Best Cheap California Car Insurance Company?

How is it that you go about looking for a used car that will score you a good quote with your California car insurance company? Ask your body shop mechanic, or some friends? You could do either, but it’s best to take a variety of steps to make sure that you get the best deal on your quote with your California car insurance company.

First, figure out what you want. A good way to do this, if you don’t have any clear idea, is to ask people you now for suggestions. Everybody has their favorite car, the car that they pine for, so you’r bound to get a thousand different answers. With enough information, some will be useful to you and others just won’t be.

Another thing that you ought to do is, once you have an idea of a few cars to consider, go to Kelley’s Blue Book on their website and look at what the manufacturer suggested retail prices (MSRP) are for each car on your list. Remember that the more expensive the car, the higher the quote with your California car insurance company is going to be, although of course this is not the only factor. Whenever you look at the values, get the values for different years, since you’re buying a used car.

The next step is to find the car. You can get listings in several places, such as Craigslist and the newspaper. Whenever you go to see the car you are considering buying, you ought to either bring someone you know who is pretty auto savvy, or you need to take the car to a mechanic so they can look it over and see what kind of condition this is. This may sound like too much trouble to you, but believe me, I’ve bought cars before who worked perfectly until they got off the lot and that is not something you want to get in to.

Normally it won’t cost you a lot of money to get your car inspected, because if you vouch to the mechanic that when it breaks down you will have him or her fix it, then they will usually give you a discount.

But perhaps even that would be too much money for you. But if you want to have a safe car that will get you good quotes with your California car insurance company, then you at least need to have documentation of the cars accident and repairs history, as well as documentation stating that it has had a timing belt change and oil changes and everything else needed for upkeep.

California Auto Insurance Law And Diminished Value

One particular issue has been bugging California auto insurance law for awhile, and that is the right of the policy holder to receive diminished value payments for their vehicle after an accident. Along with such legal issues as credit insurance scoring (which many say is effectively discriminatory against minorities and low income people) and zip code scoring (same as the above), it holds a somewhat shaky ground in California , but it does hold ground.

• What is diminished value?

When you get into a car accident, California law will state that your car insurance must cover the damages of your vehicle if you meet the required conditions and have the right coverage. So, after your car has been fixed, perhaps you will decide to put your car up for sale or trade it in. One problem that you will face, though, is that when you put your once repaired vehicle up for sale, it will not sale for the value that it should.

This is not because of the regular depreciation. Let’s say that you’ve checked Kelley’s Blue Book and according to it and other calculations for the actual value of your car, it should sell for around ten thousand dollars. But you find that no one wants to take it for more than seven thousand. Why is that?

It’s because, when you repair your car, the value of it goes down because it is not so much in its original condition. The value drops even more when the car in question has been repaired with aftermarket parts.

• Can I make a claim for that?

According to California auto insurance law, no, you can’t. Thirty six states, in fact, have put language in their car insurance policies under the exclusions so that diminished value payments do not have to be made. According to a spokesman for State Farm, the value of a vehicle does not really decrease if the repairs are done by a mechanic with enough skill to return the car to its previous condition.

It remains to be seen whether diminished value exclusion language will be passed in every state, and whether or not the next step will be to file claims complaining about the person who apparently did not repair the vehicle as well.

What Is GAP Automobile Insurance Coverage ?

If you think you have all your coverages straight and you’re ready to choose the best California automobile insurance policy, along I come to throw in something that will send you all out of whack. It’s called gap insurance, and most of those pages on the internet that purport to tell you everything you want to know about  automobile insurance leave it out, but for anybody who is purchasing a car, it’s is a must have.

My new, 2007 Chyrsler PT Cruiser is worth about $15,000 right now according to Kelley’s Blue Book. However, I owe slightly more than $18,000 on it, and the more I pay and the less I owe…the less my car is worth! They call this an upside down car loan, because at some point (okay, at most points) during the time you are paying off your car, you will owe more for it than it is worth.

Here’s the catch.

When you total your car, and you file a claim with your  automobile insurance company, the amount that they pay you to get another car is what the car is worth, period, not what it’s worth to you. So if I were to completely wreck my car beyond repair right now, my automobile insurance policy (sans the gap insurance coverage) would entitle me to fifteen thousand dollar, leaving me three thousand dollars in the red.

This is not something you want to deal with. Do you want to be without a car, and on top of that have to pay for a car you no longer have?

The way we have to solve this is to add gap insurance to your automobile insurance policy. What gap insurance does is cover the gap between what your car is worth and what you owe, so that you don’t end up paying for something you don’t get to use. A lot of car financing companies and banks that loan you money to get a new car will require you to have gap insurance, but many don’t. Mine, for example, does not require gap insurance, so if I hadn’t already known about it my car might have just gone without.

Sometimes you don’t even have to get gap coverage from your automobile insurance company. Instead, it will be part of the deal with your lease, so you’ll be covered right from the start. Here’s a couple things that you need to think about when getting gap automobile insurance:

• Usually you just get the gap  automobile insurance as soon as you get the car, but if you forget or didn’t know about it, almost all  automobile insurance companies will let you get at any time.
• If your lease requires gap insurance, you have to get it. No excuses.
• In order to get gap insurance, you have to have full coverage. That means comprehensive and collision coverage.

Remember that just because you have gap insurance doesn’t mean you can default on your loan once your car gets stolen or wrecked. I make my car payments on the 28th, so if I totaled my PT Cruiser tomorrow, I’d still have to make that payment on the 28th. You don’t get to stop paying until you get that gap CA automobile insurance check.