Car Insurance

Aggressive drivers - unfortunately they have become an accepted part of driving today. While we can’t do much about the behavior of others, we can always drive with control and can learn how to best react when faced with an aggressive driver. Have you considered taking a course in defensive driving? Defensive driving courses can teach you collision prevention techniques, general defensive driving skills and tips on avoiding road rage. By learning these skills, we can protect ourselves and others in our car while making the road safer for everyone.
The benefits of taking a defensive driving course are hard to pass up.

* It could save your life - According to the National Safety Council, an estimated 77% of accidents are due to driver error. Brushing up on your defensive driving skills will provide you with the techniques needed to avoid an accident and serve as an important reminder to drive defensively at all times.
* Some states permit defensive driver/driver improvement school attendance in lieu of conviction/points for certain violations. Point reductions can have a dramatic impact on insurance rates.
* Your insurer may lower your insurance rates just for taking the class. Discounts are currently offered in 34 states. Amounts of discounts typically vary between 2-10%. Discounts are most commonly available for mature drivers (50/55 or older) although many insurers offer discounts to all drivers and some even offer discounts for teen driver safety courses.

To see what discounts you may be eligible for, check with your insurer. Keep in mind that insurance discounts typically apply when the driver has no tickets or accidents and insurers will not apply discounts if class was taken as part of a court order.

Classes are easy to find.

* There are lots of driving schools available that teach defensive driving. The trick is to be sure that the class you take qualifies you for any available discounts. Check with your insurer to see what class they suggest.
* Check out the National Safety Council who oversees the popular Defensive Driving Course (DDC) program. You can contact the NSC at 1-800-621-7619 or reach them online at www.nsc.org. Most likely there are driving schools near you who are authorized by the NSC to teach the DDC. There are also online options that may qualify you for discounts.

So it’s back to school. Even if you don’t get an insurance discount for taking a defensive driving class, take one to protect yourself and your family. Help make the roads a little bit safer for everyone.

Winter is upon us, which means bad weather and dangerous driving conditions are common. It is more important than ever to practice safe driving techniques in typical winter weather conditions such as rain, wind, snow, ice, sleet and fog. It is even more important to practice safety in extreme weather conditions such as hurricanes, tornados, torrential rain/snow and electrical storms. If possible, it is best to postpone a trip and stay home rather than drive if there is an extreme weather system moving through your area.

Here are some tips for driving in bad weather:

* Plan ahead. Driving in bad weather usually takes longer and is more stressful. If you did not leave more time to reach your destination and are consequently running late, this will only increase your stress level and could adversely affect your driving. Also, check the weather before you leave. If you can take an alternate route to avoid the brunt of a weather system, do so. You may also want to consider postponing your trip until the weather has improved. If you decide not to postpone, carry a map with you to prevent getting lost when visibility is low, and to show you alternate routes if necessary.

* Drive Slowly. This accompanies the above item; you should drive more slowly than usual in bad weather. This decreases the chance of skids and accidents.

* Leave Room In Front. Many experts recommend doubling the “cushion” between you and the car in front of you when you are driving in rain, snow, sleet, etc. Brake time is slower in these conditions, and you must allow yourself more room.

* Make Sure Your Equipment is in Working Order. Have your tires and brakes checked more frequently in the winter months. Make sure your windshield wipers are in working order and that your headlights are clean. Dirty headlights can significantly reduce visibility, especially in bad weather. Clear your windshield and mirrors of ice or frost before leaving, and keep them clear with your wipers and wiper fluid during the trip. If you need to pull over to scrape ice or snow, be sure to do so in a safe place.

* Use Your Low Beams in Fog. Turn on your headlights (make sure to use your low beams, not your high beams) in fog, whether you are driving through it at night OR during the day. Your low beam headlights not only help you to see, but also help other cars to see you. It is also very important to maintain a large following distance in fog and to drive slowly, as you may not see things like another car or a traffic light until it is nearly upon you. Stay close to the right hand side of the road in fog to avoid going over the center line into oncoming traffic.

* Listen To The Radio. Listen to a radio station that offers road condition information at a low volume during your trip. The station may offer alternate routes or inform you of road closures and such. Keep it at a low volume so as not to intrude on your concentration; you need to be very focused when driving in bad weather.

* Drive Slowly. This accompanies the above item; you should drive more slowly than usual in bad weather. This decreases the chance of skids and accidents.

* Buckle Up! Be sure you and your passengers wear seatbelts at all times. Not only is it the law in most states, it can also save lives, especially when driving in bad weather.

* Pull Over if You Need to. If you are at all tired, pull over (at a safe spot totally off the road) and rest your eyes. Don’t be afraid of the time you may “waste” by pulling over, it’s certainly a better risk than that of getting in an accident. Also, if the weather is suddenly particularly bad, it may be a good idea to find a safe place to pull off the road and try to wait out the bad spell. If the poor weather involves deep snow or heavy rain, be sure you are not pulling over into a deep puddle or snow bank.

We all know that there are many factors that can affect your auto insurance costs. Some of the more obvious determinants are:

* Gender and Age. Young male drivers are typically the most expensive to insure, especially if they have any type of mark on their driver’s record.
* Driving Record. Tickets, accidents, being caught driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol…they all add up and translate into higher auto insurance costs.
* Miscellaneous Discounts. If you are a good student, if you have safety features installed on your car, if you have low mileage on your car, if you are a senior, if you are in the military…all of these can mean discounts on your auto insurance costs.

But, did you know that where you live and what you drive may also impact your auto insurance costs?

Location, Location, Location

It’s a fact, auto insurance rates in rural communities are almost always lower than those in large urban centers. Accidents tend to happen much more frequently in big cities, usually due to the high amount of cars on the road (AKA: Traffic!)

Certain states have higher insurance rates than others due to the percentage of claims filed. States like New Jersey, Washington D.C., New York and Massachusetts typically have the highest average insurance rates.

It can also cost more to settle claims in certain areas, and this can add to the cost of your insurance premiums. Expensive cars cost more to repair or replace, and wealthy urban communities will sometimes have higher average insurance rates.

Pick a Low-Profile, Safe Vehicle How your vehicle holds up in a crash is also important to auto insurance companies. Think about it, the more a vehicle costs to repair after a crash, the more auto insurance companies will have to pay out. If there are certain vehicles that tend to be involved in more accidents, tend to incur more damage and involve more bodily harm to passengers when in those accidents, it is safe to assume those vehicles will cost more to insure. Vehicles such as sports cars and some SUVs tend to rate lower in terms of crashworthiness, and therefore carry higher insurance rates.

Another important factor is whether or not your vehicle is on the list of those most frequently targeted for theft. Non-profit organizations such as the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) and the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) track the most commonly stolen vehicles. The NICB lists tend to track all vehicles on the road (often meaning the most popular cars are those most commonly stolen), while the HLDI tracks results based on the number of insured vehicles on the road (meaning those with higher theft claims top the list). The NICB lists the five most commonly stolen vehicles in the U.S. in 2001 as the Toyota Camry, the Honda Accord, the Honda Civic, the Oldsmobile Cutlass/Supreme/Ciera and the Jeep Cherokee/Grand Cherokee. The HLDI list the five vehicles with the highest theft claim frequencies in 2001 as the Acura Integra, the Jeep Wrangler, the Jeep Cherokee 4WD, the Honda Prelude and the Mitsubishi Mirage.

Basically, all these cars will most likely be more expensive to insure. Make sure you check out the insurance costs of a particular vehicle before purchasing it.

If your car is stolen, make sure to contact the police right away. Have information such as the year, make and model of your vehicle, your license plate number, the VIN (vehicle identification number), where the theft occurred and what time of the day. Next, you should inform your insurance company that the car was stolen. The more quickly you do this, the more quickly they can get started on processing your claim.

For more information:
National Insurance Crime Bureau: www.nicb.org
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety/Highway Loss Data Institute: www.highwaysafety.org

Conclusion
Along with the obvious factors about you, the person to be insured, other factors about your vehicle type and where you live are likely to affect your auto insurance costs. Make sure to compare quotes before purchasing an insurance plan, and find one that best suits you, your vehicle, and your locale.

Yes, it is important to get a low-priced auto insurance policy so you can spend your hard-earned money on other things. Yes, it is vital you find the policy that best suits your needs. But what may be more important (and is a factor many people do not take into consideration when shopping for insurance) is that the company you choose is financially secure. If you’re paying money for insurance, you want to rest assured that you’re covered, and that your premium payments will ensure a timely payout if you ever find yourself with a serious claim. How would you feel if your insurance company told you they are in financial trouble and are unable to pay your claim? As much as we like to believe our insurance company is financially solid, and will be there for us in times of trouble, unfortunately, this is not always the case.

Many people buy into the “bargain basement” mentality; they buy the lowest priced insurance they can find to keep more money in their pockets. Understandable, right? We all want to save a few dollars where we can, especially when purchasing an intangible product like insurance. But an unfortunate side effect of these “bargain basement” insurance companies is their lack of stability, and potential lack of available funds to pay claims when needed. Often one or two major claims can have serious financial consequences for a small financially strapped company, and the rest of their customers may find themselves in a difficult situation if they should get into an accident.

Luckily, the government has built a safeguard to protect insurance consumers from insolvent insurance companies (an insolvent insurer is an insurance company that is unable to meet its financial obligations). Insurance companies are not eligible to file for bankruptcy under the federal bankruptcy code, but if they become insolvent, the government can step in. State-run insurance guaranty associations, which are supposed to pay claims for insolvent insurance companies, exist in each state. However, while these associations are an important safety net for insurance consumers, they are by no means perfect. Most of the guaranty associations have caps on the amount they will pay out on a single claim, and most payouts are subject to long delays, as state courts and state insurance departments control the associations.

The bottom line is this, it is very important that you pick an insurance company with a good financial rating so the claims process works as it’s designed to. How do you go about doing this? There are many rating companies out there to help you make an educated choice. Rating systems vary from company to company, but most of them use some form of a “report card” style rating method (A-F), with many using pluses and minuses (A+ or A-), and double or triple letters (AA or AAA+) to give insurance consumers as specific a rating as possible. The ratings reflect the financial security of both the individual insurance company and sometimes the holding company it is a part of, and are based on financial information the companies are required to provide to the government, as well as information provided directly to the rating companies. The most well known of these rating companies are Standard and Poor’s, A.M. Best, Fitch Ratings, Moody’s and Weiss Research. Although researching an insurer’s financial standing can take quite a bit of time and effort, InsWeb has already done the work for you. We only provide quotes for you from companies rated highly by Standard and Poor’s and A.M. Best.

Now we all know price is still a major factor in choosing an insurance company. Non-profit organizations like the Insurance Information Institute recommend that you get at least three price quotes before you select an insurance company. An online marketplace such as InsWeb is the perfect place to do such research quickly and easily.

Remember, price is only one factor in selecting an insurance company. Be sure you also make an educated choice by including the financial stability of a company in your decision process.

Spring is here, and just like your house may need a spring cleaning, your car may need a spring tune-up. Cars take a lot of abuse in the winter, especially if you live in an area prone to snow, ice and extremely cold weather. It is a good idea to take your car in once the weather starts to turn warmer to prevent a domino effect of things going wrong. If you skip regular tune-ups, and something is wrong with your car, that one malfunction can affect many other parts of your car. Before you know it, you might have a hefty repair bill!

Also, if you plan to spend your spring and summer vacations on the road, it is always important to make sure your car will get you to where you want to go! A good way to ruin a vacation is to end up spending half of it waiting for your car to get out of an unfamiliar mechanic’s shop. If you would have used the place you know and trust at home before you left, you could have prevented this extra cost and delay of your vacation.

To avoid this, it is important to keep on top of your regular maintenance schedule. Check your records and see when your last regular tune-up was. If you are due for another, the spring is a good time to get it. You can make sure the car was not damaged by that constant cold weather or trips up to the mountains to ski. You may also want to have the mechanics check your cooling system. Have them pressure test the system for leaks, inspect all connections, and check the condition of your belts, hoses, and coolant mix. If your cooling system fails, you cannot drive your car. No one wants to be stranded on a beautiful spring or summer day because they didn’t have their cooling system checked. Also, have your mechanic check your emission system (if it hasn’t been checked in the past year).

Another benefit of regular checkups is that they may prevent you from getting in an accident. What if you didn’t get your brakes checked and they failed right when you least expected it? Not only could this endanger your life (and the lives of your passengers), it can also make your auto insurance costs go up, not to mention the repair costs for the damage to your car.

Combat Rising Gas Prices
Not only do regular tune-ups prevent unwanted breakdowns, they also help you save money on gas. Some mechanics estimate that a poorly tuned engine can use up to 50 percent more gas than one that is running well. As gas is by no means cheap these days, why would you want to fill up your engine twice as often if you could have prevented it?

Here are some other tips, besides keeping your engine well tuned, to help save you gas:

* Drive at Steady Speeds. Driving steadily at the speed limit can really help cut down on your vehicle’s gas consumption. Stops and starts take more gas, so try to anticipate stops and traffic flow ahead of you as much as possible. Driving your car too fast can really cost you, both with regard to gas and the speeding ticket you might receive!

* Keep your tires properly inflated.The proper inflation for your tires should be specified in your owner’s manual. If your tires are under-inflated, your vehicle will consume more gas when you drive.

* Try to minimize your driving.Try to plan one long trip instead of several short trips. If you can, try to carpool, use alternate transportation (buses, trains, subways) or ride your bike or walk if your destination is nearby and you can spare the time. These are obvious ways to save gas, and they have the additional benefit of helping to spare the environment.