Ways to Save on Automobile Insurance

Believe it or not, you can get a good deal on your auto insurance if you shop around and take some steps that you may have not considered. An insurance agent gets commission on the more insurance you buy for your car such as collision, comprehensive, uninsured motorists, bodily injury etc. Americans love to shop around and drive a few extra blocks to save on gasoline, but yet they aren’t shopping around for their auto insurance. A survey conducted by Progressive Insurance found that 58 percent were unlikely to shop for auto insurance and 29 percent said that they haven’t shopped for coverage in more than five years. Don’t just go with the ad that you saw in the yellow pages or the company that your family uses, check it out for yourself and do a little shopping around. 1 - Get married. 2 - Take a defensive driving course. 3 - Ask about membership discounts. Insurance companies will conveniently forget to offer you a discount in their best interest. 4 - Install a car alarm 5 - Pay six months in full, twice a year rather than financing the premiums. 6 - Buy a car with safety features such as anti-lock brake system, alarm and air bags. 7 - Move to a better zip code. Areas where there are more uninsured motorists and more accidents get hit with higher rates. 8 - Keep your driving record clean so that your insurance company is never tempted to raise your rates. Your Financial freedom is our Goal For a completely confidential debt consolidation and budget analysis, call A New Horizon Credit Counseling today! Let our Certified Credit Counselors help you get a handle on your budget and pave the way for a strong and secure financial future. CALL TODAY - 1-800-556-1548 — Been in creditcounseling and New York Credit Counseling business for over 14 yrs writing articles and information for several sites.

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Ways to Save on Automobile Insurance

Reducing Your Car Insurance Coverage Rates

Knowledge or educating yourself on auto insurance rates and policies is one of the best ways one can go about reducing how much they spend to get coverage. As always the best place to begin searching for any information on any industry product is by looking for information that is relevant to you. Therefore when it comes to researching your insurer, information on your insurer products, rates, discounts and any other information will go a long way in helping you know whether you are getting the best deal from your insurer or not. Firstly, you will need to be familiar with how your insurer works out a coverage quote or a premium charge. Always look at the detail on all policy and premium documents; many people have got themselves trapped in a contractual arrangement because they did not read the fine print in the contract details. Most significantly try to understand thoroughly the financial details and what will be your obligations. Be sure to understand clearly what are their terms and conditions and what penalties they have and at what point you will lose your cover if you are in a tight spot financially and you find yourself unable to meet your payments. You should also try to work out all payment plans and possible nonpayment financial scenarios to see what your financial position would be like under different circumstances. Working out possible payment and nonpayment scenarios should not only be limited to your current insurer you can also do the same analysis on the policy of different insurance providers to see which car insurers coverage has the best results. — Here’s a tip… Most people know that the Best Way To Get Cheap Car Insurance is to compare insurance rate quotes. I’ve done some research for you and found the CarInsurancePlace.com to have lowest and most accurate car insurance rates. Click this link and enter your zip code, you could save over $500.

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Reducing Your Car Insurance Coverage Rates

Problems when renting a car

At one time or another, we have all walked into a car rental office and met with one of the counter staff on a mission to hard sell insurance. It’s like a knee-jerk reaction. See customer, sell additional insurance. The most common add-on is called loss damage waiver (LDW) and that can seriously boost your daily rate. So what is this mystery product and should we think about buying it? Well, let’s start off with a few of the basics. LDW is a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card, covering you if you put a dent in the body work or run the car off a cliff. No matter what happens, you’re off the financial hook. Most people own a vehicle of their own, have an insurance policy, and work on the basis this will cover them when driving a rental. But the $64,000 question is what cover you carry over. Let’s start with the deductibles. To get the lowest possible premium on the regular policy, most people opt for the highest deductible. They reckon they are careful drivers and can afford to self-insure the first $1,000 of any damage. Except this does not quite square with the pricing policies of rental companies. Most seem to have in-house body shops paying top rate for repair personnel or use the most expensive independents. Although you might buy the cheapest possible replacement parts, your bill from the rental company will come in at the top end of expectations and add on the much-feared “loss of use” charge. This is their estimate of the daily loss of profit caused by not having the car available for rent. And, guess what. The rental company does not feel under any pressure to get the car back on the road. Suddenly, your deductible has gone and you find your own policy does not cover the loss of use charge. But you’re still not panicking because you remember your credit card company offers some kind of back-up insurance. Now’s the time to read all that small print, i.e. before you rent the car. The terms often fall into the so-called secondary insurance market. In theory, this covers you for those heads of claim not covered by your own car insurance. Except the world never seems to work out quite the way you expect. What works on the Gold and Platinum cards may not work on others. Auto insurance is never an exact science but there are one or two simple rules. If you are only renting for one or two days, it’s probably better to buy the LDW because any claim you make does not show up on your own policy and you avoid any premium hike. But there comes a point when the daily rate is too big a hit. Now you are gambling you will not have an accident that takes the rental car off the road for a long time. The reality is the daily rate for loss of use probably will not fall under your own auto insurance and may not fall under the credit card secondary cover. So just make sure you only have minor accidents. — Amazed by the professional approach with which David Mayer explores the subject of the article? Visit http://www.findyourautoinsurance.com/problems-when-renting-a-car.html to read more articles from David Mayer in which he shares his point of view on many other topics.

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Problems when renting a car

Rating the insurance companies

Has it occurred to you that it’s not very fair when insurance companies start poking around your life. They want to know how well you drive your vehicle, what you have in your home worth protecting, how likely you are to fall sick and, most cheerfully, when you think you’re going to die. There’s no part of your life they don’t investigate and build into their models for deciding how much to charge you as a premium in your latest policy. So you retaliate. Instead of blindly picking a company out of yellow pages, you use a site like this to get comparative quotes from all the best companies. You then start poking around in their lives. Are these companies financially strong? Will they still be around in a few years time to pay on your claims? You want to choose the best company to insure you whether it’s auto, home, health or life insurance. Why bother? Look around you. Banks and large insurance companies like AIG have been getting bailouts from the federal government. Checking out the financial strength of an auto insurance company is necessary before you start paying them your hard-earned dollars. So where do you look? There are a number of companies that make their living by rating the performance of other companies. Some are general. So, for example, Standard & Poor rate the whole range of commercial enterprises including those in financial services (see their website at http://www.standardandpoors.com). Others are more specialized like Fitch and A.M. Best which have the insurance industry as their primary focus (see their websites at http://www.fitchratings.com and http://www.ambest.com/). You should also find the website operated by the Insurance Department or Commissioner of Insurance for your own state. The best states not only operate a complaints service, but publish an annual report identifying all the companies against whom complaints have been upheld. This gives you a good measure of how the companies actually deliver on their advertised services. Then you should ask around all your family, friends and colleagues at work. Check out what the word-of-mouth is on the companies you are thinking about giving your auto insurance business. The everyday experience of these people is a vital source of information. Slightly less reliable are the “complaint” or consumer report sites. Most of the people who put up reports are motivated by revenge. They have had poor service and want the world to know about it. Many commercial sites that depend on commission by selling auto insurance add their own “better” reports to balance out the bad. Read both good and bad with a skeptical eye. When you have rated the auto insurers, decide which one gives you the best value terms and buy. — With over 10 years working as a professional journalist David Mayer has contributed many interesting materials to http://www.autoinsurance-guidance.com/auto-insurance-tips/rating-the-insurance-companies.html that many users around the globe regard as a benchmark for professional writing.

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Rating the insurance companies

Things Your Auto Insurance Agent May Not be Telling You-00-274

Many a salesman has kept quiet about something in order to clinch a deal. Nobody lied to you about anything, but some things were just left unsaid. Unfortunately, these things may have influenced your decision, making it your right to know. Here are a few things not frequently mentioned by auto insurance agents: 1. Your credit score has an effect on your premium. If you have a bad credit rating, you are considered a higher risk in general, and you will pay for it. 2. The value of your vehicle is not the deciding factor that determines your premium. The likelihood (according to statistics) that your car can be stolen, or be involved in an accident, as well as any safety devices (or lack thereof) will influence the calculation. 3. After having been involved in an accident, you vehicle diminishes in value. In fourteen states, you are allowed to claim compensation from the insurance company for the loss. 4. If your car was totaled in an accident, you are not simply compensated according to market value. Firstly, the physical condition and mileage is taken into account, and then a search is done to find the lowest replacement quote in the area. That's what you get paid. 5. IN twenty eight states the insurance company is responsible for paying the sales tax on a replacement vehicle if yours is totaled. These are things nobody wants to talk about, especially during a sales pitch. Most people find out the hard way, but by that time nothing can be done about it. The only way to get all the details is to learn as much as you can, and compile a list of questions for the next salesman. The next time you have to make a choice, you will be much better prepared, and capable of making a better choice. — Need to make some choices regarding auto insurance? Visit us today for discussions around Car Insurance . You may also want to visit our site on Financial Matters Click here to read more on insurance . Courtesy of: Content Poster

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Things Your Auto Insurance Agent May Not be Telling You-00-274

Bad credit risk, bad driver?

This is a good year for drivers in California. Way back when in 1988, Proposition 103 received more than enough support from voters to pass. Basically, voters wanted car insurers to set rates based on the driver’s record and the number of miles driven. Three years ago, the Commissioner for Insurance introduced new rules prohibiting the use of ZIP codes as the primary factor for determining car insurance rates. These rules came into force July 14. This is one battle won for consumers’ rights. The war goes on. Zip codes remain a dominant factor in other states. Similarly, insurers also check out your credit score. Almost every company seems to think that people with low credit score make bad drivers. So what’s going on? Well, it’s all about how to define risk. All the factors go into the melting pot. How old you are, where you work, where you live, whether you own or rent your home, whether you own the car outright or have a car loan, what make and model of car, and so on. This personal information is included in your credit history. It gives the companies a snapshot of who you are. Is it fair to look at this information? Unfortunately, yes. Just as a loan company wants to know more about you before making the offer of a loan, car insurance companies want a better idea of whether you take care of your financial affairs before agreeing to pay out if you get in a traffic accident. The first step in setting the auto insurance rate is whether you qualify for any discounts. For example, most companies offer discounts if you can pay an annual premium rather than by monthly or half-yearly installments. Then comes the math work. There are statistical methods to determine the risk of you getting in an accident. If you’re a late payer who gets into trouble with liens and mortgages on your property, if you rent rather than own, you may not take as much care of your property as others. Add in lack of consistency in employment and multiple lines of credit getting close their the maximums, and you’re considered a higher risk driver. It may not feel fair. It probably isn’t completely fair. But that’s the way insurance credit scoring works. So, before you go online for your next car insurance quotes, check out your credit score and, if necessary, repair the score. The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you the right to get free copies of your credit reports. Use that right and get your credit score into shape before getting quotes. — If you are interested in the point of view expressed by David Mayer, visit http://www.allstatescarinsurance.com/bad-credit-risk-bad-driver.html for more of his professional writing on a whole array of topics that relate people all around the world.

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Bad credit risk, bad driver?