If you’re thinking about insuring your vehicles with Allstate car insurance, there are a number of discounts that you need to be aware of before buying. Even if you currently have an Allstate car insurance policy, you may be missing out on discounts that can save you quite a bit of money on your auto insurance bill.

So whether you are comparing rates with your current carrier, or even if you’re currently insured with Allstate, follow these tips to make sure you’re maximizing the discounts available from Allstate. Read the rest of this entry

Finding cheap car insurance can sometimes be time consuming and even frustrating. As consumers, we’re constantly bombarded by car insurance advertisements and it can be difficult to make an informed decision.

Two of the larger car insurance companies in the U.S. are GEICO and State Farm. GEICO is well known for it’s catchy, somewhat quirky ads, and State Farm is well known for being a large multi-line insurance company.  GEICO and State Farm sell car insurance in two slightly different ways. GEICO sells car insurance direct to consumers via it’s website or over the phone. State Farm on the other hand, relies on it’s network of captive agents to serve the needs of communities. 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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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

There was an interesting article posted on Insurance Journal today about a Wisconsin family who had a UIM claim denied. You can read the article here. I’m not going to go into the details of the case, other than to say they had multiple personal auto policies, one of which had lapsed, the other had no UIM coverage. The father’s semi tractor was insured on a commercial auto policy and did have UIM coverage, so a claim was submitted on the commercial auto policy when the son was injured by an underinsured driver while he was riding in the family’s car (remember, that policy lapsed). Read the rest of this entry

As winter weather grips the majority of the U.S., hopefully you’ve already taken the time to make sure your car is winterized and ready for the harsh conditions. We frequently check our tire pressure, our battery and make sure we have an emergency roadside kit in our trunk, but how many of us take the time to do a winter-time car insurance checkup? Read the rest of this entry

Buying car insurance online has transformed the way auto insurance is advertised, sold and delivered. Your only option used to be calling or stopping by your local insurance agent’s office. Advertising was much more location-focused with large companies attempting to push the consumer to their local representative.

Nowadays, advertising efforts are directed at getting the consumer onto a website or calling an 800 number and buying insurance direct from the company. Buying car insurance online is as simple as browsing to any number of online auto insurance websites, but is it for you? Are you comfortable enough with what you know about car insurance to make your own decisions about deductibles and liability limits? Read the rest of this entry

If you own a “classic” car, which could be considered anything over about 25 years old, you could save money on your car insurance by buying specialized classic car insurance.

There are two ways to find insurance for your older vehicles. The first is to check with your current insurance company to see if they have a rating classification for classic or antique autos. This rate will be significantly less than a pleasure use rate, but it may also come with some mileage or usage limitations.

The other way to insure your classic car is to use an insurance company that specializes in insuring restored vehicles. Their policies have unique coverages that may not be available with an ordinary car insurance policy. Here’s a breakdown of some of the categories of classic vehicles you might want special coverage for: Read the rest of this entry

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

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