A Complete Guide to Buying Car Insurance

Buying car insurance is not as simple as you think and if you do it without a proper research you might be paying more money than others. The car insurances rates changes from company to company like anything else in the market. So if you have enough information and proper guide you can get the best deal on your car insurance and could save a good amount of money every year.

If you want to save money on your car insurance purchase then it would take some time and you would have to do some work. Auto insurance agents are everywhere and they are of different types, you can get different deals from each of them. Every car insurance company has its own rate structure and when you will work to get the best deal you will get to know this. Here I am writing some of the tips that will help you to save more money on the car insurance.

The first thing you need to know before shopping for car insurance are the agents. So let’s talk about these agents –

 

Agents

Agents are one of the service providers but before shopping you need to know the different types of agents. They are mainly of three types, captive agents, independent agents and Insurance Brokers. Now let us go through each type,

 

Captive Agents

Those agents who are working specifically for a single company are called Captive agents. These type of agents represents there company in a very efficient way and you can get all the required information about your car insurance from that agent. For instance, they will tell you about the insurance plans and the other offers from the company. Captive agents provide the best service on behalf of the company because they get a commission on every sale they do. They have a small salary but they can get commission on every sale so they tend to provide the best service on behalf of the company they represent.

 

Independent Agents

Unlike Captive Agents, Independent do not work solely for a single insurance company but they work with a lot of insurance companies at the same time. They can provide you information from a number of companies and a better comparison for all of them. If you go to an Independent agent, you can get rates from different companies for your product. So it is somehow better than the captive agent who provides information for only a single company. But one thing that you must keep in mind is that the agent could try to influence you to a single company to buy a car insurance this is because they earn different percentage of commission from different companies. So this could be the reason that they would try to influence you to buy car insurance from a specific company. Although not every agent would do that but you should know this fact in order to get the best deal for yourself.

 

Insurance Brokers

This type of agents are different from the other listed in the article because they do not work for a company but instead of working with the companies they work with clients and they help them find the best insurance rate for themselves. They charge the their clients for finding them the best deal on car insurance purchase but there are some insurance brokers that do not charge to find the best insurance rate for the clients. For example, you can use Gabi personal Insurance agency, you can use Gabi to find quotes from different companies for your car and home. It is absolutely free to use Gabi and one of the benefits of using Gabi is that that Gabi is a professional insurance broker licensed in all the states of the country.
So, in my opinion it is best to use the insurance brokers as they give you a complete information about the offers from the companies. But when you want to use an agent make sure that what kind of information you need so that you could use the one that helps you in a way you need.

 

Information You Need to Know Before Shopping for Car Insurance

 

When you want to purchase car insurance, there are some things that you must know so that you could get the correct information from the agent or the insurance broker. The first thing that you must know is the Identification number of your vehicle because when you will call the insurance agent or broker they will need the Vehicle Identification Number of all the vehicles you want to insure. You can find the vehicle number on the Vehicle’s title or on the lower front of the driver’s side of the wind shield.

Secondly, you should know that how many people will be covered under the insurance policy. Like you should know who drives the car regularly that you are going to insure and which one of your family member must be insured with the car. Thirdly, the agent would need the driver’s license number of all the people who would be driving the car and their birthdays. After that they need information on how much travelling you do through your vehicle and when the vehicle is not in use, where do you store it. The last thing you should know is that what is the least minimum auto insurance coverage of your state?

All the points stated above should be known before you ask for a quote from the agent or broker because your insurance rate will depend upon all the things that you should be asked from the brokers so make sure you give him the right information.

 

Insurance Coverage Types

There are certain type of auto insurance coverage that you must know before you go to purchase a car insurance. The agent you contact will offer you different coverage and it is up to you to decide what you want to take. Let me help you to get information about some of the main types of insurance coverage,

 

Personal Injury Protection

Another type of coverage that is commonly offered by the agents is Personal Injury Protection commonly known as PIP. As the name clearly shows, this type of coverage will help you to pay medical expenses if you get in to an accident and it will also help you get rid of accident related money problems like the loss of income. But this type of insurance coverage is only offered in some states only.

 

Comprehensive Coverage

Another type of insurance coverage that is offered by the insurance agent is the comprehensive coverage and it helps you to overcome the losses that occurs apart from the accident like fire, flood, storm damage or theft.

 

Collision Coverage

The most common type of insurance coverage is Collision Coverage. As the name suggest, this coverage will help you to repair your car in case of any accident or collision. It does not depends upon on whether it was your fault in the accident or it was not but if you have a collision coverage you can compensate your loss without going to debt.

 

Uninsured Motorist Coverage

Uninsured or Under insured Motorist Coverage is the insurance coverage that will help to cover your accidental cost if the accident was not your fault. It depends upon the company that whether they will pay for the medical expenses or not but most of them pay the repair cost of the vehicle if you use them.

 

Gap Coverage

This type of coverage helps you to recover all the amount that you owe on the car or the value of your car. If you are involved in an accident or it was stolen. These type of car insurance might be important if you owe more money on the car.

 

Medical Coverage

This type of coverage is required in some states of the US while it is not in some states. This type of coverage helps you to pay all the medical expenses for you and your family if they were involved in an accident.

 

Liability Coverage

This type of coverage is mandatory in almost all the states of the United States ad this type of coverage helps you to pay for other person’s injury or property damage if you were the faulted person in the accident.

 

Road Side Assistance

You may need this kind of coverage if your car is not in good health because this type of coverage helps you to if you are car broke down on the road. They might help you to tow your car to an auto shop, they might deliver you gas if you run out of gas or the might provide battery jumping. You should know the details from your company if you get this type of coverage too.

Conclusion

So these are the types of insurance coverage that you will be offered and it is up to you to decide what coverage you will include in your list. You should know how much risk you can afford before buying the car insurance so that you can get the best car insurance for yourself in the least price. When purchasing an auto insurance always keep a picture of your financial situation in your mind so that you should not get in to debt by paying for the insurance.
By keeping all these factors in mind you will be able to get the insurance for your car and it will help you and family in a way you want. Do comment in the comment section below and also share your experiences of finding the best insurance for your car.

Posted on: 07/31/2020

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