Regardless of where you live or how much you drive, if you own a car, you need auto insurance. Luckily, it's easier than ever to compare prices and to buy auto insurance online. Still, it's important to be an informed and conscientious consumer. In order to get an accurate online car insurance comparison from a variety of companies, you need to know what the different types of coverage mean, and what will be suit your needs and lifestyle. Here, then, are some common types of coverage and terminology you need to know when shopping for car insurance.
Uninsured Motorist: Uninsured motorist coverage protects you should you be in an accident with another driver who is either uninsured or underinsured. This is an important type of coverage to buy, since the insurance industry estimates that one in seven drivers is uninsured.
Comprehensive Coverage: Comprehensive coverage takes care of things that might happen to your car other than a crash, such as your car catching on fire, someone stealing your car, or someone smashing a window.
Property Damage: If you hit a house, another car, or some other kind of property, property damage insurance will cover your liability. This type of coverage is often mandated by state law.
Collision Coverage: Collision coverage protects your vehicle should something happen to it while it's moving, regardless of who is at fault. If your car is financed or leased, the lender or owner of the vehicle usually requires this type of insurance.
Medical Payments: Coverage for medical payments applies to you, as well as your passengers, regardless of who was at fault. It can cover medical treatment, ambulance transportation, and possibly even funeral costs.
Bodily Injury Liability: This type of coverage is often mandated by state law, and pays for the harm your vehicle does to a person.
Premium: The premium is the amount you pay for your insurance, and consist of the quotes you receive when you do an online care insurance comparison.
Deductible: This is the amount of money that you must pay before your car insurance "kicks in." For example, if you have a $250 deductible for collision coverage, you must pay the first $250 of the repair bill, and the insurance company will pay the rest.
Good Driver Discount: If the drivers covered by your insurance policy have good driving records, have been driving for a certain period of time, and have not been at fault in an accident causing bodily injury, you may be eligible for a good driver discount that will lower your car insurance premium.
Grace Period: A length of time (usually about a month) after your premium is due, during which time your insurance will remain in effect. After the grace period, your insurance policy may be cancelled.
When shopping for auto insurance online or over the phone, it's important to understand the different types of coverage that companies offer, as well as other terms that are often used by the insurance industry. When you do, you can obtain the kind of coverage you need at the best prices available.
Once you have decided to get some insurance quotes, the best thing you can do is to go online. You might not be comfortable with the ideas of buying insurance online, especially if you are used to using a broker where you actually know the people. But believe me, going online can save you a lot of money.
Often, you can get better cover as well. For example, you might be able to pay a lower excess, or no excess, for the same premium, or you might be able to get a lower rate for letting your teenage son drive the car.
The other major benefit is that you get a lot of quotes very quickly in one place.
But you might ask: 'Can't I do better on the phone?'
It is true that you can get to quite a few insurance companies on the phone, and you can also ask a broker to get you some quotes. That was the best way before the Internet. Even then, you could not rely totally on brokers because several companies deal only directly with customers. And they usually offer competitive rates.
Best to buy auto insurance online
But the fact is that you will do better to buy auto insurance online - on the Internet. But it is not as easy as it sounds so you need a few tips to help. You could type in 'buy auto insurance online' at Google, and you will seem to find lots of suitable sites - in fact, you will find about 7.2 million pages listing this term! Well, actually they do not list that term, but they list those words in the first paragraph, but not necessarily in that order.
Even if you get the exact term 'buy auto insurance online' you will have to go through a lot of pages to find all the quotes you want. This is what you would have to do if you wanted some specialized forms of insurance, but not for normal auto insurance.
Of course, if you already have a policy you need to get a quote from your existing auto insurance company first. Then, instead of going through all the pages offering auto insurance I recommend that you go to a site that lets you put your information once, and then gets you lots of quotes. You then choose the best one - it may not be the cheapest, but the cheapest that gives you what you need.
Both Chris Robertson & John Hartley are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.