Cheap Senior Car Insurance Rate Quotes
Reader question:
I’m reaching retirement age and I know that means that there will be some changes on my auto insurance policy. Can you give me a hint as to what I have coming?
Gilbert
Great question, Gilbert.
Whenever you get to that point where it is time to retire, you reach the point of your car insurance history where you will have the lowest rates ever. This starts when you turn fifty and officially become a part of the car insurance industry’s lowest risk group, those who aren’t quit middle aged but aren’t quite seniors. It will last until you reach sixty five, generally, so enjoy it while you can.
Now that you are of this age, it is true that there are some changes that can be made, and not just in the initial rates. If you are around fifty five, you will be open to discounts marketed specifically for seniors, and as a retired person, you will probably be able to get some kind of car insurance discount through the American Association for Retired People, or AARP. Most car insurance companies will do whatever trey can to help you get better rates, because you are part of their favorite risk group.
If you have a long history of safe driving, you can get extra discounts for this, and you might want to consider taking a defensive driving course through AARP. If you take a course, you could get as much as a fifteen percent discount with some companies, and it couldn’t heart to remind yourself a bit. Another good way to go is to make sure you are doing well healthily. You are reaching the years in which the health states to decline, and getting regular eye and medical exams can help keep car insurance companies confident that you are road safe.
As soon as you turn seventy, though, your rates go up again because of failing health and the statistically greater amount of accidents in this age group. Save your money while you can.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Arkansas Car Insurance Coverage For Good Drivers
There have been car insurance laws in the state of Arkansas for a long time, but it wasn’t until the late nineties that the state really started to crack down on people driving without insurance. They did this by creating a verification program using a system that catalogs people’s vehicle identification numbers (VINs) and their status of insured or uninsured. It is a computerized system that flags a vehicle identification number if the policy to which it is matched has been reported as no longer valid by the car insurance company it was with.
There are certain requirements for a basic car insurance policy in Arkansas which all drivers are required to have. If you want to transfer the title of your car to someone, or register your vehicle, Arkansas car insurance coverage is something that you have to have. Here are the types of coverage that are required by Arkansas car insurance law:
- Injury/death for a single person–$25,000
- Injury/death for multiple people-$50,000
- Property damage–$25,000
Although this amount of coverage is what is required, it is often much less than what is actually necessary for a driver in this state. To find out the level of car insurance coverage that you truly need, speak with your insurance agent and discuss the details of your policy.
If your vehicle identification number is flagged among the office of motor vehicles records as being without a valid insurance policy, a thirty day period is given during which no action is taken. However, if after that month your policy is still canceled and you have not gotten one with another company, then your registration will be canceled, and if you want to get it back then you have to show proof of car insurance.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Car Accident Insurance Claim – What Not To Do?
Reader question:
I’ve made my car insurance claim. Now how do I get my money?
Estella
Great question.
This is the thing that hangs over all the thoughts of the person who has recently filed a car accident insurance claim. You are worried about your car, your injuries, your wages, and that check always seems to take too long. If you keep your head screwed on tight and maintain your patience, you only need to follow a few guidelines to expedite the arrival of that precious claims check.
- Remember your claim number. You don’t have to memorize it, but at least keep it written down on a piece of paper that you won’t lose. This will make it to where you can easily get into contact with whoever knows what the status of your car insurance claim is.
- If there’s only a difference of a few dollars between the amount that the adjuster wants to give and the amount you think you deserve, let it go! You should fight over the bigger things, but a hundred bucks isn’t worth it and it’s much better to just be able to get your car back.
- Don’t threaten to hire an attorney like that works. They get that a lot and won’t actually take you seriously until you really do hire an attorney, so save it.
- Always be polite and respectful to your claims adjuster. They’re just doing their job, and treating them like human beings can help speed up the whole process and get you the amount you want more easily.
- At the same time, don’t try to play buddy with the adjuster, because they won’t stand for that. Act professional and take the process smoothly instead of trying to get your adjuster to like you so that she will give you what you want.
- Be prepared. So long as you know the regulations your state that require a certain type of claims process, you have an idea of where things are going. Document everything from the accident itself to the actual claims process.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Cheap Illinois Car Insurance Rates For Good Drivers
The state of Illinois carries a particularly had line when it comes to mandatory car insurance laws. Although this may seem bad for the person caught without insurance, it helps bring Illinois car insurance rates down. What some people don’t realize is that an accident in and of itself isn’t a huge cause in the rise of car insurance rates. As a matter of fact, the number of fraudulent claims and accidents involving uninsured motorists are big causes of the driving up of rates in states like Illinois every year.
Whenever you go to get your registration in Illinois, they check to make sure you have car insurance, and you can not renew it without proof. The proof of car insurance is a card with all of your insurance information that your car insurance company sends you whenever you first get a policy or when you renew it. You are required by the state of Illinois to have the following car insurance coverage:
- Injury/death liability for a single person is $20,000
- Injury/death liability for multiple people is $40,000
- Property damage liability is $15,000
If you are out driving without car insurance, the expenses are huge. If you get pulled over by a cop for committing a traffic violation, or even for something small like having a light out, your insurance will be checked. If you don’t have it, you get hit with a five hundred dollar fine. It’s even worse for people whose plates are already suspended because they’ve driven without insurance before. For them, the amount is a thousand dollars.
Even if you aren’t caught while driving, you can still be found out for not having car insurance coverage. The reason for this is that the Illinois DMV has a computer system that randomly mails questionnaires to people and you have to fill it out to provide your car insurance information. If you don’t fill it out with the information, you could be fined.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
What Is Used Car Insurance Salvage Value?
Reader question:
How do I know the used car insurance salvage value for my totaled vehicle?
Interesting question.
When your car is in an accident and is declared a total loss, there are usually a couple of options available to you. Either you can accept the total cash value and try to fix your car if it is that important to you, or if you were without gap insurance, or instead you can use the total cash value to buy yourself a new car and the car insurance company can take your totaled car to the junk yard to be sold as parts, in a used car insurance salvage sale.
In some cases, you will be able to see some of the money gotten from the salvaging of your vehicle, depending on what car insurance company you are with. The salvage amount that a car can be got for is more often than not about five to twenty percent of the vehicle’s total cash value. There is no set price to determine what the value will be, but the people that salvage these things tend to have a computer database with information of all of the salvages they have done in the past. They use that information from before to determine how much they will sell a part from now, based on the type of car.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Two Car Insurance Deductibles?
Reader question:
Could there ever be a situation in which I would have to pay two car insurance deductibles?
Great question.
It would be a weird situation, but it does happen, and all the time. The situation in which you would have to pay your car insurance company two deductibles for a collision would be if you ran into a car that belongs to you or is under the same policy. This happens a lot when drivers try to squeeze out of tight positions on a driveway, and for this reason taking your chances isn’t advisable, considering the costs.
It may not make a lot of sense at first that you would have to pay two car insurance deductibles when both of the vehicles involved in the accident belong to you, but if you think about the way the car insurance claims process works, then it begins to. First of all, if you get into a crash with someone else, then you won’t have to pay a deductible if they are at fault. But if you get into a car accident with yourself, it’s obvious who is at fault, but how can you accuse yourself as being at fault and file a claim against yourself? It just doesn’t make sense. So you have to take it as though there were two at fault drivers in the situation, one who didn’t back up right, and one who didn’t park right, and both of them are you.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Will a Speeding Ticket Affect My Car Insurance Rate?
Reader question:
What happens to my car insurance rates if I get a speeding ticket?
Joe
Fantastic question.
There is a high likelihood that nothing at all will happen, because yolur car insurance company might not even find out. Car insurance companies learn about things like DUIs and speeding tickets whenever you first sign on board as a policy holder, and then once you have stared with them they check your motor vehicle report about once every three years to see what’s been going on. If you get your speeding ticket right after you sign on, then they might never even know, since most tickets drop off after three years.
However, even if they do know, in many cases they won’t raise your car insurance rates anyway. This depends mostly on whether or not the speeding ticket that you got was your first one. Like with at fault accident, most car insurance companies are willing to offer you forgiveness for your first serious moving violation without it affecting anything such as your rates or your safe driver discount. It’s also true that in many states the car insurance companies are required to let your first speeding ticket go by law.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Car Insurance Company Says My Car Is a Total Loss?
Reader question:
I recently totaled my car, and the amount that my car insurance company offered me for my car insurance total loss claim was a less than the amount noted in Blue Book. Can they do that?
Randy
They sure can.
Whenever you total a vehicle, your car insurance company pays you for the total cash value of the vehicle you total. While a good way to get this amount is to look in the Kelley Blue Book, it is anything but fool proof. Consider, for example, that cars experience wear and tear over the years, which brings down the amount that they are worth on the market, as well as in the salvage auction. Another thing that might lower the value you is if the car has been in an accident before and gotten repairs. Chipped paint, a bad transmission, anything will decrease the value of a vehicle, even if Blue Book says it should cost a certain amount.
In the end, the judgment must be made by you and your car insurance company to accept or deny an offered price. If you think that the amount they want to give you is not the correct amount, then you do not have to accept it. You can continue to negotiate with the claims adjuster, and if necessary bring in an attorney to help.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
What Is The Best Car Insurance Policy Price?
Reader question:
How can I get a good car insurance policy price?
Good question.
I think the best way by far for you to do this is to shop around. Don’t just stick to the big company websites which claim to give you accurate information about other companies, when they might really not. Instead, go to independent web pages and get quotes from several companies, both nationwide and local, to see which is the best for you. Often, the best thing to do is to get at least a handful of quotes and then research policies before you can be sure.
Another way to do it once you get your car insurance policy is to raise the bar on your deductible. Admittedly, for some people this is not affordable, but for many making your deductible higher gets you cheaper monthly car insurance premiums, and is usually a good idea for people who are at vey low risk for getting into an at fault accident.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Car Insurance Depreciation And Value of Your Claim
Reader question:
What does car insurance depreciation have to do with the claims process?
Maya
Good question.
Depreciation is something that can put many new car owners into a bad spot if they total their car. The deal is that the second you take your car out of the car dealership, its price drops significantly. In the first couple of years or so that you own the car, its price continues to drop quickly, and then peters out over the remaining years. This is called car insurance depreciation, and it is what determines how much you get paid for a total loss when you make a claim.
Your car insurance company pays you what is called the cash value of the car when it is totaled, and this is the depreciated amount, not the amount you bought the car for. Even for a new car, this amount is often a lot less than it would take for you to finish paying off your car finance loan. This is why it is a good idea toget gap insurance, so that if your car gets totaled you can pay off your loan and get yourself another car as well.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
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