Beating The Rica

Archive for May, 2011

If you are looking for coverage for your buildings, either for your property that you own or for your office, it is vital that you compare buildings insurance before you decide on which policy to get. In this way, you can be sure that you are getting the best deal, with the lowest possible payment rate and the highest coverage.

As the owner of the property, it is important that you have an insurance to protect it in case of fire or any natural disasters. You do not want to be financially burdened should the building collapse during an earthquake. With an insurance coverage, you will be insured during such a catastrophe.

Since you will have other insurance premiums to pay as well, you will want to ensure that you keep your cost to the minimum. Even if it is a policy which you have taken up many years ago, you do not want to simply renew it because you might be able to get a better deal at a lower rate. When you are trying to compare buildings insurance, the first thing you can do is to carry out a search online. You can search for details of coverage offered by the company.

Usually, the policy should cover fittings and any other permanent fixtures in the buildings. In addition, it will also cover your fitted kitchens, baths, bedroom cupboards as well as other interior decorations. Many home owners are confused over the difference between contents insurance and buildings insurance. An easy way to check is to see if you can remove the items easily. If you can, then that will be covered under contents insurance.

As such, when you are looking for buildings insurance online, find out what fittings are covered under the policy and what is the premium that you have to pay. If you are unable to find the quotes but you have checked the coverage and have found it to be substantiate, you can always check to see if it is worthwhile by sending them an email to ask for a quote. Usually, they would ask for your number to call you and tell you more information.

Some people do not like to give their numbers to these online insurance companies but there is actually no harm in doing so as they can give you more information. In addition, you can also decide for yourself if they are really sincere and you can tell that easily when you chat with them. However, if you do not have a good feeling about it, you can always liaise with them via emails.

Ultimately, you have to depend on your homework and sometimes instinct when you are deciding on which company you should sign up with. Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind that you have to compare buildings insurance before you make your commitment.

There are ways to decrease high insurance premiums and know how to get the best deal. Below is advice on how to get cheaper insurance premiums:

1) Save money – Buying insurance once a year is a grueling task, and once is enough, so bear in mind that insurers rely on compliance, but by changing insurance mid-term you can save a lot of money. If you have not made a claim most insurance policies allow a full pro-rata refund, therefore, you are free to switch to a cheaper rate at anytime.

2) Always shop around – Visit a price comparison site. A premium comparison site will do the leg work for you and compare all of the insurance companies.

3) Risk premium – The insurance world jargon consists of ‘risk premium’ which is the amount of money you are charged for you insurance. The price they quote is based solely on risk that they think you will present. Therefore, lower your risk and get a cheaper insurance premium. There are easy steps to keep the cost down. Firstly, you could keep your motorcycle off the street, and keep it in a garage overnight. Or secondly, fit your bike with an immobiliser, this will lower the security cost, lastly do not over assume mileage. Most commonly, insurers will give you a discount, if you do not take anyone else on your bike.

4) Stay with a bike for as long as you can – Do not change upgrade your bike straight away, as this will dramatically increase the cost of insurance. Instead progress steadily up though bike cc’s and you will not get hit with a big price. Some insurers now give discounts if you actually downsize your bike.

5) Keep your bike safe – Bikes are twice as likely to be stolen as cars, therefore insurance companies are very strict as to where you will store your bike. If you keep your bike in a garage, you could receive a discount of up to 40%. If you tell the insurer the postcode of the lock up you can still get a discount.

6) Multiple bikes – If you have more than one bike, it may benefit you to ring a specialist that offers multi-bike policies. This way, you could get a discount for bulk buying bike insurance.

7) Different types of insurance – There are different types of bike insurance, fully comprehensive, third party fire and theft and third part only. Many motorcyclists’s choose ‘third party fire and theft’ and ‘third party only’ as these are the cheaper options. However, it is important to consider paying extra for getting repairs completed or getting your bike replaced in the event of an accident is worth extra premium. ‘Third party only’, is the minimum legal requirement that is needed.

Pay annually if possible – You usually have the option to pay for your insurance in one lump sum or monthly. Remember to check how much interest you will pay if you choose the monthly option. The APR on monthly packages can be high.

9) High quotes – If you have multiple accident or convictions, then this can increase your premiums. You can depend on the fact that insurance prices will always change and companies will always be competitive.

Some research indicates that America is one of the most uninsured countries in the world when it comes to auto insurance, and one of the main reasons this is lies in how expensive auto insurance is these days. The fact is that America is in a recession, and many Americans can barely put food on the table, never mind consider premiums on an insurance policy. But we need a car to get to work, and so the uninsured issue rises. Unfortunately a lot of those uninsured Americans aren’t getting the required coverage due to a series of insurance myths that perpetuate the industry. Here we are going to banish those myths, so that you can get the insurance you need in your budget, to safely protect your family when you are on the road.

Myth 1: Complete collision coverage will still protect me in the event of hail or theft.
FALSE. A lot of people know the basic difference between liability and collision coverage, but they make the mistake of assuming that collision coverage covers everything that liability insurance doesn’t. This is not the case. Collision covers only your end of expenses in the event of an accident for which you are at fault, and covers nothing else. If your car is stolen, damaged by weather vandalism, you will need comprehensive insurance if you don’t want to be out of pocket.

Myth 2: I don’t have to cover liability insurance if I don’t want to.
DEPENDS. Most of the states in America do require liability insurance, but liability laws from state to state are changing, so there may be a chance you don’t need liability insurance. However, not getting it will not mean anything to you until you are involved in an accident for which you are found at fault, as you are then put in the line of risk where you could be sued for ALL damages as a result.

Myth 3: If my friend gets in an accident in my car then their insurance will cover everything.
FALSE. In most cases this depends on the individual policy’s, who is at fault in the accident, and the discretion of the insurance company, however most insurance companies will not take kindly to incidents of this nature. The other driver involved in the accident may have voluntary excess coverage on their car, and this may sort things out, but if they don’t, your insurance will be the one responsible. Your friend’s insurance does not cover your vehicle, it only covers theirs. This is one reason why loaning your vehicle is a risky move to make, as your insurance score may even be affected if a car accident happens and you were not behind the wheel of the insured car. Your driving record won’t be, but you will still see hikes in insurance down the road as a result.

Myth 4: I live in a no-fault insurance state, so if I’m not at fault, that accident last year won’t affect my insurance rates.
FALSE. Any claim on your insurance record will be a mark against your current score, even if the insurance company never paid anything out on your behalf. All no fault insurance means is that your insurance company will pay the damages regardless of who caused the accident.

These are just a few of the top myths in the car insurance industry that are keeping people from getting the right coverage for their car insurance. If you’ve been hesitating on getting insurance for reasons such as this, the only way you can get around it is to shop around.

Go back twelve months and there were a few experimental policies on offer for pay-as-you-drive (PAYD) policies. No one seemed to be taking them very seriously. Then, suddenly, they are being launched in more than thirty states with really high-profile campaigns in California. Why has this idea become so big so quickly, and is it actually good value for money?

To understand what’s going on, let’s go back to the essential nature of insurance. In a perfect world, we would be able to examine the detail of every person who wanted to buy insurance. This would allow the insurer to calculate a personal premium rate representing the very best guess as to whether this driver would be involved in an accident and make a claim. Unfortunately, once you sell policies to several hundred thousand people, the calculation is no longer personalized. Everyone is divided into broad classes and assumptions are generalized. That’s why some people end up winners and losers. As we get towards the border between each class, some people end up on the wrong side and so may pay more or less than perhaps is strictly correct. In most cases we accept this because the amounts of money involved are quite small. But, to try rebalancing the calculation, insurers started to offer discounts.

If you are in a large class of drivers, you can claim one or more discounts to save money. So, for example, you can fit additional security to your vehicle and make it more difficult to steal. If so, your premium is reduced. The problem with some discounts is the level of trust involved. A claims assessor can always inspect a vehicle to make sure the owner was telling the truth. But it’s far more difficult when you want to offer a discount to people who drive only a few miles a year and at off-peak hours. Because of their low mileage and the empty roads, they are less likely to have accidents than those who drive long distances everyday on busy highways. So how do you tell who is honest?

Welcome to the world of technology. Modern vehicles come with onboard computers, GPS systems, and transmitters. They can communicate with the insurers. Or owners can be given little black boxes to fit into their vehicles which will transmit the mileage, the time of day and the general area where the owner is driving. This rules out all the less than honest and gives a real discount to those who are safest on the roads. All you have to do is sacrifice some of your privacy. The leading Californian company expects to offer up to 40% in discounts to those with the lowest mileages. However you look at this, it represents cheap auto insurance for the seniors, homemakers and other low-mileage drivers. In effect, everyone pays a premium rate per mile. The technology can also watch how you drive. Those that drive with little acceleration and brake gently will pay less. Speed merchants who throw their vehicles around the roads, will pay more. If this is for you, auto insurance quotes for PAYD policies. But if you really do drive a lot, stay with the conventional policy.

We have to start with the clear understanding that insurance companies exist to make a profit. In a way, that is profit at the expense of our own misfortunes. But, no matter what you think about the morality, the practical necessity is to have some cover should anything go wrong. Except, of course, teams of lawyers have been slaving away over hot documents, ensuring our chances to claim are as limited as possible. If we could just claim whenever anything went wrong, the insurers could be out of business tomorrow. So before you buy, read through all the small print to find out just how limited your rights to claim. That way, you’re not going to be disappointed when the worst happens and your claim is refused.

This year seems to have been quite bad from a weather point of view. There were severe winter storms and now the spring has come, there have been dozens of tornadoes plowing straight furrows across the Central Plains and Texas, sometimes with hail and lightning adding to the damage. It’s always disconcerting to see the helicopter shots of damage after tornado strikes. You see straight-lines taking out trees, fences, homes and businesses. For those inside buildings, there’s a roaring, the house shakes, glass breaks, the lights go out and, if you’re really unlucky, the roof comes off.

The good news is that most insurance policies cover damage to the structure and contents caused by the wind. For those of you not familiar with the risk, the tornado season runs from the spring through early summer. But the most damage is caused early on when there’s still cold air coming down from the north in sufficient volume to create the worst effects. There’s also fairly standard cover against hurricanes. But you should always read the policy. Some insurers in high risk areas do exclude wind coverage but, so far, this exclusion is not general. More common is a specific wind deductible. This can either be a flat amount or a percentage of the total claim. But once you get away from direct damage caused by the wind, you start hitting problems. So, for example, if the wind brings down a tree on to your roof, you can rebuild and replace the shingles. But if the roots of same tree break the sewage pipes and wastewater flows down a convenient slope and floods your cellar, this stops being wind damage and become water damage. This type of damage is not covered in the standard policy.

The home insurance quotes you get through this and similar sites give you a headline price for basic coverage. It’s safer to read the policy before buying. If you feel your property is particularly at risk from certain types of weather damage, you should always check the extent of the cover. If you find the standard policy inadequate, you can add the cover. In some areas, there may be state funds to offer this cover, e.g. the federal government offers flood insurance and individual states help where risks are high as with the California Earthquake Authority. So never buy blindly. Adequate coverage is available. It may not be the cheap home insurance you were hoping for, but you will sleep better nights if you have more comprehensive cover.

The months cycle round every year and our traditions have it the summer season starts with Memorial Day and ends on Labor Day, when we take to the roads in our millions for weekend breaks and longer holidays. This makes this period one of the peaks for accidents. In 2009, the US Police Departments recorded some 5.5 million collisions in which people were killed or injured. Once the dust had settled and the statistics were collected, the Insurance Information Institute (III) confirmed $100 million in claims for injuries and damage to property. This is not small potatoes. Of course, that was then. Today, the price of gas is back up to around $4 a gallon. Experts think of this as an important psychological barrier. If the price goes above, it deters people from driving as often and as far. But, in the lead-up to Memorial Day, the price seems either to be retreating slightly or at least steadying below $4. The national average on May 19 was $3.93. With AAA predicting 35 million Americans on the road for the getaway on Memorial Day, this is good news although the price is still crimping travel plans. Whereas the getaway used to involve driving more than an average 50 miles, more people this year are expected to stay closer to home.

So as we switch over from the winter to the summer blend of gas which burns more cleanly and reduces air pollution, now’s the time to start planning the journeys. The first step is putting the vehicle through a routine maintenance to ensure you are going to be safe if you suddenly push the vehicle into a longer drive. The III confirms a high percentage of the accidents during the summer are caused either by driver fatigue or mechanical failures. If you do a short commute to work, suddenly stepping up to hours of cruising down a busy highway can test your powers of concentration. If you also have the family with you and the children are a distraction, the risk of a collision goes up fast. Always ensure the children have something to occupy them and be prepared to share the driving with someone responsible. That way, you stand a better chance of arriving in one piece.

You should also look at your insurance portfolio. You’re putting the family in harm’s way, so are you all covered for medical expenses? You’ve also loaded up a range of personal property including all the latest electronic must-haves for the younger passengers as well as clothes and other valuables. Are you sure all this is covered, particularly if you’re driving out of state? Then, with the risk of accidents high, are you going to leave your own cover on the minimums, or will you consider increasing the comprehensive and collision coverage? Perhaps you should even think of umbrella cover to protect you in the worst case scenarios.

This may look excessive but it costs you nothing to get auto insurance quotes for topping-up your existing cover. When you are only talking about a relatively small increase in premium, it can give you and the family peace of mind as you set off. It’s no good thinking about car insurance after the accident.