By wr_root One of the first things people probably think about when they come to the United States is buying a car. If you have a car, you need to buy insurance.
If you are caught driving without a license, you may face license revocation, vehicle registration suspension, expensive tickets, and an indelible stain on your driving record, and your car insurance premiums will go up.
If the unlicensed driver got into a car accident, it is likely to have to enter the Bureau of face to face. So car insurance must buy, driving must be careful!
Does car insurance follow the person or the car?
Car insurance in the US goes with the car. For example, if a friend drives your car and gets into an accident, then it will be with your insurance.
So that puts you at great risk. If he has insurance, then he will only use his if your insurance is not enough to pay.
So it is advisable not to lend your car to someone else. In case of an accident, the premium for the car will definitely go up and you will be jointly and severally liable if you are sued.
When will the insurance be used?
Generally speaking, insurance is only used when the responsibility is yours.
If the responsibility lies with the other party, then generally you will not use your own insurance.
And remember to claim as much as possible through the other party’s insurance company. Here is a case I found online:
“Actually the responsibility is not on me, but I was greedy and convenient to claim from my own insurance, and then have my own insurance company ask for money from the other party (because I was asking whether I should call the other party’s insurance or my own, and then I got an answer that both sides are fine …. ).
This method is feasible, but… this will become my insurance has an extra claim record, after that if I want to change insurance company, the other broker will think it is your responsibility when they check the record, of course, you can ask the original insurance company for a detailed explanation to prove that the accident is not your responsibility or something, but it will be a lot of trouble… .
So remember, unless it’s really obvious that you’re to blame or the other party is uninsured, kill the other party’s insurance first.”
Half insurance or full insurance?
Another way of saying half and full coverage is half and full insurance. That auto insurance should buy half insurance or full insurance?
If you buy a new car Dealer will generally require you to be fully insured before you can go out, and used cars have no hard and fast requirements, but the general condition of the car is generally better generally speaking, it is recommended to be fully insured.
In car insurance terms, there is no such thing as half and full coverage, which is mainly used to briefly summarize whether the insurance covers both parties or only the other party in the event of an accident.
Generally speaking, insurance is only used when the liability is on you. If the liability is on the other party, then you usually don’t use your own insurance.
Liability insurance is mandatory for cars to be legalized in the U.S. When you are the one at fault, liability insurance does not cover the damages of the other party, but only the damages of the other party, which is why it is called semi-insurance.
This is to ensure that the driver is at least responsible for compensating the other party for the damages in the case of an accident. The so-called full coverage insurance is in addition to liability insurance, more buy their own vehicle insurance program, so even if you make a mistake and cause a car accident, you can still get compensation, so it is called full coverage insurance.
But how wide the coverage of this full coverage depends on your own choice. Collision, comprehensive accident, and medical payments insurance are all used to protect your own side of the compensation, and buying collision and comprehensive accident insurance can basically be called full coverage.
In addition, car insurance companies often sell some additional insurance, such as Emergency Road Service (emergency roadside assistance), Rental Reimbursement (rental car compensation) and so on.
Several factors affecting premiums
Main factors:
Accident record: those who have been in an accident with a file claim record will naturally have higher premiums.
Driving age: also one of the main factors. The longer you drive, the lower the premium. For example, if you have a driver’s license, your premium will be lower than if you have a permit.
Cars: New cars are more expensive than used cars, and luxury cars are more expensive than ordinary cars.
Age: The older you are, the lower your premiums will be. Older youths have the advantage of higher premiums, while teenagers have higher premiums, and premiums drop a lot after age 25.
Marital status: Married premiums are lower than unmarried premiums, and even lower when you have children. The reason for this is simple: when you have a family, you’re not just responsible for yourself.
Location: city premiums are higher than country premiums, the higher the premiums in high traffic areas, the higher the premiums in the Corn Belt than New York premiums, not so many opportunities to crash.
Other factors:
The less you drive, the lower your premiums will be. It is said that 7,500 mph per year is a hurdle.
Highly educated people have lower premiums
Women have lower premiums than men.
Lower premiums for those who live in good neighborhoods
Lower premiums for students with high GPAs
How to choose an insurance company
There is a huge difference in price from one insurance company to another. Be sure to shop around beforehand and carry out QUOTES from the main ones to compare.
In addition, when your car insurance is about to expire, you should also make more inquiries and comparisons, even if your current insurance company can also re-quote, you may also get a lower price than directly renew.
Anyway, nowadays, all insurance companies offer online quotes, so it’s easy to make a comparison. GEICO, progressive, sate farm, allstate, farmers, nationwide are some of the bigger companies.
The internet summarizes that GEICO and State Farm are the cheaper of the two.
Generally speaking, the service of these large companies is relatively guaranteed, in order to avoid problems in the claim, it is recommended to try to buy from these auto insurance companies, do not buy a small brand for cheap, and then find that when you need to make a claim, it does not go well. Also in terms of service, the big companies are more reliable.
I’m a cautious driver and I’ve never had an accident. But once I had a flat tire, I used Progressive, and after calling the phone number on my insurance card, I was able to get the spare tire replaced in 30 minutes, because the insurance I bought didn’t include road assistance, so it cost me 55 knives, otherwise it would have been free of charge.
During the period of customer service call over to ask whether the maintenance boy in the specified time to arrive, all in all, I feel that the service of the big company is still very reliable, although the later inquiry found another big point of the car insurance state farm cheaper a lot of decisively changed, but the state farm’s online function is obviously not as good as progressive, this is an afterthought. Of course, Meemic insurance, an insurance company that specializes in students or educators like the one I introduced earlier, can also be considered.
