Operators – Drivers age 25 or less who drive your vehicles less than 50 percent of the time will get a lower rate as long as they are not rated as a principal operator on any vehicle on your car insurance policy.
• Minor Child Discount – Drivers on your policy for at least 12 months who are 19 years or younger and children of the named insured will receive this discount.
• Distant Student Discount – Students who live at a school more than 100 miles from home and do not have regular access to your insured vehicles will get this discount.

Read the rest of this entry

If you haven’t noticed GEICO’s new advertising campaign, you haven’t missed much. I don’t know how much they paid their advertising agency to slap a pair of google eyes on a stack of cash and build a commercial around it, but it was too much. The new GEICO car insurance commercials are almost as annoying as Travelocity’s gnome commercials.

The commercials do have a catchy sound track in the remake of “Somebody’s Watching Me” and GEICO offers a free download of the song on their website. Will a stack of dead presidents help GEICO sell more car insurance? Only time will tell. I won’t say I miss the gecko, but I will say GEICO should dump their expensive advertising agency and hire the two brothers who made the Doritos Super Bowl commercial. Now that was good entertainment.

Insurance is a personal matter and finding the right insurance agent is an important decision. Licensed insurance agents are trained to help you analyze your insurance needs and make coverage recommendations based on your personal or financial situation.

With so many TV commercials, newspaper and radio ads and unsolicited mailings to your home, how do you decide which insurance agent will best serve your needs? Here are a few ways to make sure the agent you choose fits the bill.

Captive Agent or Independent Agent?

Captive agents represent one insurance company and can only provide you price quotes and financial services from their one contracted company. They cannot “shop around” your insurance coverages with other companies. Examples of captive agents are State Farm agents, Farm Bureau agents and most Allstate agents.

Independent agents are appointed with multiple insurance companies and can quote your coverage with many different companies. They are not obligated to place your coverage with any particular company, and the choice is up to you. Read the rest of this entry

Progressive Insurance Company has a new car insurance program called MyRate which allows drivers to opt-in to save money on their Progressive auto insurance bill.

When you sign up with MyRate, you receive a wireless transmitter which plugs into the diagnostic port of your car. The little device constantly transmits your driving habits and mileage to Progressive, and if you are in fact deemed a safe driver, then you may see savings of up to 60% off your car insurance. Read the rest of this entry

State Farm’s announcement that it will no longer be writing property insurance in Florida will not affect the availability of car insurance for about 2.8 million Florida customers. The pull out only impacts homeowners, renters, condominium owners, boat owners and business property owners.

For existing State Farm policyholders, this will mean a transition into a new insurance company over the next year or so as their policies are non-renewed. The hardest hit will be the State Farm agents in Florida, who will have to focus on car insurance, life and health insurance and other financial services offered by State Farm.

Florida consumers can get information from the Florida Department of Financial Services at 1-877-693-5236.