Are you tired of scraping the payment together to buy car insurance? You are in the same boat as the majority of other car owners. Popular companies such as State Farm, Allstate, GEICO and Progressive continually bombard you with fancy advertisements and consumers find it hard to ignore the promise of big savings and do the work needed to find the best deal.
You should make it a habit to compare rates before your policy renews since rates are adjusted regularly by insurance companies. Just because you found the lowest price for XC70 insurance a few years ago you can probably find a lower rate today. So just forget anything you know (or think you know) about insurance coverage because you’re going to get a crash course in the fastest and easiest way to remove unneeded coverages and save money.
Auto insurance companies don’t always list all available discounts in a way that’s easy to find, so the following is a list of both well-publicized and the harder-to-find ways to save on insurance coverage. If you aren’t receiving every discount possible, you’re paying more than you need to.
Drivers should understand that most of the big mark downs will not be given to the overall cost of the policy. Most only reduce specific coverage prices like liability and collision coverage. So when it seems like you would end up receiving a 100% discount, it just doesn’t work that way.
To see a list of providers with discount insurance coverage rates, click here.
It’s important that you understand the rating factors that play a part in calculating your auto insurance rates. Having a good understanding of what influences your rates empowers consumers to make smart changes that could result in better auto insurance rates.
Shown below are some of the factors used by your company to calculate premiums.
When it comes to buying adequate coverage for your vehicles, there is no perfect coverage plan. Coverage needs to be tailored to your specific needs so your insurance needs to address that. These are some specific questions may help highlight whether you could use an agent’s help.
If you don’t know the answers to these questions but one or more may apply to you, you might consider talking to an agent. To find lower rates from a local agent, take a second and complete this form or click here for a list of auto insurance companies in your area. It only takes a few minutes and can help protect your family.
Consumers can’t ignore all the ads for cheaper car insurance from the likes of GEICO, State Farm and Progressive. They all have a common claim about savings if you change your coverage to them.
How can each company make the same claim? This is how they do it.
Insurance companies have a certain “appetite” for the driver that makes them money. For instance, a profitable customer might be over the age of 40, has no prior claims, and drives less than 7,500 miles a year. Any driver who meets those qualifications gets the lowest rates and is almost guaranteed to save a lot of money.
Drivers who don’t meet the requirements must pay a more expensive rate which leads to business going elsewhere. The ads state “people who switch” not “everybody who quotes” save that much money. That’s the way insurance companies can make those claims. This illustrates why you should compare many company’s rates. You cannot predict which insurance company will fit your personal profile best.
Understanding the coverages of your auto insurance policy can be of help when determining the best coverages at the best deductibles and correct limits. The coverage terms in a policy can be ambiguous and nobody wants to actually read their policy. These are the normal coverages found on most auto insurance policies.
Medical expense insurance – Coverage for medical payments and/or PIP pay for expenses like X-ray expenses, surgery and pain medications. They are utilized in addition to your health insurance program or if there is no health insurance coverage. They cover you and your occupants as well as getting struck while a pedestrian. Personal Injury Protection is not an option in every state but it provides additional coverages not offered by medical payments coverage
Protection from uninsured/underinsured drivers – This coverage gives you protection from other drivers when they either have no liability insurance or not enough. Covered losses include medical payments for you and your occupants and also any damage incurred to your 2003 Volvo XC70.
Since many drivers only purchase the least amount of liability that is required, their limits can quickly be used up. So UM/UIM coverage is a good idea.
Comprehensive (Other than Collision) – Comprehensive insurance pays to fix your vehicle from damage caused by mother nature, theft, vandalism and other events. You first must pay your deductible then the remaining damage will be covered by your comprehensive coverage.
Comprehensive can pay for things such as theft, falling objects, rock chips in glass, a tree branch falling on your vehicle and hitting a deer. The most a auto insurance company will pay at claim time is the ACV or actual cash value, so if your deductible is as high as the vehicle’s value it’s probably time to drop comprehensive insurance.
Collision coverage – Collision coverage pays to fix your vehicle from damage resulting from a collision with a stationary object or other vehicle. You will need to pay your deductible then the remaining damage will be paid by your insurance company.
Collision coverage protects against claims such as colliding with a tree, crashing into a ditch, driving through your garage door, crashing into a building and hitting a mailbox. Collision coverage makes up a good portion of your premium, so consider dropping it from lower value vehicles. Drivers also have the option to bump up the deductible to bring the cost down.
Liability car insurance – Liability coverage will cover damage that occurs to a person or their property that is your fault. It protects YOU against claims from other people. It does not cover damage sustained by your vehicle in an accident.
Coverage consists of three different limits, per person bodily injury, per accident bodily injury, and a property damage limit. As an example, you may have policy limits of 100/300/100 that translate to $100,000 bodily injury coverage, a total of $300,000 of bodily injury coverage per accident, and a limit of $100,000 paid for damaged property.
Liability insurance covers things like repair costs for stationary objects, attorney fees, legal defense fees and emergency aid. How much liability coverage do you need? That is up to you, but it’s cheap coverage so purchase as much as you can afford.
Cheap 2003 Volvo XC70 insurance can be sourced on the web and with local insurance agents, so you should compare both to have the best rate selection. Some companies do not offer online price quotes and most of the time these smaller companies sell through independent agents.
When you buy insurance online, it’s very important that you do not reduce coverage to reduce premium. Too many times, someone dropped comprehensive coverage or liability limits only to regret at claim time that they should have had better coverage. The aim is to buy a smart amount of coverage at a price you can afford while not skimping on critical coverages.
In this article, we covered many ideas to lower your insurance rates. The most important thing to understand is the more quotes you get, the higher the chance of saving money. You may even discover the most savings is with some of the smallest insurance companies. These companies may cover specific market segments cheaper than their larger competitors like GEICO and State Farm.
Additional auto insurance information can be found at these links: