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Insurance agencies use many factors to determine your rates. Credit, driving record, and age range help to estimate your potential risk as a client. But with today’s technology, companies can get an actual sample of your driving via electronic data-tracking devices, ultimately saving you money for responsible driving.

With the development of on-board computers in automobiles, every car now has a sort of “black box” that can record driving information and, with the right equipment, transfer information like top speeds and mileage. Several programs now exist in various parts of the United States, and they get you big discounts on your monthly premiums.

Device Tracking Programs

Allstate’s Drive Wise

This program offers discounts based on information collected from a device that you plug into your car’s onboard computer-available in all cars made since 1996. It measures mileage, hard braking, acceleration rates, time of day driven, and speed (when you exceed 80mph). This information is then automatically transmitted to Allstate. You can even check your performance online.

You receive a 10% discount just for signing up and up to 30% after your first policy period. The program cost is $10 per policy period.

Availability: Arizona, Illinois, Ohio

Progressive’s Snapshot

Similar to Allstate’s Drive Wise program, signing up for Snapshot transfers data to the insurance company for discounts measuring most of the same information.

You earn an initial discount after one month, and you send the device you installed back after 6 months. You are then eligible for another, permanent discount up to 30%. There is no cost to enroll and the data can’t hurt your rates.

Availability: 37 states

OnStar Programs

OnStar is a subsidiary of General Motors which allows subscribers a number of special features in their car, such as GPS navigation, emergency contact, vehicle diagnostics, hands-free calling, and other features. It is installed on all GM vehicles; new vehicles receive a free one-year subscription, and used vehicles receive a free 3-month subscription. This program has been integrated into two different mileage-based insurance programs.

GMAC’s Low-Mileage Discount

All GMAC customers who have a subscription to OnStar can enroll in this program, which is based entirely on mileage, for free.

Drive fewer than 15,000 miles per year and you will get a discount of at least 13% and up to 54% if you drive fewer than 2,500 miles per year.

Availability: 35 states

State Farm’s Drive Safe and Save

Also utilizing the OnStar system, Drive Safe and Save tracks your mileage and gives you up to 44% savings on your car insurance premiums. The driving is constantly updated though, so your discount will change every policy period based on your latest driving statistics.

Availability: California, Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Texas

MileMeter

This Texas car insurance company offers insurance by the mile. Prices start at 2.5 cents per mile. No need any fancy electronic equipment for mileage tracking-all you have to do is send the company a picture of your odometer when you sign up and each time you renew your policy.

Availability: Texas only

Pre-1996 And Non-GM vehicles

Pre-1996 vehicles cannot be retrofitted with the OBD II diagnostic device. However, non-GM vehicles can be fitted with a custom rear-view mirror equipped with OnStar.

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.

To understand the issues, let’s start with a quick tour of ZIP codes. They are used by the US Postal Service to sort the mail faster. Once sorted, bundles of mail are delivered by staff who know the ground. This plan was not devised to help set insurance rates. Indeed, when you look at the boundaries on a map, you see how arbitrary they are, often lumping completely different groups of people together regardless of social class or property value. Basing the calculation of premium rates can therefore look unfair in urban areas where, on one street all vehicles can be parked off the road in locked garages overnight whereas, round the corner, the quality of the neighborhood just changed for the worse and crime affecting vehicles parked on the roads is rampant. Imagine how people who have lived on that second street feel. They have been paying their premiums for years and now must suddenly pay more because they have no choice but to stay – sadly, with the collapse of the housing market, it’s no longer easy to sell and move to a “better” area. In other words, basing the premium rate on the address rather than the safety record of the driver looks unfair.

Let’s now move over to Milwaukee where State Senator Tim Carpenter has introduced State Bill 289 to prohibit insurers from relying on ZIP codes to set premium rates. This is yet another attempt to repeat the success in California where, in 2008, John Garamendi, the Commissioner for Insurance, finally pushed through the regulations to reduce the insurers’ reliance on ZIP codes. Note the regulations do not outlaw the practice. The Californian insurers can still use the ZIP codes as one of the factors when setting the rates. But the codes can no longer be one of the “main” factors. Why not outlaw it altogether?

The answer depends on the difference between the insurance policies. Liability cover pays out to any third parties we may injure through our bad driving. This can be and, for the most part, is based on our individual safety record as drivers. Where we live is never going to be terribly relevant to where we drive once the vehicle is in motion. The problem comes with collision and comprehensive cover. Both types pay out to you if your vehicle is damaged in a collision, by a vandal or by a tornado. Where you park your vehicle must therefore be an important factor in deciding the risk you might get hit. Similarly, the local crime rate when it comes to vandalism is as relevant as whether you live in an area frequently hit by tornadoes, floods, landslides, etc.

So, comparing these different policies, you might find cheap car insurance if all you want is the minimum liability cover. Where you live is always going to be less important. But when you move on to collision or comprehensive cover, where you live become far more important. For this reason, Tim Carpenter’s bill is going to struggle in Wisconsin. Although the insurers there are exaggerating when they say this bill will mark the end of cheap car insurance, only a compromise between the state and the insurers will produce a fair outcome.

Any car owner that has ever dealt with auto insurance will surely tell you that most insurance deals are there just to rip you off. And while such exclamations tend to be far from the truth, still the question of optimizing insurance costs remains to be pronounced for a lot of car owners. Paying too much for insurance while there are other more important things that need their portion of the family budget isn’t a good bargain for many households these days. So is there anything that can be done in order to get more competitive auto insurance quotes in the first place and reduce the premiums afterward?

Fortunately, there are different ways for getting affordable insurance for your car and you don’t have to break the law in order to succeed. In fact all these methods are very easy and only require you to learn a bit more about insurance for vehicles. So here’s what you can do to get competitive auto insurance quotes:

Analyze your actual needs

The most common mistake customers make when buying insurance for their cars is that they don’t even know how much and what types of insurance they really need. Most people simply choose to buy the first policy they are offered right at the dealer’s office just to save themselves from additional shopping. And this rarely reflects the actual needs a customer can have. For example, if you’re driving a fairly used car it’s really unlikely that you will benefit from having a fully comprehensive policy. Or you may be overpaying for uninsured motorist coverage simply because there aren’t any in your area. So try to define your needs first and only then start looking for a policy that actually meets your needs.

Consider the discounts

You may be unaware of many discounts the insurance provider may offer but this doesn’t mean that you can’t opt for them. It only takes some time to ask what discounts are offered to different groups of customers. There’s a set of commonly featured discounts that many providers seem to share and there’s a chance that you may comply with some of them. If you want competitive auto insurance quotes the following discounts can give you exactly what you need: low mileage, good student, defensive driving course, good driver, multiple car, multiple policy and others. Just ask around and if it happens that you can actually opt for any of these – don’t hesitate to do so.

Get an insurance-friendly car

And if you want a radical change in your insurance rates there’s just no more effective measure than buying an insurance friendly vehicle. Drivers often forget that the cars they own are the main factor influencing insurance rates. So it’s logic to buy a car that’s cheaper to insure in the first place. In order to get an idea which cars are insurance friendly consider those that have low repair costs, are rarely stolen and do not end up in accidents too often. Sports, muscle, luxury cars and SUVs don’t make part of that list.

Around the world, there are two approaches to insurance. Where the local culture is based on an adversarial system, the injured run to the nearest court and ask a judge to decide who is the more at fault. This involves a complicated set of rules called tort, and leads to findings of negligence. Lawyers who specialize in this branch of the law tend to be wealthy. Where the approach to problem-solving is to sit down and talk sensibly, the courts are kept out of the way unless there’s absolutely no other way of settling. This leads to the development of no-fault insurance. Essentially, this means that everyone has a contract of insurance and, if they suffer a loss, their own insurer pays out. It’s not necessary to decide who was at fault. This means all claims are settled quickly and efficiently. It also means lawyers tend to be less wealthy.

At first, we decided we liked the law of tort and all the states used the courts to decide who was at fault in all traffic accidents. But, after a while, some lawmakers asked whether all this investment in fighting was a good use of the insurance companies’ money. Surely a switch to no-fault insurance was better. That way, there would be less money spent on fighting, lower premiums and general happiness all round.

In the end, twenty-four states opted to switch to no-fault and, for a while, everything was wonderful. Premiums were lower than in the tort states and the general levels of happiness were higher. Today, only nine states remain no-fault and Minnesota has a bill that proposes repeal. Why is this?

The answer is complicated. The current situation across America is that ever more drivers are driving uninsured. This is driving up the risks and insurance premiums are rising. But the real complication comes from the increasing levels of fraud. In tort states, all disputed claims go to the courts and a judge hears the evidence. Lawyers cross-examine witnesses and look carefully at the medical evidence. It’s a lot more difficult to run a scam. But in a no-fault states, the insurance companies are more inclined to pay out if the evidence presented to them looks in order. So criminal gangs now specialize in traffic accidents with multiple passengers in each vehicle. There are medical mills where fake medical reports are produced and conveniently blind lawyers prepared to push insurers to accept the highest possible settlements. Put all this together and there’s certainly a need for reform if not repeal.

It’s all a shame. In other parts of the world where people are more honest, no-fault insurance is strong. In our country, if people see an accident involving a bus, the witnesses run to get on before the ambulances arrive. They see the accident as an opportunity to make a few dollars. This signals the end of cheap car insurance because we all have to pay for this fraud. So, when you get your next car insurance quotes, look carefully at what’s on offer and write an angry letter to your congressman. Ask for action to change the system to something that gives you protection.