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Car Insurance

Seen from time to time someone asked questions about car insurance, many times Ireturned the same content, but it is quite troublesome to explain. I decided to open adetailed post to share my experience in buying car insurance. Some experience fornew students who buy a car. In addition, I am in Florida, so many may just beapplicable to FL.
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Let me talk about my situation first. The landlord girl, 23 years old. full time student, GPA above 3.0, renting a residence on Long Island, New York. Domestic driver’s license obtained in May 2011, American driver’s license obtained in May 2013, and car bought in July 2013 (Honda accord coupe in 2009). These are all factors that affect premiums

The landlord actually did not understand the difference between liability and full coverage the day before buying a car, and only then began to really study car insurance. The first insurance I bought on the day was a full Statefarm insurance, but a state Minumum (25/50/25, which will be explained later), $ 358 a month. Later, through continuous research and changing insurance companies, the current price is $ 700 for all insurance (50/100/50, comprehensive deductible 100 + full glass, collision deductible 500, which I will explain later).

1. Liability

Commonly known as semi-risk, must be guaranteed. The scope of insurance is your responsibility in the event of a car accident, which is used to pay the other party’s car (if it is the other party’s responsibility to pay your car with his liability, his car is also his own responsibility without you being responsible). It includes bodily injury and property damage, which compensate the other person and the car (item) respectively.

Then the bodily injury limit we see is in the form of $ 25k / 50k. The former is the maximum amount of compensation for each accident per person, and the latter is the maximum amount of compensation for each accident. Property also has a limit, so the 50/100/50 I wrote above refers to the capacity limit: $ 250,000 / 100,000 and $ 50,000 property. There are still few cars worth more than 50,000, so I think this is generally enough (also because I can’t afford more). Liability premiums account for
about half (or more) of the full coverage. [Editor’s note: Usually people who bought a house with a family will choose a higher insurance sum of 100k / 300k]

2. Uninsured Motorist

Optional. The scope of insurance is when the other party is responsible, but the other party hit-n-run, or has no insurance and has no money to pay you, it is used to pay for their losses. But my insurance shows that it only pays the person but not the car, and I don’t know if other companies do the same. My UM limit is also 50/100.

3. Comprehensive

Optional. When your car is damaged by natural disasters, animals, or man-made damage (which can basically be understood as not caused by a collision), this loss is paid for. This item is deductible-that is, there is no limit for compensation, but the first $ XXX of the loss must be paid by yourself. So the lower the deductible, the higher the premium.

My comprehensive deductible is $ 100 and there is a full glass, which means that if my car is damaged, the repair fee is within $ 100 and I need to pay for it myself. If more than one hundred is needed, I pay $ 100 myself and the rest is paid in full by the insurance company. If the glass is damaged, the insurance company pays in full.

4. Collision

Optional. When a car accident is your responsibility, it is used to pay for your car. It is also deductible. My deductible is $ 500. In other words, I need to pay the first $ 500 for any maintenance fees.

5. Personal Injuty Protection（PIP）

Some states are optional, others are required (such as New York). No matter who irresponsible for the accident, it can be used to pay for the medical expenses of your driver(in most of the cases). At the same time, you can choose to cover the economic losses caused by being unable to go to work because of injuries. It is also deductible. I chose nondeductible because $ 200 deductible is not much cheaper. The definition of full insurance is relatively broad. Basically, as long as there are theabove five items, all insurance is considered. But there are other additional risks, theprice is very cheap, you can add it yourself.

6. Emergency Road Service

If your car breaks down on the road, or runs out of fuel, you can use this insurance tocover the cost of your trailer to the nearest service station (each insurance company isslightly different, some regulations are the number of miles); or you put yourself You canask them to drive when they are locked out of the car. Anyway, each of these regulationsis different, you need to look at the coverage and buy again. In addition, insurancecompanies may also require the purchase of collision / comprehensive to buy ERS.

7. Rental Reimbursement

If your car is sent for repair, you need to rent another car, this can pay for the cost of yourcar rental. There are also limits, such as 30/900, 50/1500, which means a maximum of $30 or $ 50 per day, and a total of up to 900/1500.

8. Medical Payments

Whoever is responsible can cover medical expenses or ambulance expenses. I don’tknow how to do this, but it is only half a month after adding it

Basically the main insurance items are these. Then let's introduce the factors that generally affect premiums. It should be noted that each company's formula for calculating premiums is different and the factors they consider are also different.

1

If there is an accident file a claim, or the premium will increase after getting a violet ticket, everyone knows that I will not say it.

2

Driving age: This is basically the most important factor. The longer you drive, the lower the premium. Of course, this is based on no accident record. In addition, the premium of a permit will be higher than that of a valid driver's license, and some companies do not guarantee permits at all.

3

Age: The older you are, the lower the premium. The premiums for teenagers will be high, and premiums will drop significantly after the age of 25.

4

Gender: Under the same circumstances, girls 'premiums are much lower than boys'.

5

Marital status: Married people have lower premiums than unmarried people, and lower child premiums.

6

Location: The premiums are higher in cities than in rural areas. The more the traffic is chaotic, the higher the premiums are. (New York State premiums are high>. <)

In addition, renting a house is a bit more expensive than owning your own house.
New car
ABS
Alarm / vin etching (vin etched on the window) / Recovery system
Daytime Running Light
good student: full time student If the GPA is above 3.0, you can get discounts in many companies.

In many states, there is a point reduction course that can not only reduce points but also reduce premiums. Basically, you can get about 10% off. Valid for three years (at least in New York)
Estimated car driving conditions: Mileage and the like each year, if you drive less, there may be additional discounts. Companies like Statefarm and Progressive have discounts on speed and activity monitors. It is to install an instrument that can monitor the speed. If you do n’t drive during peak hours / midnight; you do n’t have a sudden braking / rapid acceleration driving habit, you can get a discount of up to about 30%. Generally you will need to install this instrument for half a year to a year, and the discount will be calculated based on the collected data.
You can get multi-car / multi-line discount if you have insurance for more than one car in the same insurance company, or if you have house and property insurance at the same time. My boyfriend’s car insurance was at the same address and in the same policy, so the two people’s $ 1700 each became a combined $ 1440. Discount of more than two hundred knives.
In the end, I tried it a lot, and changed company discounts. I changed the insurance 3 times and got a big discount every time. And be sure to make a few more calls, the price quoted by each agent may also be different.

After learning about these coverages and discounts, let me finally share my experience.

When I first bought a car, I called a lot of big company quotes, including geico ($ 600 +), state farm ($ 358), progressive ($ 500 +), liberty mutual (forgotten it seems not to be guaranteed), nationwide (not to give Guarantee). Since I am a newbie with a 2-month driver ’s license and no insurance records, many companies do not provide insurance. So I chose the cheapest state farm.
But I didn’t give up on it. After half a month, I started a new round of quotes. This time, progressive gave me $ 1700 for half a year, and liberty mutual gave $ 1500 for half a year. So I switched directly to liberty mutual. (When changing insurance, the liberty mutual had to leave the information and ticket number of my previous insurance company, and contacted state farm to stop my previous insurance. I did not manage it myself. But after a long time, I found that I had not refunded the money, so I still went in person. Call the state farm to confirm that it is indeed canceled.)
During this time I got the certificate for the point reduction course, so the liberty mutual reduced it to $ 1400 for half a year. As a reminder, if you pay the premium for one month / six months but change the insurance halfway, the remaining unused premiums can be returned in full. Because insurance is charged on a daily basis. So there is almost no loss when changing insurance.
Of course, I will not be satisfied with this. After 20 days, I went to requote again, and unexpectedly found that Geico, who had given me a month of $ 600, actually gave me $ 900 + for half a year. I was very excited to call again to confirm, and then I got new information: if I put my boyfriend and his car (2003 Rav4, reliability only) into the same policy, only need to add more than 200 knives!
So I raised the limit of state minimum coverage, added a lot of optional insurance, and added boyfriend’s insurance, a total of $ 1200 + half a year. This was the case in early September last year. Now half a year has passed and I got a new policy premum a few days ago, $ 1100 +. My own part is $ 700. I quoted another company, but there wasn’t much reduction, so I renewed my contract with satisfaction.

Finally, a Few Small Tips:

1. My boyfriend’s previous company was Flushing’s small insurance company. At that time, he switched from geico (liability: $ 280 a month) ($ 100 + a month) and told me that there was no service. Of course, he has not had a major accident. If conditions permit, it is better to have insurance in large companies. Unless you are particularly confident in yourself
2. New cars, high-value cars, don’t just have liability. In the event of an accident, your own car loss will be great.
3. As a reminder, the premium calculation of liability has a greater relationship with people and a smaller relationship with cars. Comprehensive has a greater relationship with the car (specifically, it has a lot to do with the value of the car / maintenance costs)

For more information contact: floridadrivingtrafficschool@yahoo.com

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