Comprehensive car insurance coverage
Reader question:
How do I save money on my comprehensive auto insurance coverage and stop high performance vehicle thieves in their tracks?
Michael
Thank you for asking, Michael.
I try to keep up on the news that comes out concerning cars and car insurance, and there’s actually a lot of pretty cool technology that is not only very nifty from a geek’s stand point, but also goes a long way towards helping protect vehicles from theft and these things can often be used to get a good discount car insurance rate from your car insurance company. In some states, it’s even required that you get a better rate with these additions.
High performance car thieves are pretty geeky these days, too, and as they figure out new ways to steal our cars, we have to figure out new ways to protect our cars from them. One interesting technique is something that is done in the factory. The manufacturer of your car squirts a bunch of micro dots onto your car in the back, and these things basically serve as identifiers for your car. Police also now have a new technology that allows them to read license plates at rapid speed, about a thousand per minute. Then the license plates of cars that have been stolen can be processed and identified like that.
Another great way to stop high performance car thieves is some cooperation between car insurance companies and the NICB to report suspect VINs and a practice called vehicle cloning. Vehicle cloning happens when someone takes a vehicle identification number from one car and then puts it on a car that has been stolen so that the stolen car can pass as legal. When a suspicious VIN shows up, it is reported to the NICB. They have a huge database of VINs that can be matched. Vehicle cloning has big costs, at millions of dollars every year in car insurance losses.
Then there are auto recovery systems. If you live in Massechusetts, then you can benefit from a huge thirty percent discount if you have one of these. They are often called LoJacks, and bascially what they are is equipment that is attached to your car that works as a tracking device. It helps police to find out where your vehicle is. It also does the double duty of not just allowing them to get at your own stolen car, but allowing them to locate car theft rings and chop shops that are operating illegally using stolen cars.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Loading ...