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Resources for Car Insurance

It was only lately that we saw an increase in the number of people opting for temporary coverage for their car insurance. This can mostly be attributed to the belt tightening exercise that many of us had to do in the face of the current recession. For many who simply don’t have the money to pay off their yearly premiums in one shot temporary car insurance provides that coverage.

The problem is that cost wise and coverage wise, temporary insurance is actually quite a bit more expensive than normal car insurance. The only way that temporary car insurance is cheaper is to have the length of time for the coverage reduced or to reduce the coverage all together. This is beneficial to people who use their cars infrequently as a full coverage will be basically wasted if the car sits unused in your parking lot.

The beauty of temporary car insurance is in the flexibility of it. You can take out the insurance for as little as a day to as long as a month. You can renew it anytime you want and as long as you have a credit card handy; you can even do it over the phone and be covered for the day itself. It is for this reason that many people are attracted to this option. If you don’t drive the car, you can just leave it parked there without it wasting your money.

As with any car insurance product the price of the insurance differs greatly from person to person. It is determined by things that are individual to you only. These will include factors like how long you have had your license, your previous history with car insurers, your age and also any driving convictions tat you might have had in the past.

Here are some people who regularly use temporary insurance, so you know their uses and how it might be similar to your circumstances. The first people that regularly use temporary car insurance products are car dealers. They need to use it when moving cars and for most part this can be only one day at most. Other people who regularly use temporary car insurance are students who might stay on campus and only use their cars on the weekends.

Temporary car insurance policies are very easy to find. Almost all car insurers offer temporary car insurance products. Some more advanced providers even make immediate access available to anyone. Some have online portals that can have you insured and on the way the same day. Having said that, the same precautions and care has also applies when buying temporary car insurance. You must look for the best quotes from different providers and be sure what coverage the insurance offers before proceeding.

Ryan Parker is an expert when it comes to car insurance. Learn what you can from him by visiting him at http://www.insurancerelease.com and also get the right resources for car insurance quotes.

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Ryan Parker on February 6th 2010 in Car Insurance

Information On Rental Car Insurance

I think we have all experienced it at least once in our lives. We touch down in a city for holiday or whatever reason, we go get a rental car and when going through the documentation we stumble when we get to the insurance part. The problem is that almost all of us aren’t sure how to handle the insurance side of things. They use big words and tell of all the possible things that could happen to you. It is almost as though they are just pushing you to the corner and almost forcing you to sign up for every insurance package that they offer. It is quite normal for people to be confused when it comes to rental car insurance. In this article, we hope to educate individuals on how to properly deal with rental car insurance.

The first thing to know is that different types of rental car insurance that is offered. We’ll list the most common below although some rental agencies offer more or may call the coverage packages differently.

CDW (Collision Damage Waiver), LDW (Loss Damage Waiver), PDW (Physical Damage Waiver). Its basically a nifty way of saying that if anything happens to your rental car, you don’t need to pay a cent. Nothing. Nada. The problem is it doesn’t cover anybody else that is involved in an accident. It is also prudent to note that some insurance policies have a reduced use limitation. It’s something that limits the coverage, like you driving past a certain zone or driving intoxicated etc. Read and understand the limitation before agreeing to the insurance.

LIS (Liability Insurance Supplement) This insurance is in addition to the one above. It will cover any third party that is involved with any accident that happens with the rental car.

PAI (Personal Accident Insurance or Coverage) This coverage is also in addition to whatever is above and covers the passengers and whatever damage or maiming requiring hospitalization.

PEC (Personal Effects Coverage) or Personal Property Insurance This is the least important of all the coverage options that we have listed above. It covers whatever personal belongings that you have in the rental car if it should be lost in an accident of a break-in.

Above we have listed the standard rental car insurance coverage from the most basic at the top to the extras at the bottom. Generally, the most basic coverage items that you must have are a combination of CDWs and LISs. This will basically cover you from any damage that you do if you were in an accident but minus whatever costs incurred to you, your passengers and your belongings.

Another thing note is that if you have comprehensive car insurance for your own car, it might still apply to your rental car. Some comprehensive car insurance products are so “comprehensive” that they even have some coverage options for any rentals that you might have in the same country. This is again, very dependant on the insurer that you have. If you aren’t sure of what options you have, it would certainly be worth your while to give you current insurer a call and see what your policy offers with rental car insurance. That being said, you can’t be too careful. Never assume you are covered unless you check.

In some rare cases, credit cards may even have some insurance coverage that can be extended to rental car insurance too. This is particularly the case with higher end “gold” or “platinum” cards which have a focus on the regular traveler. Most of the time these cards will have some sort of personal effects coverage or even extend an personal accident coverage too. Again, each person would have a very different circumstance and it would be prudent to check with your credit card provider before signing on the dotted lines.

We think that the best way to approach this is to first check with your current car insurance company and also your credit card company. Give them a call before you even venture to the rental car agency. There really is no point in doubling up your insurance policy as you won’t be able to make use of both. If you already have the coverage from either your car insurance provider or your credit card an overlap will simply be a waste of your money.

It should also be noted that if you opt to get insurance from the rental car agency that it will actually cost more than what you can get from your own car insurance company or as provided by the credit card. It isn’t abnormal to find that rental car agencies will charge almost double for the insurance coverage. This is a part of their profit model to catch customers with no insurance so they are forced to get it or not get the rental car.

Rental car insurance is certainly needed however you don’t need to get it from the rental car agency. Most rental car agencies sell insurance as a side-income and are certainly trying their best to make you part with more money than you are comfortable with. It would be prudent to first check that you aren’t covered and only rely on the rental car agency insurance products as a last choice.

Don’t get confused about your rental car insurance any longer. Come visit us at Insurance Release to find the right solutions for your car insurance problems.

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Ryan Parker on February 3rd 2010 in Car Insurance

When Car Insurance Policies Aren’t What They Seem

For most of us, we know the importance of car insurance. We are told this by our parents, the TV, magazines that we read and just about anyone that doesn’t like the idea of financial risk when it comes to their automobiles. We would happily go out and buy their car insurance, most of the time a comprehensive plan and think that we are covered by a non-existent bubble of security. This false impression however falls to pieces when something untoward happens and you turn to your car insurance for the protection that they are supposed to offer.

In this article we will have a look at car insurance policies and why it is very important to fully understand what is on the table before even committing a cent to it. It is a sad fact that the majority of problems arise from a misunderstanding of the policy between the insuree and the insurer. The insurer will provide policies, however is normally very careful that they aren’t taken for a ride by insurance fraudsters. They will set-up little escape clauses that you as the insuree have to be very careful off. The problem is that different insurance companies have different escape clauses. Let’s have a look at some common practices of insurers to either deny your claim of get you to pay extra for something that you don’t need.

The most “in-your-face” way for car insurance companies to screw you over when you are submit a claim is to flat out deny the claim. In most of these cases, the insuree will be completely taken by surprise and won’t know how else to proceed. Some are even so dumbfounded by that response that they just forget the claim altogether thinking that they have done something wrong to solicit that response from the insurer. In almost all countries the insurance companies are governed by an insurance regulator that will always obligate the insurer to settle your policy claim fairly and promptly. The regulations almost always side the insuree against any heavy handedness by large insurance companies. If you feel that anything that your car insurance company is doing is not fair then they are certainly setting up themselves to being sued. The best way to respond to this is to write back and simply say that they have made a mistake, state their obligations and ask them to reconsider their previous response. If that doesn’t change their mindset, you can appeal to the state or country insurance governance agency or commissioner to help you with your case. If the claim is large enough then you might even consider bringing up the subject to a insurance lawyer to discuss what bad faith you have received from the insurance company.

In addition to trying to get out of paying you your rightful claim there are also some dodgy things that car insurance companies do to get you to pay more than you need for your policy. Some people mistakenly think that car insurance policy premiums should rise every year. Car insurance companies are more than happy to jump on those people with a vengeance. This is especially so if you have had a claim the previous year where the insurance companies have a very valid reason to up your premium. Sometimes cunning insurance companies may even increase your coverage for the next year without you knowing about it. This might even be the case where you have decided to clean up your policy and delete some coverage items. You might find that those items that you deleted will magically reappear in the policy for the following year.

On an industry report published some time ago, stats showed that the majority of car insurance company’s resources go towards poaching customers from other car insurance companies. This is in place of actually taking care of their current customers. It stated that as much as 75% of their resources were diverted to obtaining new customers while only 25% was allocated to servicing their current customers. By this measure we can see that car insurance companies won’t really give must care to you as a current customer. They would rather spend money to attract new customers. With this knowledge it is very important to know what deals your current insurer has to entice new customers. It is the normal practice of these insurers to not automatically extend the same deals to their current customers. If you are aware of any deals then it becomes your responsibility to push your current insurer to offer the same deals to you or you might consider moving to another insurer.

Another way the car insurance companies try to squeeze more money from you is to reduce your deductibles to the bare minimums. When it comes to car insurance, the lower your deductibles the higher your premiums are and vice versa. It is to the benefit of the car insurance policy provider to keep your deductibles as low as possible so they can get extra premium from you. You would sometimes find that it is a default that insurance companies put the deductibles very low. For those who don’t pay much attention to it, they will just happily pay the premiums year after year without thinking twice. Even if you have previously increased your deductibles, you might find that during renewal that the deductibles have returned to “default” setting.

More often than not, the root cause of misunderstandings and general problems when it comes to the claims process is often the policy that is not thoroughly understood by the insuree. The car insurance policy is a contract between you and the insurer, everything about your arrangements are put into wording in the policy documentation. It is for this reason that it is very important to fully understand your policy before paying a cent. This is even true when the time for renewals, some small things may change that might lead to substantial differences in claim ability.

Find the real truths when it come to a standard car insurance policy. It might not be all that you dreamt it up to be. Never be complacent with you car insurance or it will bite back at you when you try to claim.

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Ryan Parker on January 21st 2010 in Car Insurance

The Simplest Way to Get Affordable Car Insurance

It is almost everywhere that you can hear about car insurance companies offering packages that they consider affordable. Something that either you or me can’t afford to pass up. A deal that is so good that it will blow the socks off the competitors. But the thing is after a while almost all of the car insurance companies start to sound the same. They always throw around the word affordable but in reality what is affordable to one person might not be affordable to another person. By definition using the word affordable in the context of car insurance is a bit misleading. In this article we will look at what “affordable” really means and what is the best way to get it.

Most people would equate affordable with being cheap. They think that a cheap car insurance policy is an affordable one and vice versa. If cheap is what you’re looking for then any insurance provider can offer you a car policy that is cheap. All they have to do is to limit the coverage and you will immediately see a drop in the premiums. This is because the premiums are largely based on the coverage that you request. If you ask for less coverage, your premium price will also drop. This is true with any insurer. Even the oldest and most established insurance firms can offer you a cheap car insurance policy, as long as limited coverage is ok for you.

The affordability of car insurance should actually be measured in how efficient the policy is to your needs. An efficient policy is one which covers you very well while still being cheap. On the flipside if you have an insurance policy that only covers you sparingly but is very expensive then you have a policy that isn’t efficient. In almost all cases, there is no benefit to having a insurance policy that is inefficient. Any insuree should strive to have their insurance policy as efficient as possible so they can save ultimately save money. Below we will look at one of the most important points that is often forgotten in chasing a policy that is efficient thus affordable.

One of the best ways to make a car insurance policy efficient to you is to customize it to your needs. This might be a “why didn’t I think of that moment” for you but most people don’t even realize that it is something that they could and should be doing. Most insurance companies will develop car insurance that can cater for the widest profile of what car insurance protection customers might need. This means that almost every coverage protection is included “just to be sure”. This is particularly true for comprehensive plans which really do cover every angle possible. The problem with covering all angles in an insurance policy is that some of the coverage items simply don’t relate to you at all. With a normal uncustomized policy, you are very likely paying for coverage items that simply won’t happen to you at all. A perfect example would be flood protection for your car when you live in a desert or in the mountains. There really is no point in accepting an insurance policy that isn’t customized to your needs.

Customizing car insurance plans is not something that many people are accustomed to doing. They are used to calling up the insurance company and asking for a comprehensive plan then just comparing each plan to the competitors. Instead, the best thing to do is to take a handful of quotes and study the coverage items that they have. You will come across some that simply don’t make sense to you or your situation and instinctively know that you can drop them. Insurance companies know that many of their customers don’t normally customize their policies but are wising up to the fact that more are trying. If you request a change in the policy most will try to tell you that it will be very hard to do and try get you to settle for their standardized plans. It is only when you threaten to move to another insurer that they sit up and allow you the right to customize your policy.

While we are on the subject of discussing what is normally termed comprehensive, lets’ have a closer look what it actually means. In reality there is no set definition to what comprehensive means. For most insurers this will simply mean that they add every coverage items in your plan to meet the requirements of every customers they can. They might also beef it up just a bit so that they can get good premium returns on it. This being the case the best approach is to get quotes from insurers and work backwards by deleting coverage items that don’t affect you.

Although there are other things you can do to make your car insurance more affordable, customizing it to your needs is by far one of the best ways to bring your premium down. Many people are not aware of this option and it really pains me to see the amount of money being wasted to insurance companies. It is your right to chose where you want your coverage items to be so exercise your right and customize that car insurance policy.

To find affordable car insurance products, visit us at http://www.insurancerelease.com and browse through the different selection options available to you.

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Ryan Parker on January 13th 2010 in Car Insurance

Your New Year Resolution to Lower Your Car Insurance Rates

The New Year is upon us again and it is time for us to reflect on the past year to evaluate what we did right, what we would like to remember but also to recognize what we did wrong and hopefully never repeat. The New Year is also a time where you look back and evaluate at your financial performance, where you have made money, where you have lost but more importantly where you can potentially save for the future. One of the biggest cost saving items that many people don’t normally consider is their car insurance products, specifically how a low cost car insurance product can offer the same benefits as a premium car insurance product but without the inflated costs.

Looking at it objectively even at ourselves, most of us are guilty of not paying enough care and attention to our car insurance policies. To most, it is simply something that we know we must update every year. It is just a bill that has to be paid, something akin to a phone bill or an electricity bill. Most don’t know that or even care that what they are paying for is a contract between them and the insurance company. The car insurance policy is an agreement for the insurance provider to cover any losses that you have that are stated in your policy documentation. To not read and understand this policy is like signing a business agreement without knowing the terms. This is basically where the problem starts. Most insurance companies know this so they will stack up the coverage up to the moon and classify it as “comprehensive”. This covers all the angles and really is a “one size fits all” policy. Being covered for everything means that you are also paying for everything, even for coverage options that you do not need. This is where we come in with recommendations to lower the cost of your car insurance.

Unlike comprehensive car insurance policies, with low cost car insurance products you have to look very closely at your lifestyle, work and family to determine the right coverage options for you. You don’t just buy a one size fits all product wasting your money on extra coverage options that you don’t need. You have to pick and choose which coverage items are necessary to you and which are not. An example would be flood protection when you live in mountainous areas or even fire protection when you leave your car at home all the time and live in a very moist climate. Some of these extra coverage items can be quite costly and can easily add another 50% to the price of your policy unnecessarily.

To actually call a product or a company a low cost car insurance provider is actually misnomer. Any company can provide policies that are considered low cost. All things considered, the price of a car insurance policy is normally dictated by the coverage that you have and the risk that you pose to the insurer. If your coverage items are reduced and your risk to the insurer is lessened, then the price of your policy will also take a dip. This is the essence to keeping your car insurance policy cost down.

The most important thing for people to understand is the importance of modifying your car insurance policy to suit your needs. There are far too many people who think that the insurance policy documents are too much of a hassle to read through and modify and simply sign on the dotted lines. The unfortunate thing is, this is normally just a function of being lazy to read the different coverage items on the policy. Admittedly, the words are dry and sometimes hard to understand but as with any contract that you sign with a third party, you must fully understand every word and also make sure that you have covered all the salient points thoroughly. When you actually go through your policy document you will then find that some coverage items simply are useless to you and it is there that you can strike them off to lower you car insurance costs.

When you look back at the activities of the past year, don’t ever overlook your insurance policies, specifically your car insurance policies. You should look back at the previous year with joy and satisfaction. Not look back in disappointment and discontentment. Pay attention to your car insurance products and you can stand a very good chance at keeping their costs down. It isn’t hard to change a normal “comprehensive” car insurance policy to something of a low cost car insurance policy. If you haven’t had the chance to look through your policy then we strongly suggest that you do so when the renewal comes around again. The joy of getting the same level of essential coverage at a highly reduced rate can make you very joyous indeed.

Let Ryan Parker guide you in your quest to find Low cost car insurance. He has been in the Car Insurance industry for a good 20 years and its is about time that you learn something from the veteran.

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Ryan Parker on January 6th 2010 in Car Insurance