Car Insurance

Electricity bills depend on how much electricity is used each month. Soon auto insurance premiums, too, may be metered, based partly on how much the car is driven.

That is the goal of Progressive Auto Insurance, which is testing a system that uses global positioning satellite technology to track when, where and how much its auto insurance customers drive — and then charges them accordingly. A pilot version of the program is being tested in Texas.

The system is the brainchild of Robert J. McMillan, a business development leader at Progressive, a major auto insurance company based in Mayfield Village, Ohio.

`’It’s very simple,” McMillan said. `’The less you drive, the less you pay.”

McMillan came up with the idea of metered car insurance five years ago when he found out that GPS technology could be used to recover stolen cars. `’It occurred to me that we could record driving behavior and patterns and then offer insurance by the mile,” he said. The company has been awarded two patents for the way it electronically retrieves data from vehicles and uses that information to set insurance rates.

About 1,100 people in Texas have signed up for a test run of the program since it began 18 months ago.

One of them is Gus Kopriva of Houston, who owns four cars. “I’m saving a lot of money,” he said. “I use some of the cars intermittently, and when I do, I pay.”

The average user saves about 25 percent, McMillan said. “When people live close to work or have multiple vehicles, car-pool or use public transportation, they can save even more,” he said. The time of day affects the cost. “A mile driven at 2 a.m. is four or five times more expensive than one driven at 7 a.m.,” McMillan said. “Our data show accident rates per mile are much higher later in the night.” Commuting trips to work are cheapest because the trips occur on familiar routes in relatively slow traffic.

McMillan said even customers who drove long distances could save money on their current rates by avoiding nighttime driving.

The proprietary system used by Progressive includes a GPS receiver, cell-phone modem and a microprocessor with a small amount of computer memory.

The miniprocessor uses the GPS receiver to record the car’s location — latitude and longitude — and the date and time every six minutes while the car is being driven. Once a month the company computer calls the car through the cell-phone modem and retrieves the records of the month’s travel activity.

“Then we generate a bill that is similar to a utility bill, based on your use,” McMillan said. Twenty-five percent of the fee represents standard insurance charges for damage and theft coverage - - taking into account factors like age, number of moving violations, the driver’s sex and the type of car — and the remainder is based on use.

“Traditionally, rates are based on variables like gender and age,” he said. “We think how you actually use your car is more relevant.”

The system cannot fix a flat yet, but it can unlock a locked car; car owners who are locked out can place a call to the monitoring center, which relays a command to the microprocessor through the modem to tell it to open the doors. And if battery power runs low, the microprocessor can use the modem to notify the company’s central computer so an employee can call the car’s owner.

The system also can provide more standard GPS services like navigation, as well as a panic button linked to a 24-hour communication system with a live person to handle emergencies.

The tradeoff for all that convenience and potentially lower insurance costs is privacy, some say. After all, the system knows when you are sleeping and when you are awake. It also knows when a driver has been good or not, at least in terms of speeding, and perhaps in other areas as well.

“I’m not bothered by the lack of privacy,” Kopriva said. “That only bothers people with something to hide — for instance, if they are having an affair or running drugs.” Kopriva said he was glad that the system kept track of his cars for him. “That would come in very handy if one of them was stolen,” he said.

While Kopriva dismissed privacy issues, Steven Goldstein, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group, predicted that some customers would not want an insurance company to have specific information about their driving habits.

“Some people will find it invasive,” he said. “But others will be thrilled to death because they will save money.”

As many as 20 per cent of UK drivers could be invalidating their insurance by modifying their vehicles and failing to notify their insurer of the changes. Research from Nationwide Building Society reveals that one in five admit to changing their car, yet many are not aware that they are required to inform their insurer.

One in 10 respondents said they had made changes to the look of their vehicle including fitting a body kit or spoiler, non-standard alloy wheels or tinted windows. Around 7 per cent had made changes that affect the way the car drives, including fitting a sports exhaust, lowering the suspension, fitting a microchipped engine- management system or re-boring an engine. If not disclosed, modifications could invalidate a car insurance policy. Although the majority of insurers would not pay out on damage caused to the changed parts of the car in the event of a claim, they would pay for any other damage or injury caused.

Your son has just obtained his license and with that a new found sense of freedom. Now you ask how to get cheap auto insurance for my son ? Car insurances can vary dramatically in price so read on to learn how to buy car insurance that is affordable for your teen drivers.

Because teens lack driving experience insurers consider them a high risk to insure and thus the premiums assigned are much higher than an adults insurance rates would be. There are a few things you can do to help reduce the rates you pay for your teen drivers.

First you need to stress to them how important it is for them to keep a clean driving record. That means driving safely – no speeding tickets, no traffic violations, and no accidents. Over a period of time there safe driving will be rewarded with lower premiums.

You can also reduce their rates by purchasing insurance with a higher deductible. The higher the deductible is the lower the premium is.

If you are going to be purchasing a vehicle for your teen choose a vehicle that is built well with extra safety features, and do not choose a vehicle that falls into a sports class or higher risk rating class. Be sure to check the class the vehicle falls into.

The graduated licensing laws have come into effect in most states in the USA and some provinces in Canada. The rules will vary from one location to another but the basic underlying philosophy is to restrict new drivers by limiting what their license will allow them to do.

They may be issued a full auto license such as a class 5 but there is usually a letter designation behind it to indicate they are a new driver. These new drivers have nighttime driving restrictions, vehicle occupant restrictions, and a 0 alcohol tolerance restriction to name just a few. They will also be required to take an additional test after a specific period of time to remove them from the new driver programmer.

But you’re still wondering where to get cheap auto insurance for my son? Teenage drivers can dramatically reduce the cost of insurance by purchasing a stand alone policy from an agency that specializes in providing teen insurance. A stand alone policy means they are not added as an additional driver on your insurance but rather carry their own insurance.

These insurance companies reduce their risk for insuring teens by placing certain concessions on the driving habits of them. They may require driving school, no driving after dark, or various other restrictions which allow them to keep the premiums lower for teen drivers.

The statistics for teen drivers aren’t good. A 16 year old driver is 10 times more likely to get into an accident than an adult between the ages of 30 and 59, so you can see why insurance companies are hesitant to provide good rates.

The best thing you can do for your teenager and his or her insurance rates is to teach responsibility and make them accountable. Make them earn your trust for the use of the car, and make them accountable to pay at least a portion of their insurance premiums. They can do this by working a part time job which also breeds maturity, so it’s a win-win all the way.

Traditionally, a car insurance policy lasts for a year at a time. But what if you won’t have the car for that length of time? Perhaps you’re just looking after a car while a friend is on holiday, and you need to be insured to drive it. You don’t want to take out a full years premium for a car you’ll only have for a fortnight, and your current insurance policy doesn’t cover driving other cars.

So what can you do? Do you drive your friend’s car without insurance and risk having it confiscated? You won’t have your friend for very long! Or do you just leave it parked up and just hope that it will still run when your friend gets home?

Or do you get insured temporarily on the car? You can get temporary cover of a car or van for between 1 and 28 days, with an option for Third Party or Fully Comprehensive.

One months temporary car insurance will work out more than a months premium on a standard policy, but as you only pay the one-off fee it’s an easy way to legally drive another car with no long-term commitment to an insurer.

Temporary insurance is also useful if you’ve just bought a new car and haven’t managed to get full cover sorted out. You can arrange for a day or two of temporary insurance which will cover you driving back from the dealership.

Or perhaps your current policy has run out and you haven’t had time to get a new car insurance quote? You can buy temporary cover giving you time to shop around for cheap car insurance at your leisure.

Temporary cover should not be seen as a substitute for a standard yearly policy. It is purely for situations like the ones outlines here, or in emergencies. But it can prove very beneficial, and certainly easier than trying to negotiate a second car on your current insurance policy!

When doing auto insurance comparisons it is important to compare your vehicle cover on a like for like basis. Insurers often have policy benefits that are specific to their company in order to make their offer unique. This gives the insurers’ sales representatives an edge that can be used to obtain, and retain automotive cover business.

For example: when two policies are the same cost and insurance levels, an agent may say, “we may have the same price but look, we have first dollar coverage on glass repair or we waive deductibles when both parties are our policy holders”. These little added coverage’s usually do not cost the companies a lot of extra money and can be put in a policy without raising the total cost.

Steps:

1. Compare the rates given to you with like levels of liability coverage and same level of deductibles.

2. Check to make sure that any limits of benefits on the policies are the same.

3. Check not only the final total premium price but also check the individual prices of each section of the policy.

4. Make the agent prints out the quote so that you can see what the different component costs are of each section.

The process of checking different companies can be different for each individual. If you are a “people person” and like to interact with the sales agents, then go to several different offices. Go to what are called captive agents, such as an All State agent, or any agents of the other larger companies.

Brokers v Direct Online Comparisons and Quotes:

If you do not care to drive around to different offices find a broker in your town; looking in the Yellow Pages on the Internet, or the Yellow Page Book can easily do this. Looking for a name in the title can usually identify an insurance broker. Example: you may see Sam Jones agency or Jimmy Jackson Agency. If by chance you see one of the top insurance companies logo in their ad then they are not a broker but a captive agent. Once you have found the broker have them give you quotes in the manner mentioned above from several different companies. A broker sometimes can customize a policy to fit an individual. The problem here is comparing pricing to get the best deal becomes harder. Ask the broker to just get standard quotes first from different companies and find one that seems to be fair and equitable. Then if there are features that you want to have added to your policy most likely they will be added at a fair price.

A technique that has yield effective results in finding an agent or a broker is to simply ask your friends and relatives whom they have their automobile insurance with. Asking at work has benefited well too. When you ask people about who they have their insurance with they will be more than willing to share with you. They will tell you why they have stayed with an agent or a company for a long time. They will also tell you why they left their last company or agent and the reasons why the company or agent that they are with now is so great. In short, personal reviews should be listened to.

Once you have purchased a policy it is a good idea to do comparisons periodically just to verify that you are still getting the best deal. Rates tend to change not just on your driving records but also on the financial position of the insurance company. Your first step should be to talk with the agent that wrote and issued your policy. Some companies use a tiered system to rate their customers. You may be eligible for a rate decrease due to being able to climb into a higher tier. This may also enable you to have better coverage at a lower price. Checking with other companies, even the same companies that you originally checked with will sometimes save you monies now that did not then. This is due to rate increase or decreases that the companies had to take or give back due to their financial performance in any given quarter or year. Due to this, Autos Insurance rates tend to change and it is a good idea to watch the rates, especially if nothing has changed in your rating status.