A short article about auto insurance, policy benefits, and customer service.
A friend of mine was running late for school one morning. His wife was making something to eat for breakfast while he got his laptop, notebook, and the books he needed for school that day. He put his pack back together and ran outside to warm up the car. But there wasn't a car. It had been stolen. My friend's week was full of bad news. First, the insurance company wouldn't pay for a rental car. Then, the damage the thief did to the car would only be covered up to the deductible. Before the car could be fixed, my friend would have to come up with $500.
He thought he had done his research by going to one of those sites that give car insurance quotes and getting the lowest price. He thought that by getting cheap car insurance, he had found a way to get around the rules. In the end, his cheap car insurance turned out to be terrible. He had trouble because he didn't know enough about his car insurance.
Make sure you know everything about the company's service policies before you buy your next auto insurance policy. Cheap car insurance is only a good deal if it works as well as more expensive insurance. A free car insurance quote is a good place to start. However, getting an auto insurance quote won't be enough unless you know what kind of service you want and if the company that gave you the quote can give it to you. You'll stay on track with the two A's. They are called Assets and Help.
Assets
You want to make sure that your car insurance quote includes everything you might want or need in an emergency. Will your insurance cover your transportation needs if you get stuck without a car? Check to see if the car insurance company you're getting it from will give you a rental car if something goes wrong. If your car is stolen (like my friend's was), can't be driven, or will be in the shop for a few days, you want to make sure you have a car. If you don't, you'll have to call your in-laws and give them another reason why their daughter shouldn't marry you. Check with your insurance company to see if they offer roadside assistance, some kind of lock-out service, and towing service. Remember that the price of car insurance is only low if the product is good.
Assistance
Find out how good the customer service is at the auto insurance company before you buy from them. How do you find out that kind of thing? First of all, you can't know for sure what kind of people you'll be dealing with, but you can find out how likely it is that you'll have a good time. First, you can ask your family and friends about their experiences in a low-tech way. In this kind of network search, the bad auto insurance companies will pop up right away. But let's say you live alone and don't have any family or friends, or, like a friend of mine, your family is from the Catskill Mountains and doesn't have cars or running water. If that's the case, you'll need to use the internet, which is a very high-tech method. One way is to use the search engine at the Better Business Bureau. At www.betterbusinessbureau.org, you can find out if the auto insurance company in question has received any complaints and if those complaints have been resolved. I looked up the auto insurance companies that have been bad to my family and found that they all have complaints against them that I didn't make.
Find a claims phone number on a company's website and call it to see how good their customer service is. If their claims people are nice to you, that makes it more likely that their customer service is a good team. After you've seen how friendly the service department of your auto insurance company is, you can thank them for their time and hang up. No need to explain, they'll just move on to their next call without a second thought. This method is based on the idea that there are two types of companies: those that hire nice people for their sales teams and mean people for their claims departments, and those that hire nice, professional people for both. Most of the time, this simple test will tell you what kind of company you are dealing with.
If the auto insurance policy you are quoted has both the features you want and good customer service, then the quote is accurate. Remember, if you think you might need to use your car insurance, which is a safe assumption we should all make, check these two things first before jumping on the low premiums.
