Auto Insurance, Policy Assets, and Customer Assistance

One morning a friend of mine was running late for class at school. His wife was throwing together some kind of breakfast while he gathered his laptop, notebook, and picked out the books he was going to need for school that day. He zipped up his pack and ran outside to warm the car up. Except, there was no car. It had been stolen. My friend ran into one disappointment after another that week as he first found the insurance company wouldn't pay for a rental, then that the damage the thief did to the car would only be covered up to the deductible and that somehow he was going to have to come up with the 500 dollars before the car could be fixed.

He had supposed he had done due diligence by going to one of those car insurance quotes sites and finding the lowest priced quote. He had thought by getting cheap car insurance he had beat the system somehow. In reality, his cheap car insurance turned out to be crappy car insurance. His problem stemmed from a lack of information about his car insurance.

Before you buy your next auto insurance policy be sure you know all of the facts about the company's service policies. Cheap car insurance is only cheap if the product is as good as the more expensive car insurance. A good place to start is with a free car insurance quote, however obtaining an auto insurance quote is not going to be enough unless you know what kind of service you expect and whether or not the company quoted will provide it. The two A's will keep you straight. They are, Assets and Assistance.

Assets

You want to make certain that your car insurance quote includes every asset you could want or need in an emergency. When you are high and dry without a car, will your insurance cover your transportation needs? Check to make certain that the company you are buying car insurance from will provide you with an auto rental if something goes wrong. If your car is stolen--as my friend's was-- undrivable, or in the car repair shop for a few days you want to make certain that a car will be available to you. If not, you will be forced to call your in-laws and give them one more reason why you aren't good enough for their daughter. Check that you have road-side assistance, some variation on lock-out service, and towing service provided by some insurance company. Remember the car insurance quote is only low if the car insurance product is good.

Assistance

Find out what the auto insurance company's customer service is like before you buy from them. How do you find out something like that? First, there is no way to know for certain what type of people you will end up dealing with, but there are ways to know the probability of having a good experience. First, there is the low tech way of asking your family and friends what their experiences have been. The lemon auto insurance companies will immediately pop up in a network search of that kind, but let's say that you are a hermit and have no family or friends, or like one friend of mine, your family is all from the catskill mountains without cars or running water. If that is the case then you will need to try the high tech method: use the internet. One way is to make use of the Better Business Bureau's search engine. At www.betterbusinessbureau.org you can find if any complaints have been registered against the auto insurance company in question and whether or not the company has resolved those complaints. I have checked the auto insurance companies that have treated my family poorly and they all seem to have a complaint--not made by me--against their name.

Another way to check the customer service of a company is to find a claims telephone number on their website and call it up. If their claims people are nice to you, the likelihood of the customer service being a positive team has just raised. After you have assessed the courtesy level of the auto insurance company's service department, then politely thank them for their time and hang up. No explanation necessary, they will just move on to their next call without giving you another thought. This technique is based on the theory that there are two kinds of companies: the ones who stock their sales teams with friendly people and put all the low-paid mean folks in their claims departments and the ones who stock both with friendly, professionals. Usually, this simple test will tell you the type of company with which you are dealing.

If the quoted auto insurance policy has both the assets you desire and a high quality of customer service, then the quote is a true quote. Remember if you think you might end up actually using the car insurance--which we should all assume we will--then check these two things before running after the apparently low premiums.

Auto Coverage Analyzer

Buying a car means taking a well thought out decision. However, sometimes taking a well-thought, wise decision gets difficult. This is even more so, when it involves a big investment decision like buying car and insuring it. One wrong decision and you might end up in a financial soup. Once you have already bought a car or you have owned a car for sometime now, it is time for getting it insured.

Factors

Now, when we come to think of car or for that matter any auto insurance there are quite a few factors that have to be considered before settling for a particular market offer. Analyzing these factors would determine which auto insurance policy suits your needs the best. Or else you might end up paying too high premium or not taking enough coverage for your automobile. First of all one has to consider what is the purpose of owning it. Whether it is for personal use, used as public transport such as private taxi, or used in transportation of heavy duty or light duty industrial goods or is it put to some other use. Age is also a major consideration. Old vehicles have to pay higher premium as compared to the new one. Type and model of the vehicle also play a major role. Like wise there are N number of factors that need to be checked out.

Getting The Right Insurance

When you buy auto insurance online there are large numbers of sites that offer auto insurance on each site there are quite a few number of market offers. This makes online shopping for the right kind of auto insurance a tedious task. However, there are some sites that provide automated tools that assist you in determining what kind of auto insurance would work the best for you and how much coverage do you need. These tools or auto coverage analyzer can go a long way in helping you save a whole lot of money on auto insurance.

Wrong auto insurance would leave you paying amounts that are too high and paying extra for coverage you may not need. On the other hand, if you choose amounts that are too low, you risk being uncovered in case of an accident. Thus, whether you're shopping for new auto insurance or renewing your existing policy, Auto Coverage Analyzer can help you make the right coverage choices. All you have to do is answer a few question about your financial standings and your automobile conditions, price tag, coverage needs etc and the auto coverage analyzer would automatically generate coverage category wise auto policy value recommendations and explanation as to why is it needed.

Auto Insurance

Yellow Pages Ad Campaign is an excellent advice if you are shopping for auto insurance. Shop around and do it yearly. Do not just keep paying your invoice over and over without comparison shopping.

Insurance agents really have a lot of leeway. They can price match and they can offer a lot of discounts. There are also a lot of decisions you canmake about your policy that will save you a bundle. For example, if you change your deductible on your collision from a $50 deductible to a $1000 deductible, youوٹ®e inline for a huge premium savings. If you Do not think you can come up with $1000 out of pocket, then change it to a $500 deductible; youوٹ£l still save a sizable amount on your annual premium payment. However, if they have an accident and totaled their vehicle, the insurance company will only pay them the wholesale value of the vehicle. The amount they would receive can be $1000 or less. A vehicle that old just needs the insurance that protects the other person in case of an accident.

Another method to save more on your insurance is by combining your vehicles and other insurance together to get you additional savings. All insurance companies offer a multi-car discount (if yours does not, it is time to switch companies). Further, A lot of will discount more if you have your homeowners or renters policy with them. You canalso get more of a savings if you change your comprehensive deductible. A lot of people needlessly carry full coverage on their older vehicle. They originally purchased the vehicle new, paid for full coverage and to this day, continue to pay the same high rate. Their ten year old vehicle may be worth $1000 or less, yet they continue to pay $250-$450 every six months (total $500 to $900 dollars a year) to keep full coverage on their old vehicle. There are a few other discounts that you may not be taking advantage of. It seems obvious, but make sure you are getting the correct rate for your age. There are discounts for various ages than cansave you lots of money. Check with your agent on this one. Also alarm systems on your vehicle are usually good for a discount. Additionally, anti-lock brakes and air bags canalso help lower your premiums.

Do not just keep paying the invoice when it comes in. Your insurance bill should be an automatic trigger for you to make a few phone calls to see if you cansave even more money on your auto insurance premiums.