19 Year Old Driver Auto Insurance – Will My Rates Increase?
Reader’s Question:
I recently got into an accident while I was driving for school. Should I report this accident to my insurance company? Will he be covered by my insurance? How will that affect my insurance rate? I am 19 years old.
Carl
Las Vegas, NV
Yes.
You should report all accidents to your insurance company, including this one. In most cases, anyone using your car with your permission is covered by your insurance. Your insurance will pay just as if you were the driver. Though in some states, some insurance companies might limit the coverage. Avoid putting your insurance company at a disadvantage in case other people involved in the accident would sue by reporting all accidents, regardless of who is driving your car.
Your insurance should not be affected if you are not at fault in that accident. But if you were at fault, or if you got a ticket for a serious violation such as drunk driving, your rates would certainly increase when you renew your policy. When you get a ticket or get into an accident, you are categorized into a higher risk group of people who have recently been in an accident. It takes you out of the accident-free group that you are supposed to be in before that accident. So better drive safe next time to cut down on insurance costs.
DUI – How Will This Effect My Car Insurance Rate?
Reader question:
When you get a DUI, do your car insurance rates always go up?
Dwayne
They do usually, but not always.
Most states require you to file an SR 22 form to prove that you have DUI car insurance, but not every state does. If you want to know if your state is one of the ones that does not deal with the SR 22 form, then you should contact your state department of insurance. If they don’t, then it’s very possible that your car insurance company won’t find out about your drunk driving offense until you give them the heads up. The reason for this is primarily because the insurance companies aren’t keeping a constant eye on the record, and if anything, they probably only look at it every six months, if not less.
There are a couple of other reasons though. One of them is that the courts don’t automatically give all of their information over to the DMV, so even if your car insurance company does look at your record, the offense might not be there. Another is that a lot of times, when people commit moving violations, they will take defensive driving courses in order to wipe the violation from their record. This is one of the very popular possibilities when it is offered, because most courses are either very cheap or free. Sometimes when you commit a DUI, your license gets suspended, but the shorter the time of the suspension the less likely is your car insurance company to find out.
Even if they don’t know right away, though, they still have a period of three years to find out. During that time, they can cancel your policy as soon as they find out. Aside from the misrepresentation, that in itself doesn’t mean that your rates will go up or you’ll get canceled, either. Some companies have policies where, if you have been a customer with a good history and driving record, you can be forgiven for an offense, even one as serious as driving under the influence of alcohol. Sometimes you don’t even lose your safe driver discount, so long as you keep driving clean.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
No Fault Auto Insurance Quote In NJ – Free New Jersey Auto Insurance Quotes
Reader question:
I live in New Jersey and we have no fault auto insurance laws. What’s the difference between no fault and tort laws?
Hunter
Good question.
No fault laws are designed to lessen the costs upon the insurance companies and to make the whole process easier by putting the onus of the medical expenses for anybody involved in a car accident, no matter who is to blame, on the shoulders of their own car insurance company. This has resulted in a decrease in car insurance prices in most no fault insurance states. However, many experts say that this won’t last for long. No fault insurance is more likely than other types of insurance to foster insurance fraud, and New York is a great example of this.
If you live in a state with no fault insurance, you cannot sue the other party in an accident for damages and pain, or, well, anything else. You can only do that with tort laws. The idea is that the insurance company should cover everything, and that all the lawsuits are expensive and clogging up the court system. Tort laws are also kind of like at fault laws, where the one who caused the accident ends up paying out more of the money, or their insurance company does.
Some states allow you to choose one or the other. You can get no fault, and have cheaper premiums; or you can get tort, have higher premiums but still have the option to sue. Still, in some states there is a middle of the way option that involves being able to sue up to a certain threshold and getting slightly lower premiums. If you are in New Jersey, get an auto free insurance NJ quote to find out which is the best for you.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
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