FACT: After you have an accident is not the time to find out if you have enough car insurance coverage.
Most of us don’t spend a lot of time pondering whether or not we carry enough car insurance coverage. When you originally purchased your current policy, whether online or through an agent, you probably just made the assumption that your previous coverages were enough and rolled them into your current policy. With the popularity of buying car insurance online, the danger of carrying too little car insurance coverage is becoming more of a reality for many consumers.
Buying car insurance without a complete question and answer session with a license agent, or at the very least with a company representative over the phone, is like playing Russian roulette with your financial future. Read the rest of this entry
Comparing car insurance quotes is a great way to see if your current car insurance rates are inline with other company’s rates. Car insurance policy terms are usually 6 months, so it’s a good idea to comparison shop your rates every two renewals, or once a year.
Making a fair comparison between different rate quotes can be tricky, and some companies may attempt to lower coverages to make their insurance quote appear more affordable. The rate may be lower, but in reality you may be giving up important coverages such as uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage or liability protection.
When it’s time to shop your auto insurance around, it’s crucially important that each quote you receive uses similar deductibles and coverage limits as your current policy. That’s not to say your current coverages are adequate, but in order to fairly compare rates, you need an apples-to-apples comparison between carriers. Read the rest of this entry
Affordable car insurance is an elusive concept but if you follow these steps, you have a great chance of slashing your next auto insurance bill. The key to finding the most affordable rates is to shop around and take advantage of available discounts.
How to shop around for affordable car insurance
Being a licensed propery and casualty agent, I can give you a few pointers about the best way to find affordable car insurance. The key is to compare rates from as many companies as possible, including independent agents, captive agents and online companies. There may be some overlap, since some online companies also sell via the independent agent channel, such as Progressive Insurance.
If you have access to an independent agent, that would be a good place to start your search for affordable car insurance. Independent agents write with many different companies and can do the legwork for you in comparing rates. They may write with smaller companies that don’t have large advertising budgets and you may not have heard of. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the companies have a solid financial rating. Read the rest of this entry
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
If you’re looking for GEICO discounts and lower car insurance rates, did you know that GEICO offers discounts on car insurance rates if you belong to a particular organization? It’s true!
You may belong to an organization that could get you a discount on your GEICO auto insurance. Here’s a summary of the types of organizations that may earn you lower auto insurance rates: 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.
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