How to Get Affordable 19 Year Old Driver Car Insurance in California

Reader’s Question:

I’m 19 years old and I’m now in charge of paying for my car’s expenses. I need to know how I can find cheap car insurance. Can you help me?

Vincent

Alameda, CA

Before anything else, you should expect a young driver car insurance policy to be a bit pricey. This is because teenagers in general are considered to be very risky drivers. So your age is a consideration whenever car insurance rates are computed. Now that that’s behind us, here are some tips to help you get relatively affordable coverage:

1. Shop for Cheap Rates – Use a car insurance comparison website. You can obtain a free quote check and compare a wide-variety of insurers quickly and easily. You won’t have to call-up different agents or have to hire a broker just to get the best offers.

2. Good Student Discounts – Maintain a GPA of 3.0 or higher to qualify for this kind of discount which can be as much as 10% off on your car insurance bills.

3. Take a Defensive Driving Course – Not only will you learn to better avoid collisions, completing a state-accredited defensive driving course will make you eligible for additional discounts.

4. Setup Annual Payments – If you can, choose to pay your coverage annually in full. Most companies today offer lowered rates/discounts for paying your policy a year in advanced and in full.

5. Take-Out a Higher Deductible – A higher deductible will result to lower premiums. Just don’t make it too high or you might not be able to file a claim when you really need to.

6. Streamline Your Coverage – Remove coverage items that you feel you can do without. If you have an old or inexpensive car, consider lowering or even dropping comprehensive coverage altogether.

Cheap California Liability Only Auto Insurance

Reader’s Question:

I have California liability auto insurance. What sort of coverage does liability insurance has?

Isaac

San Francisco CA

If you have the California liability auto insurance you have coverages that cover others that you may cause damage or harm to in case of an accident that is your fault. Liability insurance though coverage does not provide you any coverage if your vehicle is damaged. Optional coverage of comprehensive and collision covers your car less the deductible you choose, in case of an accident regardless of whos at fault.

California liability auto insurance covers damage your vehicle does to others, damage for which you are legally responsible. If you do not have liability insurance you will need to pay the damages out of your own pocket.

Liability coverage is the foundation of a car insurance policy that is being required in most states. States differ when it comes to required minimum amount liability insurance. Typically states require

• Liability coverage of Bodily Injury (BI) and
• Property Damage (PD).

California liability auto insurance pays for any bodily injury and property damage expenses as well as your legal bills, medical bills and lost wages of the person you injured.

Should I Raise My Car Insurance Deductibles in California?

Reader’s Question:

Would a higher car insurance deductible be more ideal in California for lowering my car insurance rate?

Eduardo

Santa Ana, CA

I have to be honest about this, Eduardo. I myself am confused about this. The authorities in car insurance say that we must get a car insurance policy that has a higher deductible in order for the insurance plan holders to enjoy much lower car insurance premiums. It sounds like a fantastic idea, doesn’t it? But here is the catch. You do not have to be a genius to realize that it does not necessarily bring down the cost of the car insurance.

Deductibles are like your slice of the cake, your exposure and participation to the cost of the damages. It is that specified amount of money that the driver has to pay before the car insurance company pays for the remainder of the cost of damages. So, if you get a car insurance premium that has a $2,000 deductible, then that means that in the event an accident happens, you will have to shell out $2,000.

Personally, I do not see it as an advantage because I think that the bottom line would still be the same. Here you are paying for a less expensive car insurance premium that has a high deductible. Come accident time, there you go handing out precious bucks that the car insurance company should have been paying for had you decided on a lower deductible. Then again, this is only my opinion, and it is still best that you ask the expert advice of car insurance agents in California.

Do Car Insurance Companies Give Discounts For Defensive Driving Class?

As most car insurance policy holders are aware of, the drivers around here are crazy. Aggressive and swerving little devils, it takes effort to not ram into them, on accident or on purpose (road rage). What many people who have been in accidents realize is that being able to compensate for the stupid driving habits of your fellows on the road can prevent a lot of pain, and not the least a insurance claim.

The way to find out how to avoid these crazy people is to sign up for a defensive driving course. Not only will you learn in one of these courses how to protect yourself on the road, but you will also avoid filing a car insurance claim, as well as being eligible for a insurance discount. Most  car insurance companies do give discounts, both for defensive driving courses as well as regular introductory driver’s education courses.

Why take one?

• The National Insurance Safety Council says that almost eighty percent of car insurance accidents happen because the driver messed up in some way. If you learn how to drive defensively and responsibly, you can avoid being part of this statistic.
• If you have a speeding ticket, then you can go to defensive driving class and get it taken off of your driving record. That’s two drops in your Norwalk CA car insurance rates right there.
• The discounts on your Norwalk CA car insurance rates can be pretty high, ranging from five to ten percent. Normally, though, in order to get a discount, you have to take the class voluntarily.

Where do you take one?

• Classes for defensive driving are all over the place, but your Norwalk CA car insurance company will not recognize all of them. To find out which defensive driving school will get you a discount, ask your Norwalk CA car insurance agent or company representative.
• Make sure that the school you go to is authorized by the National Safety Council. You can check their website to make sure that your course is included.

Taking a defensive driving class can even be fun, and if you get your whole family involved, you should see how fast your Norwalk CA car insurance rates will dwindle.

What Should You Look For In a Car Insurance Company?

Most people in the U.S. are pretty busy with their lives, between family, friends, work, and sometimes school, that they don’t have the time to shop around for a new car insurance policy every six months. For these people, it is not any less necessary for them to get the best insurance premium, so if they must, they can restrict their shopping around to when they have a life changing event instead of doing it by the calendar.

• If you move.

In most of the country, zip codes can have a big effect on your auto insurance premium, but with car insurance the effect is not as huge thanks to a California auto insurance law passed to make the location a small factor in the auto insurance premium. The reason it is a factor at all is mostly due to the amount of cars stolen in the area, and the law was passed because the policy had a negative affect mostly on low income and minority drivers.

However, even though your zip code does not say as much for your insurance score as before, it does affect it. When you move to a new zip code, you need to shop around for a better car insurance premium. In any case, you should at least see a change in the premium from your current company.

• If you buy a car.

Before you buy a car, you should check the insurance quotes to make sure it is the best choice in make and model. However, if you’re already certain of what car you want to get, you should still shop around to see what the quotes are from other companies in the area.

Car insurance companies base their rates for collision and comprehensive car insurance coverage on the number of claims they have gotten for those coverages in company, so one company might have seen more claims for your car than another. It’s best to go with the company that has had the best history with your new vehicle, and you can find out which one this is by getting several insurance quotes.

• If you get hitched.

They say that when you get married, two people become one, so naturally they will have a different  insurance rate together than they would apart. Men profit the most out of this, seeing their rates decrease a good deal when they tie the knot, but so long as neither partner is very high risk, both will benefit from the union.

• If you get a new job.

Not only do many insurance companies give you discounts on your car insurance for the degree that you hold, but you can also get one based on what you do. For example, if you are a teacher or an engineer or a military service member, then you can get a discount on your insurance premium.

• If you stop working altogether.

When you retire, you are usually just between being in the cheapest car insurance demographic, and one of the most expensive. Being between fifty five and seventy, you are in a group of the safest drivers and will thus get the lowest rates. However, after seventy, your rates will go up. Many car insurance companies offer discounts to retired people, but you can get the best deal by buying your insurance policy through AARP. Whatever the case, it is best to shop around.

• If you’re just fed up.

You may have a liked a  car insurance company for awhile, and then just got sick of paying the high rates and finding few available discounts. While there is a limited number of excuses not to shop around, there’s certainly no limit to reasons to do so.

Getting a Cheaper Rate on California Car Insurance is Easy

Progressive auto insurance company says that  car insurance buyers would be able to save around five hundred dollars on their six month car insurance premium if only they shopped around for their prices. However, many don’t, which is why the majority of Americans and those who own insurance policies are paying too much for their car insurance.

Progressive said it got its information from a study of over seventy thousand customers over a six month period. The study relates the lowest  car insurance rate possible versus the highest, and notes the gap (five hundred dollars in the case of car insurance). Depending on what state you are in, the degree of separation in dollars between the highest and the lowest car insurance premium can be more than many preferred car insurance pays in a year. In Houston, where I’m from, the variation is as much as $838 of variation for a six month policy.

Putting aside car insurance, some other areas in California had huge variances between auto insurance rates as well. Notable, San Francisco:

• $514 of variance

And Los Angeles:

• $616 of variance

Progressive went a little with its study and tried to see how aware California car insurance policy holders were of this rate variance. According to their findings, 65% didn’t realize that the variations between rates was so huge–most estimated it to be around one or two hundred dollars on average. And 60% of the people asked had not made an effort to shop around for a good insurance policy in several years.

Even if the company that you are with now had the best rates several years ago, that doesn’t mean that the same will be true today. New companies rise up and offer cheaper prices, and older companies find new ways to pass the savings on to their customers. The best thing to do to ensure that you get a cheap California car insurance quote is to shop around at least every six months.

Cheap California Car Insurance – Are Lawsuits To Blame For High Costs?

One of the big obstacles between you and cheap California car insurance are the number of lawsuits being filed against California car insurance companies every year that force these companies to raise their prices. While it is at times necessary to file a lawsuit in order to get the money that you need for your car insurance claim, the number of claims filed is high enough to elicit some concern from car accident lawyers, even though they are the ones who profit the most from it.

According to attorney Nick Johnson, who has offices all over the country, collisions that involve someone getting injured or killed have dropped in the past year, which should mean that the number of lawsuits should drop as well, because more California car insurance companies are sued when someone is injured. However, while the injuries have decreased, they haven’t made a dent in the number of lawsuits being filed against cheap California car insurance companies.

As a matter of fact, he says, the number of lawsuits is actually going up, despite all reason.

One of the reasons for this, according to Johnson, is that over ten percent of drivers currently on the road do not even have a car insurance policy. While the exact numbers cannot be gotten, due to the nature of driving without insurance, the numbers are high enough in theory to convince anyone who was considering not equipping them self with uninsured motorist California car insurance coverage.

Along with that, the amount of car insurance required to meet minimum liability standards has stayed the same for many years, even though the cost of health care and car repair has risen quite significantly. Having underinsured motorist coverage couldn’t hurt, either, apparently.

California Commercial Insurance – How To Get a Cheaper Rate

If you are a self employed person who spends a lot of time on the road, then you might need to get California commercial insurance, which would provide you the extra protection that you need while being your own boss. However, in order to get the best deal on commercial insurance, you need to live up to much the same standards as required by a regular car insurance policy in California. In order to do this, and to make sure that your commercial insurance rates come out very cheap, you need to make sure that you are conducting your business in the safest vehicle you can get.

Now, you may need to make some sacrifices if you are on the road a lot, such as choosing a gas mouse over a gas monster, and it will never be possible to point out which car is the absolutely most safe one skidding over the cement, but you can get pretty close by paying attention to a few major aspects of your car. Your California commercial insurance premium will thank you.

• The bumpers in the back and front need to be well placed and strong. These take in a lot of the force of a headlong or rear end crash, so if you want to protect your valuables in the trunk or yourself and passenger in the front seat, then you need to have these two things as strong as possible.
• The size of your vehicle is better off being neither small nor large, as large vehicles inflict more damage while small vehicles take more damage. A mid sized vehicle both protects you and the other car.
• The weight is also important, because the more your car weighs, the more force it will bring to a crash, and the less it ways the more fragile it is. Proper care of tires will keep your weight where it needs to be.
• Restraints like headrests, belts, and as many air bags as possible are more protections against serious injuries in a car accident.
• Stability controls, be they electronic stability control, rollover detectors, or traction control, can be great aids in preventing you from getting into an accident in the first place. Many accidents are caused by simply turning the wheel the wrong way when you start to slide, and these devices can compensate without you panicking and making the situation worse.
• Anti lock disc brakes also help to keep you from losing control of your car, and are able to give you more control of your brakes on difficult surfaces.
• Daytime lights make your car more able to be seen in the day.

California Car Insurance Quotes For Teen Drivers

Reader question:

Why is my California car insurance quote for my teen driver so high?

Amy

Thank you for your question, Amy.

I know the feeling. I didn’t drive very much when I wa a teenager, and since my mother didn’t have a car insurance policy, neither did I. Before I graduated from high school, I had managed to save up enough money to buy myself a car. It was cheap, several years old, a piece of junk all around, but in its hey day it had been considered a sports car, which was one of the reasons for why I liked it. Seeing as I now owned a car, I had to get a California car insurance quote.

The number blew me away. And it makes you wonder. Why is your  car insurance quote always going to be higher if you’re a teenager or if you’re the owner of a sports car, no matter how old?

It’s what the people who give you that car insurance quote live by, and it’s called risk.

The way the car insurance companies see you is as a stack of risks. Think of yourself, your life, everything about you all boiled down to how likely you are to file a claim. Everything about you is related to this, and some things will get you a better insurance quote, and others will get you a worse  insurance quote. There are some things you can do to lessen your risk, but it’s pretty much set in stone.

However, even stones can be chipped away. Just because you fall into a certain high risk group does not mean that every  insurance quote you get is going to be the same. The California Department of Insurance imposes pretty strict rules on the car insurance companies, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they are competing. So if one company is able to save its policy holders more money, then you will be able to get a better  quote there, regardless of your risk.

If you go shopping for a new California car insurance quote every time your risk changes, then you’ll save yourself hundreds, maybe over a thousand dollars a year.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

What Do I Need To Have To Get Car Insurance In California?

Almost all of your California car insurance necessities have been digitalized, and you could do everything except drive the car itself without ever leaving your living room. For example, for all of the needs that you have with your car in terms of the department of motor vehicles, registration, and so on, you can get most of those done online. Think of it! Not having to go to the department of motor vehicles in California is the dream of any car insurance policy holder. No lines, no rude employees, just a flat screen.

• Get your license plate.

When you go to the California Department of Motor Vehicles website, there is an array of license plate designs from which you can choose, purchase, and have mailed to you without lifting hardly a finger.

• Call ahead.

If you are not interested in the internet method of getting what you need, then make sure you don’t commit the mistake of just walking into the car insurance department. You need to give a call ahead of time to make sure that you have an appointment and don’t have to wait in the terribly long lines.

• Renewals.

So long as you have already provided the requirements, such as your proof of car insurance and a smog test, if necessary, you can renew things such as your car registration and your driver’s license online at the California Department of Motor Vehicles website. All you need is a working credit card to pay your way.

• Make sure it’s right.

You can also find out if the state of California has the right car insurance information for you. If you are listed as uninsured, then that could cause problems with tickets even if you are insured after all. To avoid problems, you can request that your information be corrected, and you might need to send proof of your current car insurance.

• Learn where to learn.

You can also get information about schools or driving classes in your area. These are a good idea if you want to get better premium rates on your car insurance. Consider taking defensive driving or just a regular introductory driving class.

• Pay your tickets.

Not only can you see what tickets you have out online, but you can pay them as well with your credit or debit card, and find out ways to wipe them off of your record. Getting your traffic tickets taken care of is a good way to get good car insurance rates.

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