Sudden Insurance

Even from early on, we are told that to have insurance is a very important thing. This may be something that we have heard from our parents, thought by our teachers etc. We might even have been influenced by the many tons of media advertising that we are subjected to daily. We are taught that financial risk is something that you should not be happy to have. This is especially true when it comes to your car and thus the importance of car insurance policies. This is all working in the favor of car insurance companies who want to make you think that by buying their policies, you are totally covered from any negative financial issues. The problem is that this impression is too often broken when it comes to actually claiming your car insurance.

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 first and often most profoundly heartbreaking one is when the insurance company flat out denies your claim and says that you can’t do anything about it. In most cases like this, the insuree is taken aback and doesn’t know how to proceed further. It is important to note that car insurance companies have a legal obligation to fairly and promptly settle your claim. If they do anything else that you think might be contravening this, they are at fault and vulnerable to being sued. Depending on which country and state that you are in there are many different ways you can approach this. For most the first thing to do is to first write back to tell them that they have made a mistake, state their obligations and ask them to reconsider their response. If that fails, then you can appeal to your state or country car insurance commissioner for further help with you case. If the claim is big then you can also contact a attorney that specializes in insurance law and discuss your case of bad faith about your insurance company. The last and most extreme course of action is to sue your insurance company. Note that this may cost quite a lot and may not be the most suitable option for most to follow.

Customers should also be very careful with how car insurance companies sneak charges into the policies of current customers to try increase their profit margins. Most car insurance companies work on the assumption that some people actually expect car insurance policy premiums to increase over time. This is especially the case when you might have made a small claim the previous year or if you have made your premium payments late for whatever reason. Sometimes insurers will even sneakily add extra coverage items into your policy hoping that you might not notice. This is even the case for coverage items that you have decided to omit the previous year. You might find that they have mysteriously reappeared in the new policy. If you don’t catch this at the time of renewal and actually pay the insurance companies, you might find it very hard to get back the money even if you request for it.

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.

Misunderstanding or not taking enough due care and attention to your car insurance policy is the No.1 cause of dissatisfaction with your insurance product. Your policy is the contract between you and your insurer and binds everything together. It is thus vitally important that you read your policy before you actually accept it. This goes for when you are about to get a new policy or when you are renewing your policy for another year. Study it and be sure the insurance companies aren’t trying to pull a fast one on you.

Let Ryan Parker bring you through the maze that is the auto insurance policy. There are a few things that very few people know and will often be a deal breaker especially when it comes to the time to claim. He looks at the important points and why you need to be careful with which type of car insurance you get.