When you are buying a car, you will need to get comprehensive and collision car insurance coverage, and the latter of those two coverage options is more expensive the more likely your car is to be vandalized or stolen. Every insurance company bases its premiums on its own claims records, and you will only be able to get an idea of what each company will charge you by getting instant online car insurance quotes. However, if you look at this list of most stolen cars on a nationwide basis, then you’ll also have an idea of what kind of car you should avoid. Some of them are unexpected.

• Toyota Camry
• Honda Accord
• Honda Civic
• Chevrolet Full Size C/K Pickup
• Ford F-150
• Jeep Cherokee
• Oldsmobile Cutlass
• Dodge Caravan
• Ford Taurus
• Toyota Corolla
• Chrysler Neon
• Nissan Sentra
• Chevrolet Caprice
• Ford Explorer
• Chevrolet Cavalier
• Chevrolet Blazer
• Plymouth Voyager
• Pontiac Grand Am
• Ford Escort
• Acura Integra
• Dodge Ram
• Nissan Maxima
• Ford Mustang
• Buick LeSabre

Surprisingly, my ugly old Oldsmobile is on that list, which goes to show that car thieves will steal anything. However, even if you aren’t going shopping and already own one of these oft stolen cars, you can still get a good car insurance quote by adding some extra protection to your car. The National Insurance Crime Bureau says that the best way to go in terms of protecting your car and getting a good comprehensive car insurance quote is to put your anti theft measures on in layers, instead of just equipping one anti theft device.

• First layer: Don’t be dumb.

Some people think that it’s okay to leave the car on and the key in the ignition if they’re just running into the store for a minute and will be able to see the car the entire time, but this is not much protection. I read a story recently about a woman that did this, and someone stole the car, which had her one year old in it, and only brought it back because he didn’t want to be charged for kidnapping. First of all, no, don’t use your kids as anti theft devices. But also don’t leave your keys in the car. By the time you notice someone is in your car and run out into the parking lot, the car will be gone.

You also should make sure that, if possible, you park in well lit areas where there are a lot of people. It’s better to go to the store to do your shopping when it’s busy rather than in the middle of the night.

• Layer two: The deterrent.

Now, even if you are practicing common sense, there is still a chance that your car will get stolen. While deterrents usually won’t get you a good insurance rate, they are still a necessary component in your layered protection.

• Layer three: Disenablers.

If they have no fear of the deterrents and manage to get into the vehicle itself, this type of anti theft device will make sure they are unable to hotwire your vehicle, or at least have a very difficult time of it. This type of device will get you a  car insurance discount with most companies.

If you want to get the best car insurance discount with this type of anti theft device, then you need to get an active one. An active anti theft device is always active, whereas a passive one has to be activated by you every time that you leave the car.

• Layer four: Finding it.

If the thief is especially persistent and experienced, and somehow manages to bypass all of the other protections on your vehicle, then you will need a way to get your car back. Most stolen cars are not recovered, and police have to act very fast to get to the car before it is taken to the chop shop or across the border.

A tracking device can help you make sure that your car is recovered. It sends a signal to police so that they can find the find the car.

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.

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.

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.

There are certain aspects of a car that affect the car insurance quote other than just the make and model. For example, SUVs and big trucks tend to be priced at a higher premium because they cause more damage, partly due to their size and partly due to their higher bumpers. Smaller cars can also be priced high, because in their case they take more damage, and so you would have to pay more for your collision coverage. The best way to go is to get a nice, not very new, mid sized car. Or you could go with one of these, the cheapest ten cars to insure this year:

• Chrysler Town & Country
• Chevrolet Cobalt
• Dodge Caravan
• Chevrolet Impala
• Ford Taurus
• Ford Econoline
• Jeep Grand Cherokee
• Chevrolet Malibu
• GMC Sierra Pickup
• Toyota Corolla

These aren’t direct guarantees to a cheaper car insurance quote, because of course there will be other factors deciding the price of your premium. However, getting the right car can make your quote as much as fifty percent smaller. If you don’t want one of these, then before you go shopping make sure you get a  car insurance quote or two for every car that you’re considering, so that not only will you be able to find the best car insurance company to insure it with, but you’ll know that you aren’t getting yourself into an expensive mess.

• Underinsured motorist coverage.

This is for if the other driver’s insurance does not cover damage in the case of an accident. For example, if the damages caused to you and your vehicle are in a total of $40,000, but the insured only has $35,000 of car insurance coverage, then your underinsured motorist coverage will kick in to take care of the rest.

There are two different ways that this will work out. In some cases, the underinsured driver’s coverage amount will be added together with your own underinsured motorist coverage, and in other cases it will be subtracted.

• Uninsured motorist coverage.

Whenever you go to get your car insurance policy, the company must inquire whether or not you want to get uninsured motorist coverage. If you choose not to get this type of coverage, then you have to sign a waiver stating that you have declined, and then they can give you your California car insurance quote.

Uninsured motorist coverage takes care of your damages when get into an accident in which the other person does not have any car insurance.

Another thing that you should take into account when deciding which California auto insurance company to choose is the J.D. Power rating. J.D. Power is an organization that has tons of great information for consumers, and I use it for a lot more than just looking for a good California auto insurance company. You can find their information on insurance companies here.

J.D. Power ranks each company based on five different aspects, which are:

• billing and payment
• pricing
• contacting the insurer
• policy offerings
• overall experience

At the moment a couple of the companies ranked at the top of their list for auto insurance are Amica Mutual and USAA, with five dots in each area. Now, something that you have to realize is that the J.D. Power ratings are helpful, but simplistic. They should not be used as a primary source of information, but as an additional one.

Another thing is that they aren’t specific to California. However, there is a California auto insurance company or two on their list. I’m looking at it right now and see the Automobile Club of Southern California. This California auto insurance company ranks decently, with three in all sections but policy offerings and pricing, where they have four.

Then there’s the California State Automobile Association, which does somewhat poorly, with three in most sections and two in a couple.