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Do you know what to do if you are in an auto accident? The decisions you make at this crucial time could save you thousands of dollars, and your life.

Do you know what to do if you are in an auto accident? The decisions you make at this crucial time could save you thousands of dollars, and your life.

Be Prepared Ahead of Time

Make sure you have all necessary information and tools available to alert emergency personnel and document damage in the event of an accident. If you have any specific medical needs, keep a sheet with the information in the glove compartment. Also keep a notepad, pen, first aid kit, seat-belt cutter, and a disposable camera in your car to take down information from others and document crash damage. Of course, you should always have your driver’s license, vehicle registration, and coverage information.

Immediately Following the Accident

Safety first – Immediately check yourself, and then others in your vehicle, for injuries. If you suspect a head or neck injury, do not move the victim. Rather, try to stabilize the head to keep it in place. Moving someone with a head or neck injury can cause permanent damage and even death.

Put pressure on wounds with severe bleeding by using clothing or towels.

If in doubt, always call an ambulance to make sure all potential injuries are treated. Always call the police to file a police report, which is very important when filing insurance claims.

Once everyone is safe

If it is safe to do so, immediately begin collecting contact information from the other parties as well as witnesses. Exchange driver’s license number, vehicle registration number, and coverage information with the other driver, noting any differences between the name on the license and the name on the insurance or registration. This is vitally important.

Document damage to the vehicles as soon as possible, preferably by taking photos. It is also helpful to take photos of the scene, noting the relationship between vehicles, the road, vehicle debris, etc.

Move cars to the side of the road if you can, as this will be safer for you and other drivers.

Refrain from leaving the scene before the police. Contact your insurance company immediately. Some insurance companies require you to file a claim within 24 hours of an incident.

Talking with Others

Everyone is jarred by an accident, so it is very important to stay calm and polite. Do not sign any documents except those provided by police or emergency personnel. Do not admit fault of the accident, nor should you accuse the other party of being at fault. Simply tell the police the facts to the best of your ability, exchange car insurance information, and allow professionals to do their job.

Vehicle Repair

Your automobile could very well be the second most expensive item you ever purchase, so take an active role in the repairs to your vehicle to make sure the repairs and costs are appropriate. This will help protect you against fraud from extra costs from both autobody shops and your car insurance provider.

Inspect auto repair shops for modern equipment and willingness to justify their cost estimate. When you receive your repaired vehicle, inspect it to make sure all repairs (and no other repairs) were completed. Check places where paint has been added to make sure it matches. Take your vehicle for a test drive to guarantee it works properly.

Then find lower premiums using car insurance quotes!

When you look at all the movies, television shows and mainstream magazines, the successful people in our society are all supposed to be mercenary, interested only in demonstrating their wealth by conspicuous consumption. That means they must have one of these detached homes with enough room for a 9-hole short course in the master bedroom and a swimming pool on the roof, while the garage is full of all those dream motors. Anyone who is anyone must drive something exotic from Italy or Germany or some place where people know the name but never quite worked out where it is on a map. So, when all the rest of us fantasize about suddenly hitting the big-time with the latest lottery ticket, the first thing people think about buying is one of these top-of-the-range cars. So, the $64,000 question (the minimum price tag on some of these cars after a dealer discount) is how much they cost to insure.

There’s a new survey out (as always). A dedicated research team set out to find the top ten of the most expensive cars to insure in 2011. Interestingly, we have all the usual suspects from Mercedes, BMW, Aston Martin and Porsche as the makes, but curiously not Rolls Royce, Bentley, Ferrari, Bugatti, Lamborghini or, even, the Saleen S7 which, as all dreamers know, is America’s top supercar. It seems the retail price is not the only factor taken into account when setting the premium rates – the Bugatti Veyron is currently the most expensive car to buy. Yet, perhaps, it’s all slightly academic since all these top insurance rates are clumped quite close together. Probably, the missing models are just off the edge of the screen.

Anyway, the top average annual rate quoted is $3,543 for the Mercedes SL65 AMG. This must be the rate for an older driver not likely to try driving it on a public road with the acceleration and at the speeds it is capable of producing. If anyone younger and pumped full of testosterone wanted to get behind the wheel, we suspect the rate might be rather higher.

So here we come to the point of all this. This model of Mercedes sells for around $240,000 and yet only costs an average of $3,543 to insure which is about 1.5% of the retail price. Let’s now go to the other end of the scale. The cheapest vehicles to insure start with a Chrysler Town & Country LX. This costs about $45,000 to buy and $1,091 to insure which is 2.4% of the retail price. If we are to believe these insurance figures, it seems the average driver pays more to insure their lower priced vehicles and so subsidize the tiny minority that can afford to buy these dream cars. Yet, the lesson is the same for everyone if they want cheap car insurance for whatever make and model they buy. Always get the maximum possible number of car insurance quotes. Only by comparing all the prices and terms on offer can you hope to find the best value policy. Even the wealthy in their dream cars appreciate saving a few dollars when they have the chance.

When you look at the real world, it’s always difficult to decide why stuff happens. The clever folk who write books have their answers but, somehow, when you try to apply these wonderful theories, they tend to break down. Think fad diet books and you should get the message. Anyway, one of the more worrying trends on our roads is the number of people either driving with no insurance or only driving with the bare minimum. For those of you who like statistics, there’s a slight disagreement but the national rate seems to be between 18 and 20 percent of drivers on the road uninsured. The majority of those with insurance who own their own vehicles are on the mandatory minimums. Since these are way below the amounts actually necessary to pay the medical expenses of those injured or to repair damaged vehicles, these drivers are partly uninsured. How come there are so many?

Let’s come at this from two different directions, starting with enforcement. Drivers should all have a license to be behind the wheel. So all insurance companies could require people asking for insurance to produce a valid driving license before issuing a policy. Every time an insurance company issues a policy, it could notify the state licensing body. That way, the state would have an immediate list of all registered drivers who did not have a current insurance policy. It could write to every driver asking for proof of coverage, allowing seven days of grace for the drivers to get a policy. Any driver who then failed to produce a policy could be prosecuted.

As an aside, we should mention Oregon which has just produced a report showing only a slight increase in the number of people driving uninsured. Apparently, 6.5% of the drivers involved in accidents in 2010 were uninsured. This report follows up on a change in the law making it more difficult for people to get a driver’s license. It seems there has been a significant increase in the number of people driving without licenses, but many unlicensed drivers buy car insurance. See what we mean about confusing realities. You can understand drivers not insuring because the economy is bad and jobs are hard to find. But skipping on licensing just because they have to fill in more forms. Well, you decide.

Why then do states not enforce the law on auto insurance? It would be good to think this was to give people a break during hard times. If the economy is bad and they really cannot afford to insure, you do not chase them. Except, this is the same policy as applied during the boom years. Politicians and elected police officials do not see votes in policies designed to hit the motorists. The result is higher premiums for those who do pay. With the same cost of risk divided among a smaller group of people, there is no alternative. Except there is no rationality in modern politics. Just as you cannot raise taxes, you also have to look the other way when car insurance quotes keep on rising. That does not take the heat off you , of course. You should still get as many auto insurance quotes as possible to find the cheapest deals.

Thanks to the healthcare debate, everyone has got all fired-up about the question whether insurance should ever be made mandatory. This has been picked up by the right wing of the GOP with the Tea Partiers in full bitter resentment at the idea anyone should ever be required to buy an insurance policy. The newly elected members to legislatures around the country are coming into office with the idea they should roll back Big Government and leave the choice about everything to the people. At first, there was no sign the law might be in their favor, but one federal judge has now ruled a part of Obamacare is unconstitutional. It seems this is now headed for the Supreme Court. Except neither side is very keen for this to be resolved quickly. It may be 2013 before we have a final ruling. So where does this leave the everyday problem of insuring the vehicles we rely on to get around?

In theory, the two types of insurance are different and so insuring vehicles probably can be made mandatory. The reason? It’s your decision whether to buy a vehicle. You could walk, ride a bicycle or use public transport. If you choose to drive, then you have to carry insurance. But whether you fall ill is not under your control. People are what they are, so forcing everyone to buy insurance just for living does start to look more like a tax. We will see what the Supreme Court says. But the world is already changing. Take Wisconsin as an example. A newly elected Republican is co-sponsoring the Consumer Choice Auto Insurance Act. This would repeal the recent increases in the minimum liability requirements. It would still be mandatory to carry some insurance. Just less of it. The justification is that the insurers would then reduce the premium rates and so make life slightly more affordable. An alternative explanation is that even the newly elected State Rep did not feel able to justify repealing the mandatory insurance altogether.

In other states, the law-makers are reviewing the minimum amounts for the mandatory coverage. They are all proposing further increases. Taking account of inflation over the years, these amounts have been devalued by about 700%. All the costs of medical treatment and repairs have been increasing and are no longer covered by these minimum amounts. The whole point of mandatory minimums is being undermined by the continuing failure to make a real increase. Except, of course, this would force a rise in the car insurance rates and would be very bad politics during a recession. Pushing up costs on what most people consider a necessity will inspire anger. No elected politician voting for this would be safe during the next election.

With everyone focussing on budget deficits both at state and federal levels, anything that pushes up the cost of living hits the poor and middle class at a time when they are most vulnerable. Since tax increases are politically unacceptable, the only way of reducing the deficit is to reduce both discretionary and entitlement spending. This will affect the poor even more directly yet, as everyone hunts for those elusive cheap auto insurance policies, they could have less to spend on keeping their vehicles on the road.

There are a lot of sites out there offering you with all types of insurance quotes these days to make you question why they are so popular. It’s true, sites offering free online insurance quotes have become a very popular tool for searching insurance deals of all types without the help of insurance agents or brokers. And the most rapidly developing niche in this segment of online business is of course car insurance. Unlike health, life or home insurance, having your vehicle covered is a must in the US that’s why there are so many customers looking for affordable and competitive car insurance quotes all the time. But why do you need these quotes and how can you cut your insurance costs by using these free online services?

It’s quite simple, really. The secret of getting a good policy is shopping around. Just like you shop around for a car comparing the prices at different dealers and look for different option packages that may drop the final price of the car you want to buy, the same way quote comparison can give you great competitive policies that will allow to save quite a lot of money on cheap auto insurance. You see, the insurance companies each have different methods of calculating their rates (and quotes respectively). They all use the same factors such as your age, sex, marital status, your car make and model and other variables, but the weight each factor has in the final result differs from one company to another. This discrepancy in calculations is what you should be after because it allows you to save some money while having pretty much the same coverage package at different insurance providers. For some car owners it can be insignificant, for others it can result in hundreds of dollars save each year. So comparison shopping is really worth the time and effort invested.

What’s more convenient about the current trend of independent sites providing free quotes online is that it gives you convenience and a lot more possibilities for comparison shopping. Typically, when working with an agent or a broker you are limited to the companies your particular agent works with. Sure, it usually gives you some space for maneuvers, but you’re limited in the selection of quotes you may choose from. With quote comparison sites you get offers from virtually all the providers working in your area with just a few clicks of the mouse. You can do it wherever you are and for as many times as you want – it doesn’t cost you anything and you get all the info within a few minutes all on your screen. If that’s not convenient for you, then it’s hard to imagine what really is.

Auto insurance can be really affordable if you put some mind and effort into the process. Don’t haste buying the first policy you’re offered with. Take your time to compare quotes online or with your agent and get the policy that provides all the necessary coverage to meet your insurance needs for the best price among the competition. Only this way you will be able to cover your car to the right extent and save some money while doing it.

Paying extra for out-of-town crashes

Should you pay extra when you get into an accident outside your home city? A proposed bill by the Sacramento City Council could have out-of-towners footing extra bills in the event of an auto accident. The proposal, called a “fire cost recovery charge” by supporters, though opponents hurl the name “crash tax”, would require non-resident motorists to pay an extra fee when Sacramento responds to your emergency-$400 to over $2,000.

And it’s not just Sacramento

Sacramento, California’s capitol city, would be the most populous municipality in California to try this strategy, but not the only one. At least 50 cities in California and as many nationwide have adopted similar policies to combat fiscal shortfalls. They have also been outlawed in 10 states, including Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. Last December, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended an implementation of such a policy, regardless of who is at fault. He admitted it was a back door tax but contested it is a better alternative than closing firehouses.

The Reason for the Measure

The fine would repay the city for various expensive municipal services, including damage and dangerous fluid cleanup, responding to gas explosions, and extinguishing vehicle fires. Fire recovery charges could net the city up to half a million dollars annually, a spokesperson for Sacramento Linda claimed.

A spokesperson for New York City Fire Department explained that the idea is to remove the burden of payment from resident taxpayers and onto those who cause the accidents.

Everyone seems to agree that new ways to procure funding are necessary during the economic downturn, but many do not see this strategy as effective.

Critical Response

First proposed back in July, the measure has more than its share of critics. The Sacramento Bee editorial board argued that the bill would upset drivers who would not find out about the extra charge until they received the bill. Ultimately, they said, the plan would backfire from lost revenue when angry motorists stop visiting the capitol city. Insurers are not happy either, claiming they will have to raise rates and ultimately push the price to customers.

Peter Vallone, a Queens Democrat and chairman of the public safety committee, saw it differently:
“What’s next? Your store gets hit by too many shoplifters and the police charge you to respond?”

The Impact on Auto Insurance

How these accident fees will affect auto insurance rates is yet to be seen, but according to Ohio’s National Association of Mutual Insurance, motorists are merely getting hit twice.

Joe Thesing, an association representative, said that it is a kind of “double taxation”, where citizens who follow the law and carry insurance are penalized. Third parties to handle the transactions are marketing the idea to municipalities, he said, because they will get a cut for acting as an intermediary.

If insurance winds up covering the costs of the city fines, there is a good chance that premiums will increase, especially if you do have a collision in one of these cities.

It remains to be seen if auto insurance will be more expensive as a result. Insurance providers are certain that the widespread use of such a policy will have an impact on auto insurance rates.

Words are wonderful friends, even those that appear in insurance policies. Get those words on your side, and you’ve got those pesky insurers right where you want them (although not, as Sarah Palin would have us say, in your crosshairs because that might be misunderstood as inciting violence). So here we are again in California, the home of the consumer activists who insist on trying to protect people against the insurance industry. The nerve of these dangerous lefties who dare challenge the mighty gods of capitalism. First it was this whole thing about ZIP codes. Wow, was there ever anything so blown out of proportion. So what if using ZIP codes lumps all drivers together regardless of driving skill and experience. Anyone who can’t afford to live in a neighborhood with a decent code deserves everything coming their way. But, no, that all had to stop. Now insurers have to take the time to look at their policyholders as individuals. All that extra administrative work to press keys on their PCs. The strain on those finger muscles is almost beyond belief. But sacrifices have to be made if the voters are allowed their say.

Well, now the Department of Insurance has been interfering again! This time, the Commissioner has been excited by the massive advertising campaign behind the “accident forgiveness’ policy. Now what could be better than this? Here we have a leading insurer promising not to hit its insured with premium hikes if they make a claim or pick up a ticket. Is this not something special? Is this not something the Commissioner should be applauding as really great underwriting, recognizing people may have a bad day, allowing one mistake to pass without any penalty? Well, no! The Commissioner looked at the ads which have been high profile by Allstate and two of its subsidiaries. He asked Allstate which confirmed that several hundred thousand people had signed up. So were all these guys suckers? Did they need some Big Government stooge to step in to protect them?

Well, yes. The Commissioner thought the ads deceptive and unfair. The way the scheme worked was to increase the current premiums by 15% to buy the promise not to increase the rates if there was an accident or a ticket. To find out for sure, the Commissioner asked Allstate for details of how they currently treat people who do claim or pick up a ticket, and then for comparative information on how this practise would change under the new policy. For some reason, the company decided to scrap the new policy. All that money spent on ads has been thrown away. All policyholders will be phased back to the old terms.

Now no one is suggesting Allstate was just conning folk with these car insurance rates but it’s hard not to think that way. Why else would it just shut down the policy? Ah well, we should give Allstate the benefit of the doubt. The result is that all the folk who signed up for these new policies will now be back on what will seem cheap car insurance. Perhaps we should look see what’s happening in other states.

When you buy a new automobile, not only do you have a monthly car payment to make, but you also have an insurance bill to pay. Because you know that going in, you have a glorious bit of power that you should exercise, and that power is to buy an automobile that insurance companies will love to insure so that you can get a cheap auto insurance quote.

Consideration 1: Easy to repair

Instead of choosing an expensive foreign model with fussy repair requirements, choose a classic model that is easy to repair. As an added benefit, these models are generally less expensive, requiring lower auto insurance limits. Also, since many of these models tend to have aggressive speed capabilities, they are higher risk.

Consideration 2: Safety measures

The less risk you offer an insurer, the less costly your insurance policy will be. One of the risks that an insurer takes on when insuring you is the risk of bodily injury. Airbags, anti-lock brakes, automatic seatbelts and daytime running lights are all relatively standard safety measures that will reduce your insurance expenses. Side airbags, rearview cameras and other electronic notification measures are newer methods of ensuring safety that an insurance company will look kindly on.

Consideration 3: Anti-theft and recovery measures

A car with a car alarm or locking steering wheel reduces the risk that your car will be stolen, which means your insurance company is less likely to have to pay for the theft of your car. A service like OnStar can increase the chances that your vehicle will be recovered if it does happen to be stolen.

The Next Step

Once you have done your research, test drove some possible car choices and narrowed down your options to a vehicle that is cheaper to insure, it is time to get your cheap auto insurance quote. When you do, don’t just get the quote from one company. Instead, compare the auto insurance quotes of multiple insurance companies so that you know you get the cheapest coverage possible. Make sure you think about any discounts you might be entitled to and that those are factored into the quote.

Don’t Scrimp Just to Save

One final note about making sure that you secure that cheap auto insurance quote; it is important that you don’t choose a super low limit and super high deductible in order to save money on your monthly auto insurance premium. While it might sound smart to choose a high deductible, if you actually have an insurable incident, that high deductible could stand between you and getting your car back on the road. And the same goes for high limits – if you don’t insure your car for what it is worth and opt for bodily injury liability limits that could actually pay real costs for a possible injury, the difference is going to come out of your pocket, whether you can afford it or not.