Modifications to the cars gives rise to expensive insurance. But why aren’t there cheap modified car insurance available?

Vernon

Salem OR

Normally, any modifications made to your car will have your car insurance cost rising. Thus, it is a common insurance tip on how to lower rates to avoid putting additional attachments or make any enhancements to your car. Doing these will create alterations to your car’s standard factory specifications and would increase your premium rate. Most often, conservative car insurance companies see modified cars, especially race cars, as more prone to theft due to their enhanced features and as we all know, the greater the risk of your car being stolen, damaged or lost, the higher your car insurance rate would be. For those who love to enhance their cars, cheap modified car insurance tends to be hard to find.

But don’t worry, there are a few car insurance companies that has found a niche in providing insurance to owners of modified cars at cheaper prices than they should be. These niche cheap modified car insurance companies do not have the same thinking with the rest of the car insurance companies. In fact, they have opposite views on modified cars as compared to the conservative companies.

These niche car insurance companies know that those car owners who love to make modifications to their cars, enhancing and upgrading in the process, are more likely to be the people who actually love their vehicles! For if they don’t love their cars so much, they won’t make efforts to upgrade them or at least, modify them a little to suit their personality. Given that fact, if you love something so much, you make all efforts to take care of it, right? The same goes to car enthusiasts! Since they spend time, money and effort in modifying their cars, they will take very good care of their cars at all cost. In the end, they are the ones who are less likely to make claims against their insurance policy.

Another reason is that if given the chance, thieves would prefer to steal standard vehicles than those modified cars with distinctive identification marks. You got the logic?

I hope you now understand why there are now cheap modified car insurance policies.

I am trying to manage my finances. Can you please give me any suggestion on how I can lower my car insurance rate?  I drive a pretty fast car and the rates are super high!

Harold

Seattle WA

You can get cheap car insurance by simply following the tips below on how to save on your annual cost.

•You may want to drop your collision and comprehensive coverage on your automobile if you own an old car

•If your car insurance company offers low mileage discount, you may be able to get that if you drive less. You may be able to get less mileage by carpooling.

•Raising your deductible is another way of lowering your car insurance rates. Make sure you choose the highest deductible that is within your reach. Ultimately, this would lower your car insurance premium over the years.

•When it comes to driving, car insurance companies deem students below twenty five years of age as inexperienced and irresponsible on the road that is why they are given high auto insurance rates. This may be the case but still you can still get affordable auto insurance rate if know what to do. If you have a grade point average of B or higher in school, you may qualify for the good student discount that can save you up to 5% on your vehicle insurance cost. It is said that students who maintain good grades in school carried the same level of responsibility when it comes to operating vehicles on the road.

•The key to getting affordable auto insurance rate is to get a couple of car insurance quotes from various insurers. This is the surest way to get the best deal in the market. Not only will it save you time, you will also save tons of money by just shopping for quotes. Why? Because it will increase your chance of getting the best car insurance quotes if you compare prices from various companies through comparison websites. This is a great way where you can compare which car insurance companies offer the best discounts and car insurance rates in the market that suits your budget and needs.

I’m from Montana and just bought a new car. What do I need to do next?

Desiree

Billings, MT

Before acquiring car insurance, it is important to know that every state has its own insurance laws. Every state demands that its motorist have financial accountability in case they cause vehicular accidents.

The State of Montana requires its motorists to have minimum liability coverage. This insurance covers $25 thousand in medical expenses for a single car occupant, and pays up to a total of $50 thousand in medical costs for all occupants in the car. While for property damage, an amount up to $10 thousand is covered by the car insurance.

Car insurers cover repairs for damages to public properties or the other motorist’s car. Since medical and repairs cost are steadily rising, minimum liability coverage may not be enough. And since the one at fault will shoulder all the expenses to repairs done to his or her own car, it would be smart to carry collision coverage. This section in your policy will assist in paying for your car repairs.

While car insurance is mandatory in all states, some motorists drive without any coverage at all. For this reason, uninsured motorist insurance is also very advisable. This will cover for your medical costs following an accident if an uninsured driver causes it.

Shop around. Get quotes from many car insurance companies. It is best to talk with an agent who represents various companies to save time. You can also visit the websites of car insurance companies in Montana. Knowing all your options will prove to be useful financially.

If you have decided on a company, always remember to deal with a legitimate local agent. Ask for a proof of license. Do not make cash payments. Either pay by check or money order made out to the company. Do not forget to ask for a copy of the policy within a reasonable amount of time from purchase. Read your policy carefully especially the fine print. Knowing the coverage type and its limitations is very important.

Comprehensive high performance car insurance coverage also extends its coverage to natural disasters. This means that if your car is damaged by a flood or a fire, or even by vandalism, then you will be able to file a claim under the comprehensive section of your car insurance policy for your muscle car.

Car insurance companies get the price for this type of coverage from how high a risk a certain vehicle is to incur costs that would result in a car insurance claim. For example, since we own high performance cars, we will pay more for comprehensive high performance car insurance coverage because these types of cars are more likely to get stolen. Components that are often stolen, such as xenon headlights or air bags, also increase the risk and cost and thus your comprehensive premium.

Prices in general for comprehensive coverage are going up, even though losses incurred from vehicle theft in the United States are going down (two percent in the last year). The reason for this is because the cars that are out on the road these days cost more, and thus replacing them and their components costs more as well. About four hundred and twenty one of every hundred thousand cars are stolen in this country. Most of the time, these vehicles which are stolen are gone for good, and only thirteen percent of car thefts or thefts of car components end up resulting with the thief being arrested.

Meanwhile, over the past ten years the cost of high performance car insurance coverage for comprehensive is rising, and has gone up by over ten percent in that time period. It is the worst in urban areas, where vehicles are thirty percent more likely to be stolen than they are in other parts of the country. However, thanks to no fault car insurance laws, states n the north east of the country where there are far more urban areas have in the same amount of time seen their prices remain pretty stagnant. As you can see, the rates are affected by where you choose to live, and if you live in an urban area then you are considered to be higher risk.

Nowadays, though? They can find out what you have in your past like that, and this is both helpful to them and you, because they aren’t the only ones who have access to that kind of information. Where do they get the information from? Well, there are a couple of databases that are used the most often by car insurance companies.

• CLUE, or Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange
• A-PLUS, or Automated Property Loss Underwriting System

Somewhat unhappily for A-PLUS, even the reports sent out by them are often called CLUE reports, because CLUE is the most popular and oft used database. With the information provided by these databases, car insurance companies are able to see what sort of claims have been filed by the person who is requesting the car insurance policy and the past, and also what sort of claims have been filed for the car they are requesting insurance for, even if those claims were not filed by the same person and were even perhaps filed before they owned the vehicle.

Some dispute has come up over the usage of such reports in many states, and ten of them have laws regulating the reports. The debate comes from the fact that the claims in the report that are listed might not mean anything. For example, your car insurance company wants you to call in and report any car insurance accident that you get into, even if you don’t intend to file a claim. Even if this ‘claim’ is for a small accident, a little bump, and you never receive any money for it, the car insurance company still has to make a file for the claim which will then show up on your report. Other types of alleged claims that show up on CLUE reports are

• Closed claims
• Claims that were not really covered
• Fraudulent claims

However, while most states have not forbidden the usage of these claims reports when car insurance companies are deciding how much to charge someone for their car insurance premium, many have regulated them to the extent that if the car insurance company chooses to use one of these databases to find out what your claims history is, they have to tell you that you have used it. Whenever you go to get a new car insurance policy or get a new vehicle, it might be a good idea to get a CLUE report so that you can know what the car insurance companies are seeing.

• Liability coverage.

There are two types of liability coverage, although both are required by law. These coverage categories are property damage liability and personal injury liability. Most states require liability coverage in the area of ten or fifteen thousand dollars per type of coverage, with an additional coverage category for the injury or death of more than one person which requires an additional thirty thousand or so. This is not the number for all states, but it is typical. However, in a really bad accident, damages can come up to much more, so most car insurance companies recommend paying for around a hundred thousand dollars of coverage or more for each category if you don’t want to have to pay for a lawsuit.

• Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage.

This is to protect you from people driving out on the road who do not have auto insurance, or who do not have enough to cover the damages in case of an accident. It is important to have this coverage because even if you are a safe driver yourself, if someone else causes an accident and they don’t have insurance, then you could be in serious financial trouble.

• Personal injury protection.

This type of coverage is required in most no fault auto insurance states. Personal injury protection provides a lot of things, from the payment of medical bills to coverage for funeral expenses and wage loss. If you already have health insurance and life insurance, then you might not even need personal injury protection. To find out, look at your state’s laws and consult with your car insurance company.

• Collision coverage.

This is for when you yourself cause an accident. It covers any property damages that happen to you, such as any damages to your car, or if you back into your own mail box, then it covers that. While the other driver is covered by your mandatory liability car insurance coverage, it is a good idea to get collision if you want to not have to worry about paying should you cause a car accident.

• Comprehensive coverage.

This is for when a car is vandalized or when it is stolen. It also applies to natural disasters when a car might have been damaged by flooding or by fire or some other type of disaster. This kind of insurance coverage is something that I really highly recommend to owners of high performance cars.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

I can’t find a car insurance company that wants to insure my high performance car. I have a DUI from a couple of years ago and need an SR22. How do I get high risk car insurance?

John

Great question, John.

It’s hard enough to find good, cheap car insurance coverage when you have a high performance car, and it is also difficult when you have a DUI and need to file an SR22 form for your auto insurance coverage. However, combining the two means you are a double risk, furthering your complications with finding quality car insurance coverage. It will be much more difficult for you to find this coverage, but it can be done.

First of all, how hard have you been looking? Have you gone online and gotten auto insurance quotes from several different car insurance companies? If even that didn’t work for you, then what you might want to do is call up your state department of insurance and ask for a list of car insurance companies in your state that are licensed by the department to do business. You can also find a list like this online. However, if you call you might be able to ask for recommendations for someone looking for a high risk car insurance company.

If the companies on the list don’t prove helpful, then you might have to resort to the final option, which is joining your state’s high risk car insurance pool. Every state has one of these pools and it should be avoided unless you truly have no other option, because insurance through the high risk car insurance pool often costs much more than regular car insurance, even if it’s with the same company. These high risk car insurance pools randomly assign people to regular car insurance companies that might otherwise not have accepted them. If you have to resort to this option, though, remember that there are plenty of other ways you can lower your high performance SR22 car insurance premium price.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

How can I get the cheapest high performance car insurance quote?

Amy

Thanks for asking, Amy.

The biggest factor that plays in to how much you end up paying for your high performance car insurance premium is actually something that has little to do with your driving abilities. It’s your credit score. This is a factor that makes a world where someone with a great driving record, no claims history, and being between the ages of thirty and forty five, get a high car insurance quot simply because of the fact that their credit report is less than savory.

One of the best ways, and also one of the more difficult ways, to insure that your car insurance quot rates remain consistently low is to maintain your credit report so that it looks good to car insurance companies. As the owner of a high performance car, you should make sure that your credit report has enough accounts open that have a good history of making your payments on time. While normally when you buy something and have your credit checked, and when tallying your FICO credit score, the main thing looked for is not only a good account history but a lengthy one, car insurance companies do not care so much about length of your history as the consistency of your payments.

The credit report use when giving out a car insurance quot is still up for debate in many states, where it has become controversial and to some is seen as discrimination against the poor, who tend to have worse accounts on their credit reports.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Will I be able to keep my coverage while I am upgrading my high performance car’s security?

Anne

Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way.

Car insurance companies often have very strict rules about the prices a secure car will get you, and if you want to get good rates on your collision coverage, then you need to have safety features installed. However, if you don’t, you can still get the collision coverage, but it will jut cost more. The same thing does not go with high performance car insurance coverage. While you can get your car insurance collision coverage just as easily, the comprehensive coverage is not the same way. Many car insurance companies will not even think about covering you with comprehensive until you have the right safety mechanisms on your car to protect against theft, and you cannot put this off. No features, no coverage, it doesn’t matter if you are installing them right now.

The types of alarms that the car insurance companies require are called active disabling alarms. While you can get something with bells and whistles, what they want is for you to have something that shuts down an integral part of the vehicle so that the thief is not able to start it even with his techniques. The device also needs to be constantly active, not activated by you.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Are all collector car insurance programs the same?

Great question.

They definitely are not. As a matter of fact, there are just as many, if not more, differences among collector’s insurance companies as there are among those for regular daily car insurance companies. When choosing which classic car insurance program you want to insure your vehicle with, you need to consider a lot of factors. Getting a free online auto insurance quote should be the thing to start you off, but it should not be the determining factor. Classic cars need more attendant care than do other types of cars, so making sure that the service from your new classic car insurance company is great is the key to choosing a great program.

When you have chosen and then need to pick your coverage, remember the three versions of coverage that can be gotten for a classic car. There are agreed value, actual cash value, and stated value. Most people want to go with agree value so that the value of their classic car is understood up front, so if you want a company that does it a certain way, make sure you think about that during your search.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.