Car Insurance Policies – Can you Really Rely on Them?

It is almost everywhere that we hear that having insurance is a good thing. We are even brought up on the fact that having insurance is the smart way of doing things. We are made to believe that with insurance, we are somehow protected in some sort of bubble. Any financial risk from accidents, injuries all the way to repairs etc will be magically taken care-off by the insurance companies. They don’t tell you that buying car insurance itself could be a financial risk. This is especially so if they decline your claim or make it difficult for you to get your car repaired. Car insurance policies aren’t the godsend that many people think they are.

In this article we will have a look at car insurance policies and why it is very important to fully understand what is on the table before even committing a cent to it. It is a sad fact that the majority of problems arise from a misunderstanding of the policy between the insuree and the insurer. The insurer will provide policies, however is normally very careful that they aren’t taken for a ride by insurance fraudsters. They will set-up little escape clauses that you as the insuree have to be very careful off. The problem is that different insurance companies have different escape clauses. Let’s have a look at some common practices of insurers to either deny your claim of get you to pay extra for something that you don’t need.

When it comes to trying to escape their obligations, the most obvious way that car insurance companies do it is to flat out deny your claim citing whatever reasons that they can think off. For many customers this can be a very devastating moment as they wouldn’t have even thought that this condition would have existed. The situation can be so bad that it can even drive some people into depression as their little bubble that promised to look after them was never really there in the first place. The thing is, in all countries there are insurance watchdogs called insurance commissions or regulators whose main purpose is to make sure that insurance companies settle their customer’s insurance claims fairly and promptly. It is the job of these insurance regulators to ensure that companies are being fair to customers. If you are unhappy with the response that your car insurance company gave, the first step is to write a letter to the insurer asking them to reconsider their response to your claim. If they don’t change their tone, then you can take it up with the insurance watchdogs and inform them of your case. Most of the time they have a department specialized in looking at small time cases and will help you at no cost. If your claim is large enough you can even look to insurance attorneys so you can get your claim and some extra compensation for “hardship”.

In addition to trying to get out of paying you your rightful claim there are also some dodgy things that car insurance companies do to get you to pay more than you need for your policy. Some people mistakenly think that car insurance policy premiums should rise every year. Car insurance companies are more than happy to jump on those people with a vengeance. This is especially so if you have had a claim the previous year where the insurance companies have a very valid reason to up your premium. Sometimes cunning insurance companies may even increase your coverage for the next year without you knowing about it. This might even be the case where you have decided to clean up your policy and delete some coverage items. You might find that those items that you deleted will magically reappear in the policy for the following year.

On an industry report published some time ago, stats showed that the majority of car insurance company’s resources go towards poaching customers from other car insurance companies. This is in place of actually taking care of their current customers. It stated that as much as 75% of their resources were diverted to obtaining new customers while only 25% was allocated to servicing their current customers. By this measure we can see that car insurance companies won’t really give must care to you as a current customer. They would rather spend money to attract new customers. With this knowledge it is very important to know what deals your current insurer has to entice new customers. It is the normal practice of these insurers to not automatically extend the same deals to their current customers. If you are aware of any deals then it becomes your responsibility to push your current insurer to offer the same deals to you or you might consider moving to another insurer.

Another sneaky thing that insurers do to your car insurance policy is to mess around with your deductibles so that they can get more premium out of you. If you set your deductibles low, the price of your premium will go up. If your deductibles are high then your premium is low. It is always to the benefit of the insurer to keep your deductibles as low as possible so they can earn extra money from you. There are two times that they can hit you with this. The first is when you sign-up and aren’t particular about your deductibles. The second is when your car insurance policy is up for renewal and the insurance company sneakily reduces your deductibles back to “default”.

The main cause of dissatisfaction with your car insurance is to do with a misunderstanding or simply not paying enough attention to your car insurance policy either at the beginning or when your policy was being renewed. A policy is basically a contract that binds both you and the insurer into an agreement. Everything that the insurer is liable to do for you is in the policy documentations. It is for this reason that it is vitally important that you actually take the time to read and understand the car insurance policy. Do it so you won’t get any surprises when you make a claim in the future.

Let Ryan Parker bring you through the maze that is the auto insurance policy. There are a few things that very few people know and will often be a deal breaker especially when it comes to the time to claim. He looks at the important points and why you need to be careful with which type of car insurance you get.