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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As we come to the end of 2008, you’ll undoubtedly be making a few New Year’s resolutions. It’s the perfect time to add cutting your auto insurance premiums to the list of “to-do’s” in 2009.

Car insurance companies adjust their rates on a regular basis, and the great deal you got a year or two ago may not be the lowest auto insurance rate today.