Reader question:

I should I have a specific type of commercial car insurance coverage for when I’m doing non business things in a company vehicle?

Ryan

You might.

Most businesses have commercial car insurance policies for the vehicles that they let their employees used, so for the most part when you are running errands or on a business trip, this is not something that you need to worry about. It is also true that a lot of businesses have it so that the commercial car is always insured, even if you’re just using it to go home for your lunch break or pick up your dry cleaning on the way back to work. In order to find out whether or not your company falls into this area as it concerns commercial car insurance policies, make sure you ask. You never want to know too little, too late.

If your company’s commercial car insurance coverage does not cover the vehicles while you are doing non business things, then you should get your own coverage. The type of coverage you can use is non owners auto insurance. This will cover you regardless of what car you drive, so long as you are not driving a vehicle that your own name is registered to.

Non owners car insurance is available from many companies and it is much cheaper than regular car insurance policies that come attached to a car. One of the reasons for this is that it only comes with the bare minimum coverage required by the state. If you want to get things like comprehensive and collision coverage, then it is not possible to do so on a non owners car insurance policy. This could turn unfortunate for someone using a company car for non company business who gets into an at fault accident, because while their liability is covered, the company car is still ruined. For this reason it’s probably a good idea to keep your personal and business driving lives separate, so that you never get into the problem of driving without proper vehicle insurance coverage.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Reader question:

Hi, I’m sixteen and I need New Jersey auto insurance. I’m still on a learner’s permit for a few months, so do I need teen auto insurance?

Mackenzie

Everyone who drives needs auto insurance.

However, in the state of New Jersey, in order to get an auto insurance policy in your own name, you need to have at least one of the cars on the policy registered under your name as well. It is very important for the names on the registration and on the insurance to match, because if they don’t it could cause a lot of problems when it comes time for a claim or for proof of New Jersey auto insurance to the state department of motor vehicles. However, this is where you come into a dilemma. You can only register a car as soon as your eighteen, and so teen auto insurance in the teen’s name is not an option.

So what do you do?

Well, what I would suggest is that you see if one of your parents’ will add you to their policy. This is how most teenagers end up doing it, and although it does make the adult’s auto insurance policy quite a bit more expensive, it is still much cheaper than it would be if you got a car insurance policy on your own, even if you were allowed. If you do things right, though, there are several ways to make that price lower.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Reader question:

If I have insurance on my old car, can I get new car insurance coverage transferred to my new car when I buy it?

Morgan

Yes, you can, Morgan.

Car insurance companies make this pretty easy. Normally, when you go to the car lot to get your new vehicle, all they will ask you for is your current proof of auto insurance coverage. If you don’t have coverage, then you will have to buy it from the lot (this is a hassle), but if you do (which it sounds like you do), then all you have to do is let them see your auto insurance card and copy it. The reason that they let you go with just a look at the card, even if the new car isn’t on it yet, is because auto insurance companies will cover a new vehicle for up to thirty days before you actually have to go get new car insurance for it.

Adding a new car to your new car insurance coverage is pretty simple. All you have to do is stop by your car insurance office or call up your agent and inform them of the change. Some car insurance companies make he switch over from used car insurance to new car insurance very easy, by offering you the chance to edit your policy on their website. My car insurance company does this, and I love it. When we got our new car, all we had to do was log onto our account and enter in the information, and then receive our new quote. It is such a time saver, especially compared to all of the crazy stuff people used to go through.

Once you get your new car insurance quote, you’ll probably notice that it’s a little more than what you had been paying before. This is bound to happen regardless of what kind of car you get, because new vehicles are automatically placed in a higher risk category. Your new car insurance rate will also depend on what kind of vehicle it is that you bought. In order to avoid getting a terribly high auto insurance quote for your new car insurance coverage, I suggest that you get a quote on the cars you might buy BEFORE you go to the lot, and definitely before you drive one off. This can save you a lot of money in the future.

Making sure that your new vehicle is equipped with some of the best standard safety and anti theft features is another great way to lessen the blow of the higher priced new car insurance. Ask your car salesperson what your options are in this area. Remember that if you can afford OnStar and a back seat mounted 9 inch LCD DVD entertainment system, then you can afford traction control and some extra air bags. Enjoy your new car!

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Reader question:

I’m a writer and I live on a mountain, pretty much by myself. There’s a town a few miles away, but I keep to myself and only go there when I need to buy something. I own two cars, which are exactly the same in year, make, and model. Why is it that I have to have liability car insurance coverage for both vehicles? I can only drive one at a time?

Gary

Kind of weird question there, Gary, but okay.

I feel like your asking me one of those mind bender questions, like how could a house with four windows have them all facing north. However, assuming that you do live all alone on the top of a mountain with an exact copy of the same car, it does bring up an interesting point about liability car insurance that must be brought across. You don’t have to be in a car to be liable for what it does. That might be a silly statement at first. After all, it isn’t like your car is going to start on its own and run over the mayor’s expensive doberman that wandered up from below.

However, there are many situation where the car you don’t use could get into an accident even while you aren’t using it. For one thing, something could go wrong with the breaks and it can roll off a cliff and fall through someone’s roof, which would end up in significant property damage and possibly death. Another thing that it could do would be if you lent it to somebody else to drive it.

You might be protesting that your brakes are fine and that you would never let anybody else borrow your car, not even over your dead body. But the point to all of this is that your car insurance company doesn’t know that. What they know is that you own two vehicles, and they know nothing about you personally, so they can’t take it on your decency and honesty when you say that the second vehicle will do no harm. As far as they are concerned, anything can happen with that car.

Another thing to consider is that often when someone lives alone but owns two of the same car, it will be a red flag going up for fraud by misrepresentation. It will be hard for the auto insurance company to believe that you don’t have somebody else who is regularly using this vehicle, so they will tread lightly around your policy. However you shake it, though, it is necessary to have liability car insurance coverage regardless of what you think you might or might not do with a car.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Reader question:

We have an exchange student from Korea living with us and he wants to be able to drive while he’s here. How do we get student auto insurance coverage?

Amy

That is a very interesting question, Amy.

I suppose it all depends on your situation, Amy. The United States has stricter requirements than most countries for getting a driver’s license if you are not here permanently and with a social security number. With all of the recent debate regarding secure borders and immigration, it has been difficult in many states even for legal immigrants who have social security cards and green cards and the works to take their driver’s test and get a license. It really depends on the state, so while I will give you some general advice, it is very important for you to go to your state’s department of motor vehicles to find out what their policy is regarding this.

First of all, does your exchange student have an international driver’s license? While this cannot be used in place of a state issued U.S. driver’s license, it does help when it comes to the training in order to prove that the student already has driver training. In a few states, the requirements are more lax for those who already have a non United States driver’s license, although they still need to prove that they understand U.S. traffic laws.

Many states require that you have a social security number in order to get a driver’s license. This puts many immigrants who are here as students in a bind, especially if they are going to college and thus don’t get an exchange family to help get them from point A to point B during those four years. Most of the states, I believe it’s a total of forty, will work with people who are legally present but are not in the class of immigrants who get a social security number. Things such as the alien number can be given in many cases. Find out from your state DMV what is required. Being a student without an SSN can be tough, but it can be done.

In one state, Tennessee, drivers who are not immigrating to the U.S. permanently have another option to add to all of the above. They can train and take their driving test and everything. However, they cannot be issued a driver’s license. Instead, they are issued a driving certificate. This allows them to drive in the state of Tennessee and it can also be used for identification in many places just like a driver’s license could. This is, of course, a temporary license and does not last as long as a regular driver’s license would. Another state, California, is working on a law that would make it possible to obtain a license without a social security number. While it is primarily targeted at undocumented immigrants, it also stands to benefit many here on temporary work permits and H1B student visas who in some states find themselves making do with the bus.

Once he has a license, it’s easy to get student auto insurance coverage. With a license to drive, he will be treated like any other teenager, even if he has a previous driving record in Korea. That will not be considered in the U.S. Your rates will be higher, but you will be able to add him to your own policy or get him a student auto insurance policy of his own, although it is cheaper to add him to yours. As some advice, AIG auto insurance company is a very good one for foreign born drivers, as they have a special international driver policy for those in this situation.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

You never know who you’ll meet up with on a parking lot, which is why collisions like this one can be a problem for many policy holders out there. It’s funny how DMVs will be rabid about students learning correct methods for parallel parking, even if they live in a rural area and will probably never see a city street. Meanwhile, normal parking lot parking methods are completely ignored. From all the vehicles I see double parked or so close to my own car that I actually have to lose weight in order to get in, I’d say it was necessary.

So what kind of car insurance coverage do you need for an encounter with someone who is a deranged and delayed parker? I would suggest you get yourself collision coverage for your car if you want to avoid this problem. While certain parking shop horrors, such as a grocery cart slamming into the side of your car or a piece of glass popping the tire, can be covered by comprehensive car insurance coverage, many people make the mistake of thinking that the same goes for accidents that happen when you aren’t in or around your car. But the same way your collision coverage will take care of your car if you run over someone’s hedge, it will take care of your car if you back up too far in the parking lot. Of course, if you are the victim in the incident, your car will be covered by the other driver’s liability coverage. That is if, unlike the driver in the video, the person who hits your car thinks it right to let you know it was them.

In order to determine whether you need collision car insurance coverage on your vehicle, consider the worth of your car. If it’s a new car, or a car that you’re still paying on, then of course you are required through your contract with the financing company to have both collision and comprehensive coverage on the vehicle. If it’s a newer car that you’ve already finished paying on, then you should still keep the coverage to protect your property. However, if you have an older car that’s worth about a thousand dollars or less, then you should consider dropping your coverage down to just the state minimum. The reason for this is that you will probably be paying out more to insure your vehicle than the car is worth, even the used car rates are lower than new ones.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Reader question:

The zip code I live in has very expensive auto insurance prices. I put in the zip where I used to live (not very far away) to see what kind of rates I would get for that, and it was much better. Is it legal to use a different address to get cheap car insurance rates?

Amber

No, definitely not.

If you did that, Amber, you would be committing car insurance fraud. While for the most part your car insurance company wouldn’t go after you for something as petty as lying about your living address, but in case you ever filed a claim for your vehicle with that address on your policy, and they found out that the address was false, then you would not be getting a cent of your claim money, even if the other driver willfully rammed you off a cliff. And there are several states where the DMV will see your claim being denied for fraud as the same as though you never had car insurance coverage in the first place, and you could get the same results. That means fine, court, maybe a lawsuit, a loss of your license, and a long standing blemish on your car insurance score that all of your future companies will see. Are you willing to risk that just to get cheap car insurance rates?

While lying about where you keep your car may seem like a small thing, you are making yourself in a huge way responsible for the rising costs of car insurance premiums in your area. In many places, these high prices for car insurance rates are directly the cause of car insurance fraud. Some fraud has a bigger impact than others, and while it may manifest in the person of someone claiming a fraudulent injury and receiving thousands of dollars in court, in can also manifest in many people like yourself making small fraudulent statements for a couple hundred dollars, that all amounts to the same end result in dollar terms. No matter how innocuous you may seem, you are making other people who have nothing to do with this pay for your own problem.

The reason why it makes a difference what address you put down is because the risk that they put to your name depends on several factors, including your area. If you have a higher risk for, say, car theft because you live in a high crime area, but you put yourself down for a low crime area, then you are still just as risky a customer, but the company is not charging you for this risk. It might eventually come out when your car gets stolen, or it might not. Either way, there’s somebody out there who has to pay for your missing risk, and it probably isn’t you.

There are plenty of ways to lower your car insurance premium without committing fraud. It’s so simple. The first step you need to take is to raise your deductible to a higher amount, so that while your out of pocket expenses may be more, your car insurance premium will be much lower. Then you might want to think about paying your entire six month premium at the same time instead of doing the more expensive way of monthly payments. You should also think about cutting your coverage to only what you think is necessary. Finally, shop around to make sure you’re getting the best quotes (at your real address!) and stick with the company that treats you best.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Reader question:

Where do I go to get car insurance quotes?

Lizzie

Excellent question, Lizzie.

There are several places that you can go to get cheap auto insurance quotes, many of them right here on the internet. The first thing you might want to do is either look around this page at the ads–one of them is likely to lead you to a free instant online auto insurance quote site–or, failing that, do a google search for free auto insurance quotes. The sites that will come up often have several companies from which they glean their information, so once you have finished getting your quotes you will have many options. The truth is that you should never look at one car insurance company, because while a certain company may have the best auto insurance rates for you at one point, when your situation changes so does your relationship with your insurer. You always need to shop around.

Also on the internet are the business sites of many an auto insurance company today. These sites usually contain details about policies as well as car insurance quotes for new and current customers. Many, like Progressive, claim to give quotes of the competitors as well. It is true that they do this, but you can usually get more and more specific quotes from sites that are not connected with a certain company. The upside of these sites, though, is that once you have your quote you can normally also buy your car insurance policy online.

For those who don’t feel comfortable looking on the internet for auto insurance quotes, you can get an expert to do it for you. Car insurance agents are a big help when it comes to finding the auto insurance company that is the best choice for you. There are two kinds of auto insurance agents.

• Captive car insurance agents.

These are agents who give quotes from and sell policies only for the one company that they are connected to. In this case, you might as well just go straight to the company’s website. Captive car insurance agents are a good choice sometimes, but normally only after you have already decided by other means to do business with the car insurance company that they are affiliated with. Even if you do end up choosing to do all of your car insurance business with a captive auto insurance agent, you should at least do yourself the favor of doing a web search on free car insurance quotes or asking an independent car insurance agent for some brief assistance. A little research can go a long way.

There are certain companies who deal with captive car insurance agents only. These include AA, State Farm, Liberty Mutual, and AllState, as well as more.

• Independent car insurance agents.

These car insurance agents tend to work for around five or more car insurance companies. They are like the free quote website of the physical world, in that you can call them up and get quotes for several different plans and policies. They are a good option for everybody, both those undecided on a car insurance company and those settled, but who might seek options at a later point.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Reader question:

My son is about to get his license, but will only drive the car very rarely. Am I still required to get teen car insurance rates on my policy?

Malcolm

You sure are.

A car insurance company is a tricky type of dealer of business. One thing they will tell you is that any member of your household is covered on your policy, even if they aren’t listed. They’ll require that you list your spouse, but pretty much everyone else you can leave off. However, they will know when one of those members of your household suddenly moves into a higher risk group. Whether you want to or not, whenever your child gets his driver’s license, your car insurance premium will fatten up more than just a little bit.

It doesn’t matter if the kid will only driver your vehicle now and then. Heck, car insurance companies don’t care if he never drives it at all. As long as he is living under your roof, there is the assumption that it is possible for him to drive your car, he has access to the keys, and someday he will probably take advantage of that. At least this is how car insurance companies think.

Even if you manage to trick your car insurance company into not realizing that you have a teen driver under your roof, they will consider this misrepresentation since you are leaving a high risk driver off in order to avoid the higher teen car insurance rates. That means that if on one of those rare occasions that your son is driving a car and he gets into a car accident, his claim is most likely going to be denied. This means a probable loss of license for him, big fines, and since the damages will probably be too much for him to pay for, either you will pay for it out of pocket, or he will spend the next decade of his life having to pay off the thousands of dollars in damages that he could have saved with an expensive, but much cheaper than that, car insurance policy.

Car insurance coverage is important for everyone, and especially teens. Instead of concentrating on how to avoid paying extra for your son’s car insurance policy, Malcolm, think about how you could pay less. Are you having trouble getting him motivated in school? One of the biggest savers for young people everywhere on car insurance is the good student discount program run by many companies that gets you as much as a 15% discount off of your premium. Make it a requirement to get a B average or above before you son gets to take the car out for a spin, and you’ll see results. While that won’t take off the 100% increase you’re likely to see coming with a young male on your car insurance policy, use other ways to chip it off. Every little bit helps.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Reader question:

I’m buying a used car. Does my used car insurance coverage have to include things like comprehensive and collision coverage?

Molly

Thank you for asking, Molly.

It really depends on several things. I, for one, a making payments on a piece of junk car that is older than myself, which I naively bought because I liked the way it looks. I’ve wizened up since then. In the meantime, it was an expensive car back before I was born, so even with age it is still in the expensive range for older cars, and I only have liability auto insurance coverage for it, considering that it is worth its weight in scrap metal and I probably pay more for it on insurance every year than I would get if it suddenly combusted. Now, my car dealer ship knows that I only have liability, because asked them, seeing that, regardless of the uselessness of this vehicle, I don’t want it to be repossessed. They didn’t have a problem with it, even though full coverage was required in my contract. I’m not sure if this is because I’ve almost finished paying for it or what, but it definitely couldn’t hurt to ask.

Now, apart from that, let’s get down to where the requirement to get full auto insurance coverage on your used car comes from: the financial institution that gives you the financing for your car. This will always be the one that decides, so whether it is your actual car lot or a bank, the word will come from them. If the financial institution doing the financing is a bank, then you probably have no chance of doing the little dance that I mentioned above. If you are dealer financed, you have a better chance, since some dealers are more lax than others.

If you are unsure as to whether or not you need complete used car insurance coverage, then you need to take a look at the contract you signed when you bought the car in the first place. This should included all of your own responsibilities for taking care of the car, involving subjects such as the warranty upkeep and auto insurance coverage. If the requirement to have full coverage is not in your contract, then your car dealer ship cannot make you get it. However, if you think it isn’t there, make sure you contact them first to make sure you aren’t reading it wrong.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.