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.

I Want To Buy Cheap California Vehicle Insurance

Reader’s Question:

What do I need to know about California vehicle insurance?

Mark

San Jose, CA

California vehicle insurance is pretty straightforward. The state requires its resident drivers to have liability coverage. The limits for this coverage are $15,000 for the treatment of a single person’s bodily injuries, $30,000 for the combined medical expenses of all persons injured in one accident, and $5,000 for any property damage. Although California vehicle insurance is compulsory for all drivers or vehicle owners, it can sometimes happen that a driver has a hard time getting insured. Drivers with motor vehicle records spotted with one too many citations or convictions can be often denied by providers. In such cases, the driver would most likely be put in the California Automobile Assigned Risk Plan or CAARP. This assigned risk plan hands over drivers who are unable to obtain insurance for whatever reasons to specific insurance companies who agree to provide liability coverage. The required limits for such drivers are $10,000 for bodily injuries of one person, $20,000 if more than two people were injured, and $3,000 for damaged property.

Other types of California vehicle insurance is collision and comprehensive coverage and uninsured motorist coverage. Unlike liability these coverage benefits the policyholder and covers him for any injury or property damage due to an accident. These types of insurance are not required by the state and so obtaining them would depend upon your needs.

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.

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.

Getting Cheap California Student Car Insurance Rates

Are you a starving college student? I understand, and so do many California car insurance companies. Students pay more for car insurance, and so they do what they can to attract these students by offering discounts to them that will allow them to pay less for their  car insurance policy. The catch is that while they may pay less than they would normally pay as drivers under the age of twenty five, they’re often still paying far more than older drivers with similar discounts. This is something you just have to get used to, but the more discounts you take advantage of, the further you close the gap.

A couple of discounts you should consider while in college:

• Good student discount: allows up to a 15% discount from most companies if you have a 3.5 grade point average or above, as well as a B average or above
• Low mileage discount: offers a discount of up to 10% from most companies if you have under forty miles a day or under five thousand a year. You can get this by taking advantage of public transportation or carpooling with friends

There’s another discount that you will have available to you while you lose that first discount, but still haven’t quite recovered from the starving student lifestyle. That’s right, a discount once you’ve finished college. Sentry Insurance will give you a discount if you’ve graduated from college up until the age of thirty. However, 21st Century takes the cake by offering the best car insurance discount for former students. It’s for graduates who have a bachelor’s degree in one of the following fields:

• Physics
• Mathematics
• Aerospace engineering
• Electrical engineering
• Chemistry
• Structural engineering
• Astronomy
• Chemical engineering
• Cybernetics
• Geophysics
• Nuclear engineering
• Planetary systems
• Petroleum engineering
• Meteorology
• Geology
• Civil engineering
• Biochemistry
• Aeronautical engineering

The car insurance discount can be from ten percent to thirty percent if you have any of the above degrees.

What Is Tort Law?

Reader question:

What is tort law?

Abram

Thank you for asking, Abram.

Tort is related to lawsuits in the legal system, and when it comes to cheap California car insurance there are two different levels of tort that you can subscribe to. If you choose one level, you will get cheap California car insurance rates, and if you choose the higher level, then you will have to pay a little more.

The difference between the two choices is defined by when you are allowed to sue after you have gotten into a car accident which was not your fault.

• Full tort.

Cheap California car insurance will be a little more difficult to get with the full tort option. This option allows you allows you to sue for pain and suffering after you are injured in an accident which is the fault of the other driver. This option is the one that I would suggest, because if you don’t choose it, and you should end up with some very bad injury with no recourse, then the other driver’s car insurance often won’t take care of things such as wage loss or other types of pain and suffering.

• Limited tort.

This is the cheap California car insurance tort, but it might cost you more in the long run. Not in premium payments, but in losses if you get into a car accident. This option reduces your ability to file a lawsuit to very rare circumstances, such as:

Whether you choose full or limited tort is obviously your decision, and if you happen to never get into a serious accident, then you’ll probably wish you had gone with limited tort. However, many people get into a bad accident at least once in their lives, so it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

What Is Comprehensive Car Insurance?

Reader question:

What is comprehensive car insurance coverage?

Greg

Great question, Greg.

Like collision coverage, if you are buying a new car then in most cases you will be required to add comprehensive to your cheap California auto insurance coverage. It is also required to be on your policy before you can buy gap insurance coverage. Many of the same basic rules that apply to collision coverage also apply to comprehensive coverage:

• If you’re not making payments anymore but you have a somewhat new car, you probably need it.
• If your car is worth less than $1000, you definitely don’t need it.

The comprehensive part of your cheap California auto insurance policy is there to cover several types of incidents. These incidents are:

• When your vehicle is stolen.
• When your vehicle is vandalized.
• When insured parts of your vehicle (i.e. air bags) are stolen, even if the vehicle itself remains.
• Hit and runs.
• Natural distasters, covering damages such as fire damage, flood damage, and more.

Many drivers do not need to add comprehensive coverage to their cheap California auto insurance policy because they are not at high risk. For example, if you have a relatively new vehicle and you live in an area that often floods, then it would be a good idea for you to pay for comprensive car insurance coverage, although you may have to pay slightly more than usual. If you own a high performance car, which is a type of car that is at an unusual risk for theft, then you also probably want to consider it, again at a higher price.

However, even if your car is not the newest or the most expensive, that doesn’t mean that it is not under the risk of theft. Many old cars are sold for good money to underground chop shops, while the new, most popular cars are sold for other reasons. On the list of the most often stolen cars every year, several of the vehicles are somewhat homely and a few years old.

In order to get a better price for comprhensive on your cheap California auto insurance policy, you need to add some anti theft devices. This will get you a discount. Most insurance companies require some kind of anti theft device before they even sell you comprehensive coverage, but if you get an active disabling device it will be cheaper for you. You should also consider raising your deductible.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Cheap California Auto Insurance Rate?

When I bought my new car a few months ago, I had to bring my California auto insurance card, so that the dealership could make a copy and have proof that my vehicle will be insured. From the time that I buy my car, I have thirty days to get a new California auto insurance rate on my car and add it to my policy. I’m given this amount of time because that is the amount of time for which my car insurance policy will cover my new car without my having added to the policy.

However, if you do not have auto insurance, then you often have to go through a lot of hassle to get car insurance from the dealership, and after you’ve already been there for several hours, looking at cars, and filling out paperwork, you will then have to spend more hours on the phone. When my mother bought a car recently, she spent three hours just trying to get insurance, since she had let her insurance on her old car lapse.

In our lovely state, though, there is a new program in many parts of the state that will allow us to get a California auto insurance rate quickly and straight from the car dealership. Called Turbo Coverage, the insurance company from San Jose has created an online program for car dealerships, allowing their customers to become instantly insured at the lot. Fifteen percent of all car buyers will have to buy car insurance from the lot.

Before this came along, the car insurance salesperson had to phone up the car insurance company and deal personally with the auto insurance salesperson to get the California auto insurance rate. This would take a long time. However, now there are kiosks in thousands of car dealerships across California that will allow you to get your California auto insurance rate and policy instantly.

Who Offers Cheap California Auto Insurance Quotes

The best thing that you can do for your California auto insurance premium is to shop around. If you stick with one company, you might get some long time customer perks such as a renewal discount and/or an accident free discount. However, normally these perks are pretty small, and you can do so much better by looking around for good California auto insurance quote.

There are three basic ways to get a California auto insurance quote: through your agent/broker, by yourself on California auto insurance quote comparison websites, or from the California auto insurance company itself. Which is the best way to go? Let’s see.

• Agents.

If you are looking for a California auto insurance quote, then the kind of agent you want will be an independent agent. They’re name is slightly misleading, considering they aren’t entirely independent. However, unlike captive agents, who only give you a California auto insurance quote from one company, they work for several companies and can get you quotes from all of them.

The catch is that agents come with a fee. Normally, you can negotiate this fee, so if you know what you’re doing it might not be too expensive.

• Comparison sites.

This is my favorite way to go. California auto insurance quote comparison websites are everywhere. There are probably a few on this page. Just click on one and fill out the information, and you can get quotes from several different companies with no bias. I find this the best way to start out, because you only have to fill out the information once to get a California auto insurance quote ten different times. Start from here, and write down the companies with the best quotes, and then continue your research.

• Direct company website.

Direct company websites are kind of like captive agents. They are only interested in selling you one California auto insurance quote, so if you’re trying to decide, it’s best to avoid them. You can get the same quotes from the comparison websites. On top of that, there are a few sites that claim to give you the competitor’s rates as well, but normally these aren’t all that they are cracked up to be. I find that the comparison sites are more accurate, and they give you more quotes.

Next Page »