How to Choose the Right and Cheap Insurance Company?
You are
looking for the lowest priced insurance company, but you want to make sure that
the one you choose is reputable enough to cover you adequately after a car
accident?
In Our
Previous Article we did show you steps on how to buy a car insurance, you
should have a pretty good idea of how much car insurance to buy and how you can
find a low price. But the real question is how you can make sure that the
company you’ve already choose and sign with is going to be reliable in case of
accidents claims.
To help you
answer this question, we have for you several ideas to make sure that your car
insurance investment is directed toward a trustworthy company, one that will
pay on time and in full.
Most Important Guidelines:
1 1.
Make
sure to visit your state’s insurance Web
Site:
Your State and every state, has a department of
insurance. And most of them have web sites, they publish ratios about
consumer complaint for all of the insurance companies that sell policies in
their state, based on this ratio wish tells you how many complaints a car
insurance company received per 1000 claims.
In case where you can’t find complaint ratios for
your state, we recommend you to examine the complaint ratios published by the
other states. Don’t forget that a subpar ratio in one state doesn’t necessarily
mean that the situation is the same in your state it can be different. For
example if an insurer gets a lot of complaints in other states, you probably
don’t want to sign up with this company, always keep in mind that insurance
company’s practices can vary from state to state.
2 2.
Ask
for local body shops recommendations :
This is so far one of the best ways to find reliable
insurers, you can contact local body shops and ask their recommendations, since
they regularly interact with insurance adjusters. They probably know which
companies have the best claim processes. And which affects how quickly their
work can be done on your damaged car.
3 3.
Look
up for financial strength ratings :
These companies publish financial strength
ratings for all insurance companies in order to give an idea about company’s
ability to pay out a claim.
The Standard & Poor’s
ratings range from the highest AAA to CC. some companies may be assigned
ratings of R “Under Regulatory Supervision” and NR “Not Rated”. The letter
grades might be modified by a plus or minus mark. Consider only those companies
that have at least a BBB rating.
The A.M.
Best ratings range from the highest A++ to D. and some
companies may receive ratings of E “regulatory action regarding the company's
solvency”, or F “In liquidation” and S “Suspended”. You should work with
companies that have at least a B+ rating.
4 4.
Work
with an agent :
Nowadays car insurance companies allow you to
purchase insurance directly via many ways for example over the phone from a
customer service representative or Online. You might be assigned a local agent
to help you.
Knowing that there are two kinds of agents:
*
The independent agent (broker): who
represents several insurance companies, he does not have any interest in
selling you a particular company policy.
*
The captive agent: he usually
represents one insurance company, all state farm sell policies through this
agent.
To sum up you might be not interested in car insurance, but if you feel that you've been burned during the claims process in the past, consider at least one or two of these suggestions.
