Cheap Auto Insurance Quotes
How to Find
Cheap Insurance Quotes for your Vehicle (or How to Save Money
Whether You're Broke, Stingy, or Just Plain Smart)The Decision is Yours "Cheap" is a subjective term.
First off, you and
only you can decide exactly what you're looking for
in the way of car
insurance: liability only, comprehensive, or
something in between. Most
state laws make it mandatory to have liability
insurance at the very
least, but if you want to avoid a possible lawsuit
and/or big repair
costs, you will definitely want to purchase more
coverage than is
absolutely required and avoid cheap auto insurance.
The Ugly Side of Cheap
Here is an example: Suppose you’ve been very frugal
and purchased the
least amount of insurance your particular state
requires under the law.
The policy you have pays 20,000 worth of bodily
injury coverage per
person, $40,000 worth of bodily injury coverage per
accident, and
$15,000 worth of property damage coverage (also
known as 20/40/15 in the
insurance game). BUT, then the unthinkable happens:
The one and only
time in your entire driving experience, you become
distracted by
something hilarious the deejay says on the radio,
begin laughing so hard
your eyes start tearing, and you totally miss seeing
the stop sign at
the next intersection. You run smack-dab into
someone, and their
hospital bill is second only to the national debt
(or, heaven forbid,
they die); or you jump the curb (yes, even you can
drive like that under
the right – or rather, wrong – circumstances) run
your vehicle onto
someone’s lawn and demolish their $50,000 Rodin
sculpture knockoff they
had privately commissioned. If you are not “judgment
proof,” which means
you have nothing they can legally acquire through a
lawsuit, you can be
held liable. That means your home, the nest egg
you’ve been building
since your first job in high school, any stocks,
bonds, your coin and
baseball card collections, or any other financial
assets you may have
are now in jeopardy. So be sure you give this a lot
of thought.
Okay. So Where Do I Look?
Once you've decided how
much and what kind of
insurance you need, one of the best ways to find out
where to find cheap auto insurance quotes for the most amount of coverage is to
ask friends and
family. Of course, you'll want to listen to those
whose opinions you
respect, so don't waste your time on legally blind
Uncle Mo who drives
despite the fact his license was revoked in 1982 for
driving the wrong
way on the Interstate but still insists his eyesight
is just fine.
If you have no family, your friends and neighbors
wrote you off years
ago, and your coworkers don't speak to you because
of the questionable
sounds periodically emanating from your cubicle, the
next best way to
check out auto insurance rates is the Internet. Or
maybe you’re just the
independent type who likes to do this kind of thing
all on your own.
Well, bully for you! Here’s how to go for it:
Do a search on your favorite search engine using the
keywords "Find
Cheap Auto Insurance" or any variation thereof, and
then take the time to
compare rates. Make sure you're comparing apples to
apples, though, as
far as what all is covered and for how much. Then
make sure you check
out each company with your state's board of
insurance to make sure it is
a member in good standing.
There are many Web sites
that do the
comparing for you, such as Insurance.com, which
gives you up to four
free quotes at a time, but you must read their
disclaimer: "Savings
amount based on information provided to
ComparisonMarket by consumers
who became policyholders and who provided data
regarding savings. Your
savings may vary." So, in the end, it may very well
be your best bet to
do the legwork yourself by going to individual
companies and getting
individual quotes.
The Final Analysis
Of course, to get the very cheapest car insurance
quotes, it helps to be over 25, have no tickets or
accidents on your
record, have several vehicles insured by the same
company, and drive a
boring car that would only stand out to a traffic
cop if Uncle Mo were
driving it the wrong way down the Interstate. But
since most of us find
ourselves lucky if we can meet even one of the
criteria above, don’t
feel bad if you, like almost all of us, just get the
best policy we can
for what we can afford – and stop listening to that
crazy deejay while
we’re driving!
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extensive and complete
Auto Insurance Guide
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