A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post advising why, from a car insurance perspective, you should take defensive driving if you are “awarded” a speeding ticket (see https://wiseinsurancegroup.com/speeding-tickets-defensive-driving-car-insurance/). I thought it might be fun to expand on that with a second reason; to avoid paying for the ticket in the first place.
A client’s son called me a few weeks ago. He’d was buying and wanted to discuss what the car insurance would cost for it. The car is an early 2000 Subaru WRX that had been nicely customized with a new suspension system, engine modifications, and wheels. The car insurance issue this raised was how to address the value of a car that’s 10 to 15 years old and had $15,000 worth of customization done in the last couple of years.
I had lunch with a client of mine on Wednesday in Richardson to discuss commercial insurance for a new venture he’s starting. When we were done, I left the restaurant and headed to my next appointment in Dallas. I got onto the frontage road of North Central Expressway headed toward Campbell Road but had to navigate around a head-on collision in the U-turn lane underneath Central. Somehow one of the cars was headed the wrong way on a one way U-turn under the freeway when it met a car attempting to get onto the southbound frontage road.
I was talking with a client about their upcoming renewal earlier this week, specifically his family’s car insurance. He let me know he’d received a speeding ticket in Dallas going to work last month and wanted to know what the impact would be on his car insurance which is set to renew next month. Will it go up, and if so how much?
Imagine you’re driving down Interstate 35 at 70 miles per hour just outside of Dallas when your car begins to spray wiper fluid continuously on your windshield while the windshield wipers are flailing madly away. Or your stereo starts blaring a local radio station and you’re unable to turn down the volume, change stations, or turn it off. Maybe your air conditioner turns on at full blast but you didn’t touch anything, or you start slowing down and you’re unable to accelerate even when the pedal’s floored.
College is a wonderful and sometimes slightly scary time for most parents. Their son or daughter is spreading their wings, stepping out on their own, and beginning to prepare for life as an adult while they figure what their future holds. It is also a time when a son or daughter begins to make decisions for themselves, some of which have adult level consequences.
Car insurance company statisticians and actuaries, along with members of the US Department of Transportation were warning of a coming tsunami of senior drivers in the early 2000’s. One of the predictions was 2015 would be a watershed year of fatal crashes involving senior drivers.
I had two conversations with two different clients over the last two weeks about teen drivers and their car insurance policy. One client has a daughter that’s turning 16 so we worked through the steps of when to add her to the family’s policy. The second client has a daughter that’s turning 15 and will get her learner’s permit. In this instance, the mom wanted to know when she should add her daughter to the family’s insurance policy, as well as, whether it make a difference if her daughter takes a driver education class that’s instructor led or parent led.
One of the questions the parents have asked is should they remove that son or daughter from their car insurance policy and require them to get their own insurance? While this action may lower the cost of car insurance for the parents, I usually don’t advise parents do this for three reasons; parental liability, denied claims, and expense.
A client called me last month to discuss an accident he’d had and filing a car insurance claim. He’d backed into an object visiting a family member on a trip and damaged the bumper and one of the brake light kits on his car. I provided him with the information he needed to initiate the claim and transferred him to the claims department with his car insurance company.
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