Affordable Car Insurance Rates – Less than ten years ago, the cost of gas was under a dollar per gallon, depending on where you lived. Unfortunately, those days are gone and will likely never return. Luckily, the cost of driving an automobile has not increased all that much because the cost of auto insurance has been dramatically reduced.
Chances are, however, that you haven’t seen those savings because you’re still using the same auto insurance you have been using for the past few years. So how do you go about ensuring you aren’t paying too much for your insurance?
There are a few ways to make your insurance premium lower. The first thing you can do is to evaluate whether or not you are buying too much insurance. Less than five percent of all policies per year ever pay out more than the deductible, so by keeping your deductible high you are making your monthly premiums higher than they should be.
Additionally, if your car is almost completely paid off, you may want to look into eliminating collision and comprehensive altogether and instead just go with liability. Chances are that you’ve already paid for the entire car with your monthly premiums, so it makes sense to put that money into a savings account so if you get in an accident, you can pay for a new car with cash instead of with insurance money.
Be sure, however, to meet the insurance minimums for your state. Most states require liability insurance so if you get in an accident and it is deemed to be your fault, you can pay for the other person’s damages, which include medical and any pain and suffering they may sue you for.
On top of that, the insurance company will pay for some top-notch lawyers to defend you and your hard-earned money if the unthinkable happens.
Of course, you should know that not all companies offer the same rates. Anywhere you look, every company is claiming that you can save a lot of money if you switch to their company.
There are a lot of factors that are taken into consideration when determining your rate, so you want to check with as many companies as possible to see if you can get a better deal somewhere else.
Most companies offer a longevity discount in which you are rewarded for being a good driver and staying with them for a long period of time, however, they also increase your rates over time.
So the longevity discount may be countered by the fact that they’ve been increasing your rates for years. So the only way to know for sure whether or not your rate is the lowest it can be is to actually get quotes from multiple companies.
Car Insurance for Teenagers – How to Find the Cheapest Coverage | Affordable Car Insurance Rates
I remember paying about a hundred and fifty dollars a month for insurance on my brand new, bottom of the line Toyota pickup truck back in 1989. I drove that truck everywhere. Up to the mountains for skiing, snowboarding, hiking. Out to the ocean for surfing and camping, You name it. Anywhere a teenager free to drive the state roads and highways of California could dream of going, I went.
Eventually, I spun out on a slick, slushy and icy road on my way up to Big Bear with my snowboard in the bed of the truck. The blame falls on me for that one due to negligence because my tires were worn down and I hadn’t changed them.
It was a real bummer because I just bought tire chains for the truck less than a half hour before the crash and the mandatory chain stop along Highway 18 was only a quarter of a mile up the road from the accident spot.
Fortunately, everyone was okay for the most part aside from being shaken up and jarred around, but the aftermath was what hurt the most.
A few weeks later, I get a letter from my insurance company saying that my premium is going to go up. I called my insurance company’s customer service center and found out that some of the riders in the other car were seeking medical compensation as well even though nobody seemed injured at the time of the accident.
Nobody got into an ambulance, nobody so much as scratched as far as I could tell. One rider complained a bit about a sore shin but he was walking. At any rate, my insurance premium skyrocketed to over three hundred dollars a month.
So all that personal experience has taught me a few things:
- Make sure you buy a reliable car (I did that)
- Maintain your car well (I didn’t do that)
- Teenagers and young drivers tend to be unaware of possible hazardous situations
- Teenagers and young drivers don’t know how to handle dangerous driving conditions
- So in a nutshell, you being a teenager, you’re just going to have to come to terms with the fact that your in a high risk age group for auto insurance premiums and you’re just going to have to shop really well for the best policy.
Here’s some other things you can focus on to keep your premium down or even make it less expensive:
- Maintain good driving records.
- Drive only during the daytime since most of the serious crashes involving teenage drivers happen at night.
- Get a good student discount.
- Ask your insurance company for other available discounts like extra-curricular driving classes.
Lastly, talk to a lot of opposing car insurance companies and get quotes from them all. - Check their customer service rating and choose the best policy that suits your needs, even if it is a few dollars more per month.
Affordable Auto Insurance – Get These Unknown Truths | Affordable Car Insurance Rates
Auto insurance is necessary, everybody knows this. More especially today when accident rates are rising. Not having an auto insurance is like playing the dangerous game of Russian roulette.
You might think that you have gotten a great deal on your auto insurance policy, know this though, in a collision, one person would bear the lion share of the cost damages.
Most people think that car insurance is a lifesaver. Maybe its not.
Funny, auto insurance policies may not always help you out.
Such do happen very often and anyone who is not able to get a claim off his policy would loss lots of cash to ombudsmen. Ombudsmen are the true lifesavers and could be regarded as the policemen of insurers demanding to know why your claims are not paid. Many things can make your claims be rejected by your insurer. How possible is this.
Look very closely at what the fine print is saying.
There are terms and conditions that could be included in some policies which some customers may not take note of but are very important.
Some insurers would not pay claims if you hit a pavement or another car or have a damage arising from disobeying some traffic rules. Little damages on your car can lead to serious problems.
Your driving ability is only known to you. You don’t know that of the driver driving the car close to yours. You might be involved in an accident more than once due to no fault of yours. Your insurer would have to pay for the damages depending on your policy. This unfortunate development is likely to impact negatively on your premium.
IN the very unfortunate event that there is a third accident within a few months, it could lead to your insurer reconsidering your policy because you are costing too much money and insurers like every other business person don’t like parting with their hard earned cash.
This might make you not to be able to find another insurer to cover your risks as you could be seen as a high risk customer.
You must not misunderstand the above information thinking it would be a difficult thing to keep an auto insurance policy. That is not entirely true. You can get a policy that would save you cash.
Just keep as clean a driving record as you can and in the unfortunate event that you are involved in an accident, make sure you get all necessary information and witness report. You should also take photographs of the incident. All these will help you get your claims processed on time.
Lastly, to really enjoy lower rates, make sure you get and compare quotes from at least 4 free quotes comparison sites. You are sure to find much lower rates for an adequate coverage.
How To Verify Your Insurance Providers License Status | Affordable Car Insurance Rates
There are plenty of fraudulent businesses operating as insurance providers who are not licensed or have lots of complaints filed against them from customers. One effective way of avoiding such businesses is to have insurance provided by licensed agents only. You can verify their license and operation history by following these simple steps.
Take note of the auto insurance company name and license number. This can be obtained from the insurance documents. If this is not possible, simply call up the car insurance company and ask for these details.
It is important to always have the information of your current provider or when you are looking for options in insuring your car. Get these details as soon as you start to compare auto insurance quotes online.
Next, search for the Department of Insurance website for your particular state which contains a database of licensed insurance companies- not only for vehicles but for homeowners, medical and all other kinds of insurance.
You should be able to search for your insurance provider with one click by typing in the name or license number pertaining to the company. If the business is nowhere in the state records, avoid it completely as they may be fake or have had their license revoked.
If the online auto insurance company is registered, there is still more you can do to ensure the best coverage for your vehicle. Check the Internet for user reviews and discussions about the insurance company. A good place to start is the Better Business Bureau, or BBB, and other consumer complaints websites.
Should there be overwhelming complaints about the insurance agent, services and practice, simply keep away from it.
At this point you will have found a reputable insurance provider for your vehicle. Make another call to the business to ask some essential questions, such as whether they are a full-time insurance agency.
Avoid insurers that hire part-time, work-from-home agents because they will mostly be interested in making insurance sales rather than offering a good quality service.
You should also find out whether the individual insurance agent you speak with is also licensed. For anyone to sell insurance of any kind they must hold as a basic requirement certification from a registered school.
This ensures professionalism in their conduct because there are standards to be upheld by insurance practitioners across the country. The agent should be willing to tell you their qualifications when you ask.
Adopt these steps to make sure that you choose insurance provided by licensed agents, even for a cheap auto insurance company. You will save yourself and your family from losing money to fraudulent agents and getting poor or no service in the event of accident or compensation from the insurance provider. Protect yourself and use every resource to find licensed insurance agents in your state before you do anything.
Getting Cheap Temporary Car Insurance | Affordable Car Insurance Rates
If you want to have cheap temporary car insurance you do not have to walk into the insurer’s office or talk on the phone. All you need these days is an internet connection and to look into the computer. All you need is a car, its owner and address information, your driver’s license and basic internet skills.
Many people today are realizing the benefits of short-term car insurance and are having it. It does have some benefits that you cannot get from annual policies. First, it is cheaper, you can arrange payments depending on which term of coverage you want such as one-day, two-day, one-week, one-month, or three-month coverage.
You can arrange to pay only for the time you use the car, and not stored in the garage. You can even make payments monthly, like electric bills do. It also enables you to insure a borrowed car from a friend to use in moving things, going out of town or test driving.
You can also do this to lend your annually- insured car to a friend, and you can still have coverage. And if you are using a sports car, expect really expensive annual insurance coverage on that.
But if you insure it with short-term car insurance, you can have much more affordable payments for it as you put coverage on it as you use it. You probably do not want to use your Ferrari everyday and risk it being monitored by car thieves.
Getting short-term car insurance is easy. You just had to gather information about the car, if you own it, or borrowed. The insurer also may check your information such as driving and credit history as well. Look for insurance companies posting advertisements in the internet, and as possible, try to have as many quotes you can get.
This will help you look and compare for prices. There are a lot of insurance companies doing transactions on the websites because they are fast. You just have to send the money online too.
Most quotes came after a few hours to a day or two so do research several days before you will use the car. Check for policy limits and disclaimers’, reading them is not a waste of time. But always, choose the company that offers you the best deal.
Payment for the policy, as said earlier, can be transacted online as well. You can choose to pay the whole coverage, or to pay in several installments. Be sure to confirm your coverage and get proof through mail.