We’re all used to the idea of black boxes from the airplane industry. If there’s a crash, investigators are quickly on the scene to recover the boxes. They give the first insights into the cause of the crash and, hopefully, when the investigation is complete, safety can be improved. Everyone wants planes to be as safe as possible. Well, the same is true of auto design. Thanks to big government, working through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), every new vehicle is leaving the assembly line with an event data recorder (EDR) inside (for those who like details, it’s usually under the driver’s seat). An EDR is designed to work in exactly the same was as an airplane black box except it doesn’t record the conversations inside the vehicle. It’s wired into all the major onboard systems and continuously records everything happening in the vehicle while it’s in motion. If there’s a crash, it holds the last minute of activity in a permanent recording.

At present, each manufacturer is allowed to produce their own design of recorder although the nature of the information to be collected is standardized. As from 2013, all the manufacturers must use the design produced by the NHTSA to collect a very wide range of data including all the changes in speed immediately before the crash, whether the driver was braking, and so on. The declared intention in collecting all this information is to allow the NHTSA to collect standardized data from all crash incidents. Should patterns emerge, it will be easier to identify design and manufacturing problems and, after consultation with the manufacturers, to modify the designs to produce safer vehicles. In this, the initial intention is to treat the information as mere statistical data, i.e. not identify the source vehicles or drivers.

But this is not the intention of the other interested parties. Although the NHTSA guidelines transfer ownership of the data to the owner of the vehicle, the majority of insurers have written a clause into their policies giving the owner’s consent to accessing the EDR data following an accident. So, if your explanation of the accident given in the claim does not match the recording, this can trigger either a refusal of the claim or, in the more obvious cases of fraud, a police investigation. For example, if people were to claim their cars keep accelerating and will not slow down, the EDR will supply clear evidence of whether the brakes were actually applied. This has nothing to do with the computer systems that collect data for the pay-as-you-drive policies. But both systems could save you money in the medium- to long-term.

When you get your next auto insurance quotes, check whether there are pay-as-you-drive options. If so, there are good discounts if you are a low-mileage driver. More generally, the information from the EDRs offers insurers the chance to reduce the amount of fraud. At present, this is costing the insurance industry billions of dollars a year. If we encourage the insurers to check every large claim against the information from the EDR, this could end up saving us dollars when the next round of auto insurance quotes comes in assuming, of course, the insurers pass on their savings by reducing the premium rates.

There are times when governments change the law and you can see the benefit to the public. So, for example, we all approve a change to give more protection to children and the other more vulnerable members of society, but we would object to laws that give advantages only to a small percentage of the population – social justice usually requires equal treatment under the law for all. Coming back to insurance, there’s a generally accepted principle of financial responsibility that, if you decide to drive, you should carry a minimum amount of insurance. That way, should there damage to property or personal injuries, the driver at fault can pay some or all the cost of repairs and medical treatment. In most states, this insurance is mandatory. You’ll commit an offense if you drive without a valid policy in place. Better still, the majority of states are reviewing the mandated minimum amounts and increasing them. Often these minimums were set twenty and more years ago. Over time, you get inflation and this reduces the buying power of the dollar. What was a big sum of money twenty yeas ago, is loose change today. It makes sense to increase the minimums in line with inflation.

Except, many states refuse this simple step and allow the minimum amounts to become ever more worthless. The reason? When you’ve not increased the amount for twenty years (and more), it would take a big increase to catch up. Most elected politicians therefore refuse any increase now that times are bad or only allow a small increase like 5%. Now let’s go to Wisconsin. Here the brave politicians have decided they want your votes when the next election comes, so they have just reduced the minimum amounts. As from November 1, 2011 the minimums will drop from 50/100/15 to 25/50/10. If the insurers do the right thing and pass on the savings to all you lucky policyholders, you’ll be paying less for your auto insurance over the next year.

Interestingly, this change is part of a more general package to reform insurance cover in Wisconsin and, if you live there, you should realize many of these changes will make it more difficult to claim. For example, it used to be mandatory to carry both uninsured and underinsured motorist cover. Now underinsured cover is your choice. Consider carefully before you decide not to renew. As the law stands today, should a bad driver hit you and not be carrying enough cover to pay all your expenses, your own policy will pay the difference. After November 1, you could decide you’ll pay any additional losses out of your own pocket. In addition to the deductible, this could make an accident very expensive to you personally even though you were not at fault. There are also changes to the law on reducing clauses so that, if you’re entitled to claim disability benefit or under any other policy, the amount of your auto insurance claim is now reduced by those amounts.

Auto insurance quotes rarely come with a copy of the policy. Before you sign up, you should read through all the small print. If you live in Wisconsin, you may find it useful either to talk to an attorney or carefully research the changes to the law before you renew.

Most people have the good sense to make sure that they are financially protected with home insurance cover in place. The right home insurance plan provides us with peace of mind as well as financial protection in the event of a range of unexpected events that can affect our homes or our possessions within the home.

However, some people make the mistake of taking out a home insurance plan that is suited to their needs and then simply renewing it year after year without actually working out whether their needs are still the same as they were when they first took the plan out. A lot can change over the course of a few years and you may find that your insurance requirements have altered, but if you are still taking out the same cover year in year out your insurance will not reflect your changing needs.

Some people may find that due to changes in their lives and their homes they require a higher level of financial protection or a more comprehensive home insurance policy than they originally took out. For example, when you first took out home insurance you may have been living alone with little by way of valuable possessions in the home. However, since taking out the plan you may have moved a partner in who has valuable jewellery or electrical gadgets in the home, which may not be covered by your plan.

Likewise, you may find that your insurance needs have actually reduced since you first took out the home insurance plan, which means that you may be paying more than you need to. Using the same analogy as above, you may have originally taken out the cover when you were living with a partner who had expensive possessions in the home. However, since taking out the cover you may have split with your partner and many of these costly possessions may have gone, which means that you may not require such a high level of contents cover.

There are other changes and factors that can affect the need to change your level of insurance cover. For example, most of us receive gifts for birthdays and Christmas and you may have been lucky enough to receive something that is quite valuable, which is now in your home but was not there when you took out your cover. You would therefore need to make sure that your home insurance cover is still adequate as otherwise you could be in for a shock in the event that something happens to treasured possessions that are not covered under your current plan.

The good news is that if you find that your insurance needs have changed that you need to alter or switch your home insurance plan you can do this quickly and easily by either contacting your insurance provider to advise them of any changes in circumstances or by looking online for a more suitable policy and provider to reflect your changing requirements. By making sure that you regularly assess your home insurance needs and requirements you can make sure that you have continual peace of mind rather than paying out for a plan that is no longer suited to your needs.

In the wake of damage caused by hurricane/tropical storm Irene, many are left wondering how they will pay their deductible and what their claims will be like. For those lucky enough to escape the storm, many are rightly concerned with the possibility that the next one might strike their home. What will happen? If you have hurricane coverage, your insurer will take care of you, but you might have to pay a special deductible.

Hurricane Deductibles Versus Normal Deductibles

In places where hurricanes hit regularly, such as Florida, Georgia, and pretty much the entire Atlantic coastline, Gulf coastline, and New England, insurance companies do not charge a normal deductible. Instead, they charge a hurricane deductible.

The difference is that, rather than the flat amount you pay with a standard deductible, you pay a percentage of the market value of your home. So, if your home is worth $300 thousand and your hurricane deductible is 2 percent, you pay $6 thousand. This is almost always more than a standard deductible, such as $750.

Companies do this to save themselves thousands of dollars per home in claims, since they often have to pay to fix thousands of homes per hurricane.

Unless you live right on the coastline, in which case your deductible may be very high, hurricane deductibles rarely stray from the one to five percent range.

All states and districts subject to hurricane deductibles are:
The South and Southwest
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia
The North and Northeast
Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island
Other
Hawaii, Washington, D.C.

Will Victims of Irene Have to Pay Hurricane Deductibles?

Hurricane Irene is tricky case, since it was not a hurricane the whole time. Before it hit New York and New Jersey, as well as Vermont and other more northern areas, Irene was downgraded from hurricane to tropical storm. While you might think this would be a straightforward case of nobody having to pay hurricane deductibles, the reality is different.

In New York and New Jersey, state regulators have declared that homeowners should not have to pay hurricane deductibles. So far, several insurers have come out and said that is the case and that they will not be charging more than the standard deductibles. However, other states have been less clear.

In Connecticut, for instance, hurricane deductibles are regulated a bit differently. Firstly, they are only allowed on coastline properties. If you live across the street from the shore, you shouldn’t have to pay a percentage – just the flat rate. Everyone with hurricane deductibles probably will have to pay them. Ah, you protest, “but it wasn’t a hurricane!” True, but hurricane deductibles in Connecticut can be triggered by even just a hurricane warning. Ultimately, because of the grey area, it will be up to homeowners insurance providers which deductibles to charge.

Vermonters can at least take some solace from the fact that they do not have deductibles on their hurricane coverage.

If you haven’t gotten hurricane coverage on your homeowners insurance yet, there is no better time than now. Climatologists predict that hurricanes will be getter worse, more frequent, and be going farther inland. Prepare your home insurance now.

The vast majority of the world accepts that climate change is happening, though some conservatives in America doubt whether it is man-made or not. Here’s another question: what does global warming mean for your homeowners insurance?

The natural forces tied to climate are significant risks to homes and big factors in determining insurance premiums. Changes in those risks mean changes to premiums and policies.

How Climate Is Changing

Scientists at American universities, in the UK, in South America, and even the United Nations agree that climate change is already happening. Glaciers are melting and this is evidence, but there’s more. Record floods and droughts in Sri Lanka, Brazil, and China, as well as deadly heat waves in the United States and across Europe, are all consistent with the projections from climatologists.

It’s not just that the planet is getting hotter – it’s that it is getting hotter in some places, cooler in others, and currents and weather patterns are changing. Desert could become rainforest, prairies swamps, and tundra could be eradicated altogether.

What Insurers See

Insurance companies look at climate change and they see chaos. The statistics they have used for a long long time are quickly becoming irrelevant. They won’t be quite certain how to determine how at risk a given home is to disaster.

Floods

As flooding has gotten worse already, many homeowners insurance companies have responded by making flood insurance non-standard for insurance policies. It has been largely separated from water damage coverage.

Many people who need flood coverage do not have it because they do not live in an area traditionally susceptible to floods. With climate change, however, tradition is out the window. We are seeing higher levels of precipitation in many areas of the United States. There has already been record flooding in Pennsylvania and in Texas.

Check with a climate authority to be sure you are safe. If you aren’t, get flood coverage on your home insurance.

Wildfires

Some places have seen record lows in precipitation, which has caused drought. While drought is a threat to all animal life, it gets worse when it leads to wildfires, as we have seen in Texas and California recently. If your climate becomes more arid, it could easily mean an increase in premiums.

Hurricanes

Climate scientists have predicted that hurricanes will become more common and worse. It is as yet unproven that the recent hurricanes are caused by climate change, but it is definitely true that they were made worse by some of the effects of climate change.

Tropical storms do not normally go so far inland as Irene did. The reason Irene made it so far and did so much damage was her ability to pick up so much moisture along the way. A hurricane or tropical storm gets moisture from the surface water of the oceans and gulf. In this case, surface temperatures were abnormally high due to global warming, which meant that a larger amount of moisture could be taken in, fueling Irene on her path of destruction.

People in the inland United States may have to get hurricane coverage on homeowners insurance soon. People in coastal states susceptible to hurricanes may also see higher hurricane deductibles and hurricane coverage premiums.

Insuring a vehicle is probably one of the least pleasant aspects of owning a car. And because it’s required by law you just can’t do anything about it. Most people choose going with the flow when it comes to car insurance and simply take the first policy they come across. Others, however, take the time to learn what can be done to lower the costs and still get sufficient coverage. If you are one of those inquisitive people there’s good news for you – this way you have a much higher chance of getting inexpensive car insurance. But before you will be able to shop around effectively you should first learn what actually affects car insurance rates and why they tend to differ between various customers.

First of all you have to understand that the insurance company sets individual rates for each customer based on a set of different factors. These factors help the company determine the actual risk of a particular person to file an insurance claim. And the combination of these variables is what determines the final auto insurance quotes you get when simply trying to learn how much the policy would cost you. Moreover, each company uses the same factors in different formulas when calculating the customer’s premiums so there’s usually a fluctuation in rates even if you’re trying to get the very same policy from two different providers.

So what does affect your insurance rates? The following factors have a certain influence on how much it will cost you to insure your vehicle: car make and model, engine volume, top speed, repair costs, theft rates, driving record, credit score, place of residence, marital status, education and some less important things. Now, as you see the list isn’t very small and there are a lot of things that can make your car insurance cheap or expensive. And as mentioned previously each company uses its own methods for calculating rates and this means that you can get a totally different result when the same data is being used by two different providers.

Knowing the factors influencing auto insurance quotes is very important for effective comparison shopping. Quite often you may find that some factors may be favorable for affordable insurance while others tend to push up the costs. So the main aim would be finding a provider that relies more on the factors that are favorable in your case and less on those that are not as good as you would want them to be. And rest assured, with so many companies out there on the market you will always be able to find a provider that will suit your requirements from this perspective.

Be smart when looking for auto insurance quotes and consider all the factors that will influence your rates. This will help you set the expectations adequately and be more precise when choosing between different companies. It isn’t hard at all but in the end you may end up paying hundreds of dollars less for having your car insured compared to buying the first policy you come across.

The year 2011 has been one for record natural disasters. The Texas wildfires currently raging are already causing never-before-seen damage in the state to forests, animal habitats, and human homes. This damage continues hurting even after the fires are done. The only thing protecting homeowners in the 25 thousand scorched acres is insurance.
Big disasters can be huge tests of the viability of an insurance company. Make sure your insurer is up to the test.

Damage from Wildfires

Wildfires have always been a problem in the Southwest and always will be, if climate change doesn’t turn it into a tropical zone. The problem will likely only get worse as more of the precious few water resources are tapped out in Texas and other border states.
Wildfires can start from almost anything, whether it be spontaneous combustion from the sun or a cigarette tossed into the woods. The key is parched woodland from lack of rain, intense sunlight, and heat. Once a fire gets going, it’s very hard to stop. Part of the reason is the incredible amount of fuel available – so many trees – and another part is the inability to predict which way it goes. Fires spread by wind to anywhere where a flame or even an ember can blow.
In this Texas wildfire, 500 homes are already been destroyed in the conflagration, with no end in sight. The 25 thousand acres of land affected could double or triple before this is over, the fire department says.

Wildfire Coverage

Homeowners living near wooded areas don’t really have much protection against wildfires. Sure, they can put flame retardant in their homes and clear brush away, but if there is a raging inferno like this one, good home insurance is the best you can do.
While most homeowners policies have some coverage for fire damage, it might not be enough to really protect against the threat that a full-blown wildfire poses. In the United States as a whole, there is a 10% chance that any given home will be damaged by a fire at some point over 30 years, so it is important that homes in all states have some protection. The following states, however, should get more fire coverage:
Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas

Texas home insurance Provider Up to the Task?

A reassuring sign of the people of Texas is that the insurance providers are out in force. Many of the companies have sent agents to the affected areas in vans or even temporary housing to help homeowners with claims. State Farm in Central Texas has already filed 210 claims.
Not all providers will be ready, however, as some might not be able to afford the claims. Make sure your insurance provider is up to the financial task by checking their financial health with Standard&Poor’s or another ratings agency.

Be Prepared

If you haven’t already, get good fire damage coverage on your home insurance. Even if you are in Texas, it might not be too late.
You should also have your paperwork ready for disaster to strike. In case the fire should arrive near you, be ready to leave with all the necessary items, including a copy of your policy and proof of the most expensive items in your home.

They are estimates of what insurers will charge you for a certain coverage package. Car insurance quotes take the major factors used to determine rates, feed them into an algorithm, and give you a pretty good idea of what you will be charged by any given company.

Owning a car is a very pleasant and comfortable think. These days it’s even hard to imagine your everyday routing without driving a car, as for millions of Americans it has become a necessity just like having a place o live in. However, besides the comfort of being mobile there are certain responsibilities you have to meet in order to be able to operate a vehicle legally. One of these responsibilities is vehicle insurance and most of us will agree that this is one of the most irritating aspects of owning a car. The main problem for most drivers is that insurance rapidly becomes too expensive. If you’re one of those who has to pay a lot for keeping a car insured here are some tips on making insurance cheaper:

Review your policy

One of the most common causes for insuring becoming too costly is that the car owner doesn’t really understand what his or her policy actually carries. Quite often insurance policies include more types of coverage, some of which you may not need at all, and the more options and the higher amounts of coverage are included the more expensive your policy becomes. So the first thing to do when you want to cut your rates is reviewing your policy in order to adjust coverage amounts according to your needs and exclude those options that you don’t really require. Just make sure that your policy carries enough coverage to cover a serious accident when doing so, otherwise you risk becoming under insured.

Adjust the deductible

Deductibles are the amount of money you have to pay from your pocket before the coverage kicks in. Each coverage type may have a separate deductible that you can set individually. The higher is the amount of deductible the lower your premiums get. Usually deductibles are set between $100 and $250, and by increasing them to $500 you can get a 10-15% cut off your premiums. You can set it even higher. However, be cautious when adjusting the deductible as the amount should correspond to your financial abilities. Otherwise you risk being unable to use your own auto insurance coverage simply because you can’t met the deductible.

Get discounts

Discounts are everywhere even if you may think that your insurer doesn’t offer them. Most auto insurance providers have a set of discounts to award specific groups of drivers. Some of the most common discounts include good driver, loyal customer, multiple car, multiple policy, low mileage, good student, senior citizen and other types of discounts. You only have to ask around and apply for the one that you eligible to.

Shop around

Shopping around for auto insurance is a must because it’s probably the best method of getting competitive rates on your vehicle right from the start. Because each company uses its own method of calculating quotes the rates tend to fluctuate from company to company for the same kind of policy. So when you shop around you get the chance to find an adequate policy for a really competitive price. Isn’t that exactly what most auto owners want?