Choosing Your Auto Insurer
How to choose the right
auto insurance company the first time! Choosing Your Auto Insurer
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions . . . I know. The
temptation to just go
“eeny, meeny, miney, moe” is almost overwhelming,
and that’s what some
people, in frustration, do. But try and equate each
dollar you save with
money you find lying at your feet: Enough of those
dollars, and you’ve
got a trip to the Bahamas!
Even if you have a trusted friend, relative, or
coworker whose opinion
you trust, it’s best to play it safe and do some
checking yourself
unless your life is really fractured and you truly
have no time, or you
are obscenely wealthy, and the price of auto
insurance does not matter
to you one whit.
Flash or Cash?
First of all, you have to decide what kind of
insurance
you need. If you’re really thinking ahead, determine
this before you buy
your car. If you do your homework, you’ll find that
insurance on that
sporty little number you’ve had your eye on for six
months may be an
opposite-sex magnet, but with the difference in
premium rates between
that and the mid-size conservative compact that
wouldn't make anyone
look twice, you could treat that opposite-sex person
to the vacation
mentioned above in just a few short months. Which do
you think would be
preferred? But then again, on the other hand, maybe
you’re the type who
likes to spend your entire relationship driving
around in your car . . .
Short-term Gain, Long-term Pain
Okay. Let’s assume you’ve narrowed down
your decision to a moderate, non-sporty vehicle for
which any auto
insurer would be happy to provide coverage. You’ve
decided you want more
protection than just the state-law-required
liability coverage. Who
knows that your foot won’t slip off the brake pedal,
and you destroy the
garage door of your ex-girlfriend’s father while
returning his chainsaw
you borrowed two years ago, forgot to repair, and
who is just waiting
for an excuse to sue you anyway? Financial ruin? Not
you! You’ve
expanded your auto insurance coverage!
Ready, Set, Go . . . to the Next Step!
You can let your fingers do the walking in your
trusty phone book and
call all the companies with the biggest ads, which
may mean these guys
are the ones that get the highest premiums from
customers like you in
order to afford those big ads.
Or . . . you guessed it . . . you can access the
Internet and go to your
favorite search engine and simply type in three
simple words: “auto
insurance online.” You can add the quotation marks
to further refine
your search and keep out all the extraneous stuff to
get right down to
the info you really need. To help more, you can even
put the name of
your state in the keyword field, i.e., “Texas auto
insurance online.”
The Necessary Evil aka The Tedious Part
This should give you a huge jumping-off place and
keep you busy for
awhile – a long while. You will first need to make
sure each company you
check out and are seriously considering is a member
of your state’s
insurance board. The last thing you want is to try
and file a claim only
to discover Sam Scam’s Insurance Company is just a
post office box in
the Bahamas (and you were planning on vacationing
there!). The state
board of insurance can be found – again using your
favorite search
engine – by typing in “[your state’s name] board of
insurance.”
As an example, the results for “Texas State Board of
Insurance” will
bring up as one of the first hits,
www.tdi.state.tx.us, which, when you
go to that site and use its search engine, will tell
you everything you
ever wanted to know about any insurance company
registered with them.
And if the company is not registered, you don’t need
to know any more
about it anyway, right?
After you’ve narrowed down your choices to four or
five reputable
agencies, it’s time to get down to the details.
Because premiums vary
widely for the same coverage on the same car even
among companies whose
premiums are state regulated, it truly pays to
compare prices.
So basically, you’ve got two important things to do:
1. Make sure the insurance companies you’ve chosen
to research have
coverage that meets your particular needs.
2. Confirm the company’s reputation on your state’s
board of insurance
Web site.
After you’ve done all this, sent in your first
payment and received your
insurance binder in the mail, pick up the phone and
call that
special travel person — it’s time for that vacation
in the Bahamas!
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Check out our brand new,
extensive and complete
Auto Insurance Guide
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