I’ve talked with two clients in the past week. Both are parents of teens who are about to start driving. One client has a teen son that’s about to get their learner’s permit while the other has a son who’s about to get their license. Both had two questions related to their car insurance.
A client called me last week to discuss a question about her car insurance. She’s taking a vacation with two friends in May and will head for Europe for a couple of weeks. They’ll travel through Italy, France, head up to Switzerland, and then back to Italy before returning home. They will rent a car for part of the trip and she wanted to know if her car insurance covers a rental car in Europe.
I am working with a prospective client on their car insurance. I realized he’d never had a good explanation on car insurance once we began to review the quote together. I suggested we start over so I could explain each coverage and answer his questions. Unfortunately, I’ve found most people have never received a good explanation on car insurance, what it covers, and options worth considering, so I thought I’d write about that in this post.
I received an email from a friend of mine who’s a commercial underwriter with a local insurance brokerage. All three of their cars were struck by hail from Sunday night’s storm. Two of the three vehicles are total losses and she wanted to know their options so they could make a good financial decision that right for them.
One of my all-time favorite vehicles is the 1974 to 1976 Toyota Land Cruiser. It technically was a four-passenger vehicle although the rear seats folded down from the sides and faced the middle. It had two doors, funky curved windows in the back corners, nice ground clearance, and a very utilitarian design. I thought they were very cool, but it wasn’t very pretty. A friend of mine recently bought one and is restoring it, so I thought this would be a good time to discuss car insurance for classic cars.
State Farm reported a loss on car insurance of $7 billion in 2016. It’s a staggering number, and they aren’t alone either. Allstate, Geico, The Hartford, and Travelers also experienced losses last year. One of my carriers shared with me for every $1.00 they took in for car insurance premium, they paid out $!.10 in claim losses, and that didn’t include the catastrophic car losses caused by our recent tornadoes and hail storms.
I had an interesting conversation with a new client the other day. She leases her car and wanted to confirm whether the car insurance policy covers manufacturer parts, also known as original equipment manufacturer or OEM parts, or would they insist on using third-party parts to repair her car if she files a car insurance claim? No client or prospective client has ever asked that question and it told me she’d either experienced or seen a claim go sideways.
Imagine you’re riding in an autonomous or self-driving vehicle. The car is traveling 35 to 40 miles per hour and a pedestrian suddenly walks out in front of your vehicle. Complicating the issue there is a concrete barrier in the oncoming lane. Hitting the pedestrian may result in killing them while hitting the concrete barrier may result in the death of the vehicle passenger. What will the car do? Who will be liable?
The Takata airbag recall been going on for a couple of years now. It began to take off when the New York Times reported the company was aware of a dangerous defect with its airbags. 11 days later, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration called for the recall to be expanded nationally from states with high humidity such as Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and along the Gulf Coast states.
What was your first job? Aside from babysitting neighborhood kids for $1.00 an hour, mine was helping my uncle Jere sell women’s shoes at his store on the west side of Birmingham when I was 15. I didn’t have to worry its impact on my parent’s car insurance rate because I wasn’t a licensed driver and I rode the bus across town to Jere’s store.
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