Cheap Used Car Insurance Quote – How Much Should You Spend On Liability Only?

 

September 21, 2007 by fashun · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Used Car Insurance 

Reader question:

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.

Are Car Insurance Rates Falling? Should I Wait to Switch Insurance Carriers?

 

August 22, 2007 by fashun · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Auto insurance help 

Reader question:

Are auto insurance rates falling in the U.S.?

Albert

They sure are.

It’s some of the best news to come out of the insurance business, and after so many years in which the rates have steadily gone up, they are finally beginning to go down. Not by too much, but in gradual amounts that are still reassuring and do make a difference. The very first drop in rates was by .3% nine years ago, and since then it has been growing. For this year, the expectation for reductions is somewhere around 3%. Again, it is going slow but the good thing is that it is going at all.

California has had some of the best results, with a 5.7% drop in insurance rates in the last year. This wasn’t the first year for rates in California to fall, but it was definitely the most successful. Other states where car insurance rates tend to be the highest, such as New Jersey, are also seeing good things happening. New Jersey alone will see a 15% decrease thanks to new state laws.

There are a lot of reasons that one might consider to be affecting the decrease of car insurance rates. One of the main ones is that there are now more people who are older than there are who are younger. The highest car insurance rates tend to belong to those under twenty five, and there are just fewer people of that age nowadays.

Another reasons is because cars are safer now. Every year a new kind of safety feature is added to the automobile market, and with things such as traction control, run flat tires, and all wheel drive, getting into a car accident these days seems like it takes a concentrated effort. Not only that, but car insurance companies provide incentives for people to buy safer cars with their discounts.

There are now more car insurance companies on the market as well, which means that the prices are going to fall due to there being more competition out there. Car insurance companies are falling all over themselves trying to come up with new discounts and innovative practices and advertising techniques to call customers. This mostly comes with companies that are now doing the bulk of their advertising through the internet, which is much cheaper and reaches customers just as well;if not better than traditional advertising schemes.

Another big factor has to do with more policing of drunk driving. Drunk driving laws are now much harder than they were before, creating larger disincentive. And the fewer drunk drivers, the lower car insurance prices.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.