Friday, January 28, 2011

How to Find Special Insurance Rates for Military Personnel

Dear readers, as we know, USA has lots and lots of services you can rent. But together with each service companies like to sell their bloody insurances. If we are honest, insurances are for the best. At first you get an idea of payment for nothing but believe us, when the time comes, and if it does, you are very lucky to be insured under a good insurance plan. Each plan has its own limitation, condition, provisions, exclusions and specifics. You might want to consider them before you make a purchase. Where can you always collect the information that will help you go further with the insurance? You can find it either from an agent in the company or online.

Military personnel often have to adjust to a quick change of plans. Maybe you are deployed. Maybe you are just transferred to a new base. No matter what the reason, your primary concern is your family.

Unfortunately, the little nagging concerns like insurance need to be dealt with as well. If you're leaving family behind, you have to make sure that they are covered and the payments get in on time. If you are single, you'll have to either cancel your insurance or arrange payment while you're gone.

At least, that's what you thought.

Some insurance companies actually have special policies for military men and women, and their vehicles of course.

Readying Your Information
There is some basic information companies will need to know from you.

Classification
They are going to need to know if you are listed as active, reserved, or retired.

Time of Duty
If you know when you will be out of the country on active duty and when you or someone else will be using the vehicle, insurance providers will want to know.

Risks and Disasters
If you are going to be driving in another part of the world or country, make sure you get coverage for specific risks, like tornadoes, hurricanes, monsoon, typhoon, earth quakes, fires, floods, volcanoes, and even vandalism.

Deductibles
Like any other insurance, you will need to know how high a deductible you are willing to pay. Remember, the higher you can go, the lower your premiums will be. Just make sure to set the deductible money aside for when you need it.

Special Skills and Abilities
If you have specific training when it comes to driving, don't hesitate to let the insurer know. Mark down any special training or programs you have participated in and be prepared to provide a certificate or some kind of proof. You may get a discount.

Emergency Deployment Clause
If there is a chance that you'll be deployed all of a sudden, you should find an insurer that has something called an emergency deployment clause. With one of these, you will have a set special arrangement to sort out what happens to your insurance policy if you are deployed or transferred to another state or country. You may be able to terminate the policy with no penalty.

If you are planning on storing the vehicle should you be deployed, make sure you have covered storage. This may save you money on car insurance as well.

Finding a Provider
Military personnel have the special option of using a dedicated military insurance company for their insurance. One such company is the Government Employees Insurance Company, which has special coverage-including car insurance-for military combat personnel and other employees. These dedicated companies will be able to offer lower rates and more flexibility. However, it is still worth checking around to see if you can save any more money.

Start by getting some free quotes. Just use these quotes as guidelines about who has the cheapest prices. You are still going to have to do some calling around if you want to make sure you really get the best deal. Give the cheapest companies a ring and ask about military pricing.

As it should be, America's best get the best deals on car insurance.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

How To Making Insurance Affordable

Dear reader, there's so many people, when looking for health insurance quotes or other types of insurance premium pricing information, begin to feel like they would be better off just saving their money rather than sending it to an insurance company to make a premium payment. They often feel this way because they think that the likelihood that they will actually use the insurance that they are paying for is low, so they will spend all this money on premiums and then have nothing to show for it, which leads many individuals to decide that it would be better save their money and put it into an interest-bearing account and forgo the insurance policy.

Savings vs. Insurance
An insurance policy pays for large expenses - things it would likely take you years to save enough money to pay for on your own. And these expenses aren't just big in terms of cost, they are important. For instance, staying with the example of health insurance - let's say you need knee surgery. If you haven't saved enough money (tens of thousands of dollars) to pay for this and you don't have insurance, then you need to wait until you have the money in your account before you can get it done. That means you will have impaired mobility for years until you have enough to pay for the surgery. If you have insurance, however, you can get the surgery post haste. You can also get treatment for emergency medical needs and not have to leave the hospital wondering how you are going to pay for it.

Making Insurance Affordable
The real issue here is making sure that you can afford the insurance premiums you are paying. Avoiding insurance and trying to save the premium dollars will probably leave you high and dry when you actually need the money. But creating an insurance premium that you can actually afford to pay - and don't resent doing so - will be a better plan. Here are a few tips to help you do so:
  1. Look for discounts: Whether they come from bundling several insurance policies through one insurer, from taking the necessary steps to be a low-risk customer, or from paying your entire bill annually, take advantage of all the discounts you can. They add up!
  2. Get only the insurance coverage you NEED: No matter what type of insurance you're looking at, get only the amount you actually need to cover that individual risk. Being over-insured doesn't provide you with any extra protection. Insurance is meant to make you whole, so the insurance company isn't going to give you an extra payment if the value of what you are insuring wasn't worth that much (the exception here being life insurance, which pays out your death benefit in full).
  3. Continually review your policies: Your lifestyle and situation can change continuously and when it does, so too should your insurance. Every year before you renew, make sure there isn't anything frivolous that you are paying for and no longer need and adjust anything else that could have a bearing on your premium.
  4. Get new quotes: Insurance rates vary from company to company, and the initial search that you do for insurance quotes is not always relevant a year or two later. Getting regular quotes from other insurance companies can help you to ensure that you really are getting the best deal out there.
If you plan it well and stay aware of discount opportunities, you will maximize your insurance premium dollars without sacrificing the coverage you need.

Friday, January 21, 2011

How to cut your car insurance costs

Dear readers, most drivers like us, especially the younger ones. Probably know that insuring a teen driver will cost you much more than a driver of any other age below 70. This is because teen drivers are considered to be the highest risks when it comes to assessing insurance risks. Still, there are effective ways of lowering your auto insurance costs, and if you're determined to get what you want for a lower price, then you should definitely follow the general tips mentioned below.

How to cut your car insurance costs
One of the most optimal ways of cutting insurance expenses is of course buying a car that is insurance friendly and safe in general. Look for a vehicle that has both front and side airbags, additional seatbelts, antilock breaks, anti-theft alarm and improved locks. Most insurance providers will give you a discount if your car can be considered as safe and protected from theft. Besides, if speaking of discounts, you should join an auto club as members of such usually get some discounts as a part of their membership.

In case your vehicle is rather old and has low market value, you may want to drop collision and comprehensive coverage altogether. While this type of coverage is really useful with new cars, the deductibles you will have to pay after filing a claim with an old car may be even higher than the actual value of the vehicle. So it's better to be off without any collision and comprehensive at all.

If you're planning to become married in the near future, this is your chance to get lower insurance rates as well. Married drivers are usually regarded as lower risks by the insurance companies, even if you are a rather young driver. Besides, reaching the age of 25 will also give you a drop in insurance rates, since drivers aged 25 and older are viewed by the insurance companies as having more driving experience and posing less risk on the road.

In case you still live at your parents' house and don't have a vehicle on your own, you might want to stay under their policy as they will usually have better insurance rates. But if you decide to purchase your own vehicle, with most insurance providers you will be obliged to purchase an individual policy for owning the vehicle.

Don't forget that you can drop specific types of coverage in certain situation in order to avoid double insurance. For example, if you have good health insurance rates or are covered by an employer-sponsored group plan, you may want to drop personal injury protection from your car insurance policy since you will be covered by the health insurance policy in case of an accident. So why paying twice for the things you already have?

And of course, you should take some time to compare car insurance quotes before buying a policy in your own. Get as many car insurance quotes from different providers as you can as it will give you a good opportunity to get the most competitive rates out there. So take your time and do some comparison shopping as you can get really good quotes if you're persistent.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

how to avoid auto insurance fraud

Dear readers, do you know that auto insurance abuse and fraud has become quite a problem in the past few years as there was a rise in fraud reports and diversification of schemes used to affect fraud victims. It has come to the point where many drivers feel that the auto insurance quotes and rates they get are too high because of the abundance of fraudulent claims filed to insurance providers. In fact, each claim filed by using an abuse or fraudulent scheme ultimately leads to the overall increase in rates for all consumers, who even didn't face fraud on their own.

In order to minimize the risk of auto insurance fraud and abuse, and protect lawful car owners from becoming victims of illegal schemes, insurance providers and experts recommend following these five helpful tips that will protect you paying for an abusive claim:

1. Contact your insurance provider as soon as possible when ending up in an accident. You may want to call your insurance representative before calling the police, in order to provide all the information regarding the accident. You will be informed about the right repair shops, legal advisors and rental car services to use. Quite often these third party representatives make part of fraudulent schemes.

2. Only use repair shops preferred by your insurance provider or you are common with. In many cases fraud schemes involve certain repair shops that charge higher rates for making a standard repair and abusing your insurance claim.

3. Be cautious about the towing companies that arrive to the site of the accident. You may end up dealing with a towing company that receives referral fees for directing customers to specific repair shops or other services that will charge you more than your insurance company's preferred providers.
4. In case you're injured during the accident and have to use medical services, keep track of all the treatments, prescriptions and doctors you receive care from in order to compare the records with your insurance provider later. Sometimes inaccuracies in these records can be a sign of insurance fraud that will ultimately reflect in your insurance rates.

5. Never sign blank documents or any contracts or forms without reading them first a towing truck driver, repair shop worker, legal advisor or medical care provider will give you. In many cases fraudulent contracts are offered for signing during stress that the victim goes through after and accident. And later you may be legally obliged to pay for things you didn't expect.

Always make sure to get auto insurance quotes from a company willing to fight and investigate fraudulent acts or insurance abuse. It's a matter of customer support, and if your provider doesn't want to deal with things like that, obliging you to pay higher premiums regardless whether you were a victim of a fraud scheme or not, you definitely don't want to insure your auto with such a provider. So get your auto insurance quotes from an insurer that you can really trust. Otherwise you may end up paying more money and being a victim of insurance abuse someone makes money from.