Q: What if I de-insure my car just beacuse I am living in Mexico?  What if I just want to trip 1 day to arizona and I buy a insurance for 1 day, Am I still getting in trouble?  What if I want to revoke my de-insure to buy a insurance, lets say for 1 year, How do I revoke that? Thanks in advance. (Arizona Driver)

A: Wow, you have a lot of questions there! Let’s tackle these one at a time.

1. What if I de-insure my car just beacuse I am living in Mexico? If you are living in Mexico, you don’t qualify for car insurance in the United States, anyways.
2. What if I just want to trip 1 day to arizona and I buy a insurance for 1 day, Am I still getting in trouble? Unless you are renting a car, there are no insurance companies that will sell you car insurance for one day. I don’t know anything about Mexican car insurance, but in the United States your coverage extends a certain amount of miles into Mexico. Contact your insurance company and ask if they cover you driving in the United States.
3. What if I want to revoke my de-insure to buy a insurance, lets say for 1 year, How do I revoke that? NO, Idea.  You will need to contact the state of Arizona in regards to their laws for this.

For the best information on how to insure your car in situations like these contact your insurance agent.

Q: I am french, temporarily visitor in CA. A friend of mine is lending his car, but as I don’t have a CA dirver’s license, I need to get a temporary car insurance; and only for January to march.

How can I do ? So far, I have been rejected everywhere…

A: Your friend’s insurance will cover you without you having to be listed on the policy as you are only a temporary driver. Always remember, insurance follows the vehicle not the driver.

As far as you getting your own temporary car insurance for your friend’s vehicle with you as the driver, just give up now, as you are trying something that is almost impossible for a number of reasons.

1. It’s your friends vehicle, you are not the owner and have no financial interest in the vehicle. No insurance company is going to write you a policy to cover your friend’s vehicle while you are driving it.
2. You don’t reside in the United States and you have a foreign driver’s license. I have seen insurance policies being written for those that have had foreign licenses, but they are surcharged heavily and everyone of them had just moved to the United States. Also, none of them were only here temporarily.
3. Car insurance companies don’t write temporary car insurance policies.
4. If you were a resident with a United States driver’s license, you could get a non-owners policy as your temporary car insurance. However, this would only provide liability coverage and I have never seen a non-owners policy be issued as a temporary car insurance policy to a foreign visitor.

Q: Trying to stay in same office. It is just the agents name changed. The car insurance agent that is retiring had already changed us to different office we do not want.

A: Something sounds off in your car insurance agent’s office. Usually when a car insurance agent retires they pass their book of business (all of their clients) to another agent in their office. If they moved their book of business to another agency completely they may trust the agency they moved you to more. I would get online and check the reviews of your agency to see if maybe something has gone downhill recently. This does not mean there is a trust issue necessarily, but it is always good to check before you try and switch your policy back.

Was your agent the owner of the agency, is that why the name changed? Was the car insurance agent that is in the office now, there before or did they just arrive as your agent announced his or her retirement?

Sometimes when a car insurance agent gets ready to retire, they sell their agency. Now, the person they sold the agency to may not want to write all of the same types of policies your car insurance agent did. So, the new owners will buy the agency and the part of the book of business they want and the remaining part of the book of business will be given to or sold to a different agency that does work with those types of policies. This could very well have happened also.

Best thing to do? Talk to your old car insurance agent and ask why they moved your business to a new agency.

Q: I got a parked big big truck …( I know how the hell do I not see a truck the size of a mobile home it was a semi that was pulling out a 3 bedroom mobile home) I hit it not a scratch on the big truck my truck back fender was done
I reported it because my daughter said to but I did not put a claim in I fixed it myself paid out of pocket no damage to anyone biggest damn mistake ever even though I didn’t cause any damage and no car insurance claim and know when I call I got a quote for 135 but then they see the accident and it goes up to 210 a month and went from 180 down to 250 down and that’s the cheapest There’s higher ones.

A: Unfortunately, yes, this happens. Any claim that is reported on your car insurance goes on your CLUE report and can be counted against you even if nothing is paid out.

Is this fair? No, it is not. But car insurance companies argue that any accident that is reported, whether they pay out anything or not, is a glimpse into what your driving is like. Any accident you have increases your risk that you will have other accidents in the future and they want to charge you a higher rate to protect themselves from this likelihood.

For the many times I have been asked if someone should report a claim, I always tell them that it is up to them. The car insurance is there to pay for events like this, but there is always the chance that their car insurance premiums will go up with any car insurance claim they report, regardless if it is closed without pay.

Q: How much does Ins go up if U was in a car accident?

A: Have no idea.

It may not go up at all. Then again, it may very well triple the auto insurance rates you are paying now.  Just like with your auto insurance rates, everyone’s policy will be affected differently by a car accident. On top of that, every car accident will affect your rates different. Not to mention, it also depends on which driver on your policy caused the accident.

A policy with no previous accidents and something like accident forgiveness won’t see an increase at all. A policy that has seen a number of accidents is going to see a substantial increase.

An accident with a deer is going to have much less impact on your car insurance than a car accident with another car that resulted in injuries.

A car accident caused by your 16-year-old son is going to create much more of an increase than if you were in a car accident.

There are so many variables when it comes to the impact that a particular car accident will have on auto insurance rates, no one will ever be able to tell you how much insurance will go up if you were in a car accident.