My license is from Portland, Maine, I received a warning for speeding in Massachusetts; will it affect my car insurance rates?

Victoria

Portland, ME

Massachusetts General Laws state that for motor vehicle infractions or violations a law enforcement officer may issue a written warning or citation. However, this section of the law does not say how a warning ticket will affect a MA or out of state driver. It does appear though the written warning is not at least in your MA record since it notes that 3 written warnings within a 12 month period may result in penalties.

Maine is part of the Drivers License Compact (DLC), which requires member states to report back convictions of traffic tickets to the state where the motorist is licensed, while Massachusetts is not. However, Massachusetts still has agreements with other states to exchange ticket information. It also notes that the licensing authority in the home state shall give such effect to the conduct as it is provided by the laws of the home state. However in your case it does not appear as if you would need to worry about this MA infraction going against your ME license since it was a warning and not a ticket to which you were convicted of.

Even if this had occurred in state, in my experience, in most cases a written warning does not normally affect your insurance because it does get sent to your record. There are exceptions where it can appear on you record, in those cases the infraction would affect your rates.

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.

How do I lower my car insurance rates?

Jim

Wilmington, DE

There are a lot of ways to lower your auto insurance rates. Here are a few simple tips on how you can save on you car insurance rates

1. Shop around. Check car insurance company websites and compare rates and quotes.
2. make sure that the quotes that you’re comparing are for the same coverage.
3. Request for higher deductibles for comprehensive and collision coverage.
4. Ask about discounts that you can take advantage of|
5. Maintain a clean driving record and credit history.

One of the best ways to lower your annual premiums is to have a higher deductible amount.. Like a $1,000, is what I carry personally.

Now, if you are a claim free and safe driver like I am, you could be saving a ton of money each year on your premiums.  People fail to realize that the deductible amount is only paid when they file a claim and their insurance company pays that claim.

Ask for discounts, you never know what you might be able to get and how much you can save by asking.  Some popular discounts can be given for:

1. Military personnel

2. Good grade students

3. Union membership and bank member affiliations

4. Safe drivers with no claims in last 7 years

5. Defensive driving school attendance

6. Clean credit history – used by many carriers to determine payment risk

Why do car insurance applications include questions about for credit history or if you have claimed bankruptcy in the past?

Sarah

Birmingham, AL

There is much debate over the use of credit scoring to determine car insurance rates. There have been similar issues in the past with regards of using age, marital status, sex, etc.

Car insurance rates are not solely calculated based on credit score. There are other factors such as the type of car, where you live, driving record, etc. The purpose of getting all of this information is to correlate the insurance rate as closely as possible with the actual cost of potential claims. That is essential to understand.

Using insurance carrier statistics it is known that motorist with bad credit record historically file more accident claims than motorist with good credit. Credit score may also determine whether an applicant is likely to pay premiums in a timely fashion.

I think this is a super question to inquire about your teen driver. At 17 years of age this teenage beginner driver, can’t legally enter a binding contract since they are not considered an adult. I would also guess that most teenage drivers would be considered “good” drivers they are still not old enough to sign on the dotted line of the contract.

I would also assume that most vehicle insurance agencies would also require a parent and or a legal guardian to sign the contract and to be financially responsible.

You might want to start off your investigation by making a few phone calls the local insurance carriers in your immediate area and get their opinion on this question.

But I really do not see why you couldn’t get coverage for your teen driver. A better question to ask my be are you going to be able to afford this type of coverage?

You might also want to contact the Atlanta GA car insurance bureau or DMV to ask them if there are any restrictions for obtaining car insurance in Georgia.

When I am filing a car insurance accident report, how will traffic car insurance laws effect who is considered to be the at fault driver?

Ronny

Thanks for asking, Ronny.

I think that one of the greatest ways to get your car insurance accident claim done your own way is to be educated. Be the smart one in the situation, and impress your car insurance claim adjuster with your knowledge. So, let’s begin. What’s a good thing to know about when you need to prove that a car insurance accident wasn’t your fault? Car insurance law and state traffic laws. State traffic laws can be the biggest factor in showing that the other driver, while they may not have been a very direct cause to the accident, was at least reckless or negligent in some manner.

Traffic laws govern the way people drive, and it isn’t very hard to find out which ones rule the roads of your own state. The information is publicly available in your local library. The listing is usually called the complete vehicle code. Other places that you can get a hold of it are law libraries (which you can find in universities, usually, and if you want to find one somewhere else, just check the yellow pages) as well as the department of motor vehicles.

How do you use the complete vehicle code when making a car insurance accident claim? It’s simple, and it doesn’t really take very much time so long as you have a clear idea in your head of the event of your car insurance accident. Just look in the index section of the vehicle code book and try to find any sort of laws that might apply to your car insurance accident claim report. These might be things such as speed limits, or right of way, or stop sign laws. Once you find the laws that apply to you, don’t just scribble a note down. For the best effect, you need to have the entirety of the wording of the law, correctly, as well as the statute number. This way, when you submit it to your car insurance company they will be able to confirm what you are claiming. It is always good to have accurate data and sources when you are using information that is not simply from your memory. It’s the same principle when they require you to submit your medical bills and statements so that they can verify your car insurance accident injury claims.

What happens if you have trouble finding the right laws to apply to your car insurance accident? All you have to do is ask a librarian to help you. They know what they’re doing. This is why I always suggest going to the library over going to the department of motor vehicles–considering that, concerning the latter, we know that they don’t know what they’re doing, and don’t want to help you.

Traffic law violations are also often included in the police report if they happen. If this is the case with your car insurance accident, then you should reference the police report. However, you might find it necessary to look up your law anyway–just for extra back up.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

I have a 1987 sedan that I don’t use, but I own it. Do I have to get used car insurance coverage for it anyway?

Sam

That’s a great question, Sam.

The answer to that is dependent on where you live, though. The state car insurance laws are pretty mixed up on this point, because some states require you to have used car insurance coverage even if your car is propped up on blocks of wood in the front yard. In New York, you have to have auto insurance so long as you own a vehicle and have the title, or are buying a vehicle, and it is of no consequence that you aren’t actually using that vehicle. In order to be excepted from this rule, you would have to give evidence through a certain form that your car is not only unused, but unusable, or that you have sold it to another person or to a junk yard.

If you don’t want to get in trouble by falling victim to a random check of car insurance, then I would advise you to do yourself a favor and look up your state’s department of insurance website to find out what kind of laws your state has concerning this.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

If I have to get a new car as a result of a car insurance accident, does my gap new car insurance coverage take care of the down payment for my new vehicle?

Britney

No, it does not, Britney.

Unfortunately, there is a reason why you have to be way more careful when you own a new car, and that is because even with gap new car insurance you will be entirely responsible for getting yourself a new vehicle. The reason for this is that gap insurance has one purpose only, and that is to create a bridge between what your car is worth and what you owe. For example, the car that I am purchasing right now is worth fifteen thousand dollars, but I still owe eighteen thousand dollars on it. This is called an upside down loan, and it means that you owe more for a car than it is actually worth. This happens a lot with new cars, which are worth a lot straight off the assembly line but depreciate rapidly.

If I had gap insurance (and I do), then if I got into a car insurance accident I would not have to worry about continuing to pay on a car that I know longer have. My collision coverage will give me the fifteen thousand dollars that my car is worth, and then the gap coverage will provide the other three thousand. However, at the end of all this, while I would be safe from debt, I would still be stuck paying for a new car. I would no longer owe anything on my old car, but the gap insurance does not worry about that, it only worries about bridging the gap between what you owe and what your car insurance coverage is actually worth.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

I have a great car but it has a dent on it now, which I found when I came out of the store. Should I make a high performance car insurance claim?

Michael

I’m glad you asked, Michael.

You know, I think that one of the reasons that people can’t get cheap high performance car insurance is because they are too worry some about their vehicles. Now, don’t get me wrong. Most high performance cars are expensive, and thus even the smallest scratch could cost more money than usual to fix. However, you should not compensate for your worry for your vehicle by making a high performance car insurance claim for every little thing that happens. Even if it is something that will cost money to fix, that does not mean that your car insurance company will need to know.

The way I see it is that if something is under your deductible or you are otherwise able to afford to pay for the damages, then most of the time there is no reason to contact your high performance car insurance company unless you are a hundred percent sure that this would not put your clean auto insurance claim record in jeapordy. The reason I say this is, even though auto insurance companies want you to report all accidents in good faith even if you don’t file a high performance auto insurance claim for them, and they won’t punish you after the first couple, once you start a list then you will begin to see that they don’t think you are as good a customer as they thought you were before.

There are some guidelines that you should go by when deciding whether or not to report your high performance auto insurance accident to your company, and I’ll give you a list following this. You should think about these before you decide to call up and advise your company of your dent, although there are always going to be more factors and these should not be the deciding ones for your situation. Here they are.

• Can I pay for this?

This is the number one primary thing that you should consider. I got a dent in my car, too, recently, but I didn’t bother to call up my vehicle insurance company. It will probably cost me around fifty dollars to get fixed, which is five percent of my auto insurance deductible, so it doesn’t make any sense to report it. I can just wait and be lazy and go get it fixed when I’m ready, instead of having to worry about the long problems making a claim with my auto insurance collision coverage.

• Am I alone in this?

Another thing that will obviously play a huge role in you reporting your little accident to your high performance car insurance company is whether or not someone else is involved. If someone else is involved in the accident, then go no further. REPORT IT. I really don’t think there should be exceptions to this guideline, because even if the other person says they are okay and there is no need to report it and claim, that does not mean that it is true.

I’m not saying that the other person is lying, but I am saying that the evidence of damage may not be apparent right away after you get into an accident. The other person might start to feel back pains later that night, or might notice their vehicle making weird noises on the way home. One time I barely nicked a guy, and although there was no outer damage to my car, it wouldn’t start! You never know what will happen. If you get into an accident involving another party, report it.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

• Your driving record.

Your driving record shouldn’t be as hard to maintain as people make it out to be. It actually is not that difficult to stay safe on the road, and all you really need to do is go the speed limit or do something just as good, keep your car insurance card on you at all times, and practice defensive driving to avoid accidents.

This is where the different kinds of discounts you get really start to interrelate, starting with this and that defensive driving course. If you think about it, one of the easiest ways to ruin your driving record is with an at fault accident or with a speeding or DUI ticket. Now, more at fault accidents can be avoided than currently are. When many people think of an at fault accident, they are thinking of things like running a stop sign or a red light and plowing into someone, but in most cases it’s a lot more ambiguous than that.

Did you know that the widest spread type of at fault accident involves the at fault driver plowing into the back of the other driver’s vehicle? This is the easiest kind of accident to get into, because it mostly happens when you aren’t paying attention to other drives. People think that the way to avoid an accident is to go the speed limit and watch out for other cars in their rear view mirrors, but there’s danger in the car in front of you as well.

The best way to avoid a rear at fault accident is to practice defensive driving rule number one: keep at least three seconds behind the car in front of you, and five seconds in bad weather. Yeah, people may honk at you and tell you to close the gap, but your car insurance rates are the ones that will go up if you rear end somebody. If you follow these rules and the person in front of you hits the brakes, then you will have plenty of time to stop safely without hitting them. If you hit them, it will be considered your fault because you did not keep a safe distance behind.

• Your credit report.

Keeping your credit report clean is easier said than done, but this can save you thousands of dollars throughout your life, and not just on car insurance. People with good credit reports get better interest rates on their loans, and end up paying thousands of dollars less than others for expensive things like cars and houses. People with bad credit reports end up paying way more.

Your car insurance company says that credit reports correlate to driving ability. People with bad credit reports file more claims, they say, than people with good ones. So having a good one is one of the biggest factors in getting a good high performance car insurance price.