Car Insurance

If you’re like millions of other people across the country these days, you may be looking for ways to economize and stretch your dollars. If so, you may want to take a look at direct auto insurance as an alternative to using the traditional insurance agency for insuring your car.

Would you trade lower rates for dealing with a website rather than a human being? If you are considering direct auto insurance, that’s the question you have to ask yourself. Two factors have combined to create direct auto insurance: no-fault insurance and the Internet. With direct insurance, you deal directly with the insurer rather than through an independent agent. Cutting out the middleman allows direct insurers to offer lower rate. Some provide offices; some are strictly available over the phone or across the Internet.

Direct auto insurance firms know that lower rates are the greatest appeal and it is the reason they operate primarily in jurisdictions with mandatory no-fault car insurance. Claims settlement and administration is much faster and simpler under no-fault bylaws. This allows direct insurance companies to eliminate the middleman, the insurance agent, and lower rates for the end user. Insurance companies under no-fault legislation, always pay their own clients damages (at least in theory). Civil cases are also limited.

In no-fault localities, the cost of damages and losses is covered for every driver and the driver’s passengers by the driver’s insurer. If an insurance company wants to claim negligence on the part of the other driver, a civil case must be initiated after the compensation has been dispersed. Insurers know their bottom well and rarely go to court, absent evidence of fraud or other mitigating factors against claim settlement, so civil cases are reduced.

The intention behind no-fault insurance is to ensure people aren’t left without recourse after an accident while insurance companies fight over which driver was at fault. In case where criminal charges have been laid, insurance settlements sit on a until the person charged has their day in court. By going no-fault, a jurisdiction attempts to streamline and speed-up the settlement process.

If there is an area in which one is vulnerable under direct auto insurance, it is in claims that are complicated by physical injury. The affects of a physical injury can continue throughout a person’s life. With an agent, the consumer has someone who is familiar with their case and can navigate the insurance process on their behalf. And the agent is available to do that at the start of the injury, when the consumer needs the help the most. It simply is not possible for a call center to take the place of face-to-face contact.

Caution and thinking things out thoroughly must be advised when making the decision to forego the insurance agent in favor of the discounts direct auto insurance companies offer. But if you’re willing to handle some of your own paperwork, then dealing with a direct insurer may be the way to go. Keep in mind that as the industry evolves, the more consumer friendly companies will be the ones to outlast even the best insurance agency in the neighborhood.

Buying car insurance direct is never going to be as cheap as getting it at a thanksgiving sale but you should be able to get a great price. If you go looking for a way to spend the money you save you should wait for the Cyber Monday Sales