An unbiased car insurance review is a great way to get information on other people’s experience with an insurance company so that you can avoid bad companies and find a good company to go with.

A good car insurance review will give you more information than any company advertisement.

In the world of business, word of mouth advertising can be just as important as any other form of advertising. Word of mouth advertising is when a client of a business tells people about their experience with that business.

Car insurance reviews are a form of word of mouth advertising for car insurance companies as they are not paid for by the insurance company and are written by people that have had experience with the company.

While this is a great way to see a company in a more realistic light than from the advertising they put out about themselves, car insurance reviews are not without their downfalls and should you trust car insurance reviews?

Car Insurance Reviews Should Be Unbiased

The most important thing that you need to look for is that a review is unbiased. If the review has nothing but good things to say about a company and no suggestions that they could improve on anything or any negative experiences, you may want to question the source of the review.

A good review has a “person looking into a box” type of feeling about it. The person writing the review should be able to see the company as a whole and how each part works together for the insured.

Watch Out for Very Negative Car Insurance Reviews

On the other side of a biased review are those that are extremely negative. If the review has nothing good to say about an insurance company this is not a review to form an opinion of the insurance company from.  A review that is very negative could very well have been written by a person that has had a very unpleasant experience with this company or it could be a former, disgruntled employee.

Either way you are not getting a good idea of how the company works.

Who is Sponsoring the Car Insurance Review?

Take a look around the site that is hosting the insurance company review that you are reading. Is there a company that is listed as sponsoring these reviews and is it the same company that you just read a review about? If that same company is sponsoring the review you can almost be sure that this site is going to present that company in the best light possible.

Now keep in mind that this is only if you see that the company is directly sponsoring the review or the site as a whole. This is not the case if an advertisement for the company is visible on the same page through Google or on a banner on the top of the site’s page. The person that runs the site sometimes has no control over what shows up as advertisements on their page if they have agreed to sell part of the space on their site for rotating advertising to a third party.

Read Multiple Car Insurance Reviews

Never, ever base your whole opinion of an insurance company on a single review. While the review that you read may have a great unbiased view of the company and may have covered all of the information that you need, it is still just one person’s view of the company. To make a solid decision about an insurance company, seek out multiple reviews and notice if there is any pattern in each of the reviews. For example, is the company listed as having rude claims adjusters in all of the reviews or maybe they have a quick pay out time on their claims.

If you are able to see the same information in multiple reviews, this is the information that is best to base your opinion on. For more reviews on car insurance companies, checkout these reviews:

Auto Insurance Customer Reviews

You can get a refund on your car insurance if your only vehicle is a total loss, you cancel your policy and have paid ahead on your premium or if you have overlapping coverage.

As unlikely as it may sound, there are instances when insurance companies refund back your money.

Is car insurance refundable?

Because car insurance is not something that you can feel or touch a lot of people ask this question, especially when they never use their insurance.

Unfortunately, there are only certain circumstances where you can actually expect a refund from the insurance company and most involve cancelling your policy.

Refund for Car Insurance Paid in Advance

When you purchase auto insurance it is for 6 months of insurance. You have the option of paying for the coverage term in full, in two payments or monthly. No matter what you chose though you are paying for your coverage in advance.

For the two payment plan you are paying for the first three months when you buy the policy and then the last three months when you are two months into the term. The monthly payment plan is paid from month to month, but you put two months down when you buy the policy and then you are always paying a month ahead for your coverage.

By doing this the insurance companies make sure that they get the premium for the coverage period in advance in case there is a claim. This also means that if you cancel your insurance policy during your coverage term, the insurance company owes you a refund for the future coverage that you paid for.

Refund for Changing Insurance

If you place your insurance coverage with a different company and forget to tell you old insurance carrier, you are entitled to a refund. Because you already have coverage in place in with a new company, your old carrier cannot use the excuse that they cannot cancel your policy to a past date and give you a refund because they would have provided coverage for that time period in the case of an accident. In this situation be prepared to show proof of your policy start date with your new carrier to get your refund.

Refund for a Car that Is a Total Loss

If you only have one vehicle on your policy and it becomes a total loss due to an accident you could be owed a refund for your coverage. As your vehicle no longer needs insurance coverage because it is not drivable your insurance company could owe you a refund of the premium you paid in advance. The refund should be effective back to the day after the accident. This of course depends on the circumstances you are in and you should consult your agent to see if you are owed a refund.

When Car Insurance Is Not Refundable

Car insurance is not refundable if you do not use it. You are paying an insurance company to make a contract with you that they will cover the damages to your vehicle and also the damages you cause to another person. At the same time if you do have an accident, the insurance company could end up paying out a lot more in damages than you have paid in premium.

It is also not refundable if you have a claim and you have paid more premium than the insurance company ends up paying out for your claim.

Motorhomes are a unique mix-up of an auto and a home and you have the option of protecting your motorhome with your home and auto insurance or a specialty policy just for recreational vehicles.

Having motorhome insurance protects you and the serenity of your vacation.

Motorhomes are a great way to get out and see the country. You take all of your belongings with you and you get to still sleep in your own bed every night even though you are on the road.

Motorhomes do offer a challenge to insure though as you can insure them on your auto policy and let the little bit of homeowners “off-premise” coverage protect what is inside or you could purchase motorhome insurance in the form of a RV insurance policy.

Insuring the Motorhome on Auto Insurance

There are circumstances that you can simply put your motorhome on an auto insurance policy. It is quick and easy if you already have an active auto policy and it will provide you instant coverage. The only problem is that it also only offers the same coverage as an auto policy and a motorhome is a little more complex than that.

With a motorhome you keep valuables inside and they are not covered by your auto insurance policy unless they are attached to the motorhome itself. Your homeowner’s policy could step in and cover the items inside the motorhome in the event that they are destroyed or damaged, but it is only done so at 10% of what personal belongings coverage you have on your homeowner’s policy as the items are considered to be “off-premise”.

You also have liability issues with motorhomes that are outside the coverage of the basic auto insurance policy.

Specialty RV Insurance for your Motorhome

The best avenue to take in insuring your motorhome is to purchase a specialty policy for it, also known as RV insurance. RV insurance offers coverage beyond the auto policy and also the homeowner’s policy for the motorhome and what is kept inside of it. At the same time it also offers additional insurance for issues that may arise in the use of the motorhome such as:

• Liability coverage for injuries and damages to visiting parties at campsites
• Replacement of the items kept in the RV
• Higher limits for towing coverage
• Living expenses if you are living in your RV and it is a total loss due to damages
• Gap coverage
• Reimbursement for hotel stays and transportation if your RV is incapacitated

These are just some of the additional coverages that may be available on a RV policy for your motorhome. The actual coverages depend on the insurance company that you purchase the policy from.

Protecting What’s Inside your Motorhome

The valuables that you keep inside your motorhome should be treated just the same as the valuables that you keep inside your home. You need to keep high priced items tucked away out of the sight of would be thieves and you have to take extra care in making sure that breakable items don’t shift around and break while you are in transit.

Another good practice is to inventory everything that you keep inside your motorhome. You can use a video camera to record everything or you can simply write it all down. Don’t forget to include the make, model and serial number of the items and if you are adding higher priced items, keep all the receipts. You are completing this inventory in the case that your motorhome is destroyed or stolen so that you have a record of everything to provide to your insurance company for compensation.

You should drop full coverage on your vehicle when the premium exceeds the amount the insurance company would pay for your vehicle or you simply cannot afford the premium of full coverage.

Dropping full coverage from your insurance policy is something that needs to be carefully thought about.

An insurance policy that has full coverage is a policy that has comprehensive and collision coverage on the policy in addition to the mandatory liability coverage.

Having full coverage on your vehicle protects you from financial hardships if you are in an accident and your vehicle is damaged. This coverage will pay for most damages to your car and all you have to pay out of pocket is your deductible.

Before you make any changes to your policy always consult your insurance agent as there are times that keeping the full coverage on your vehicle is mandatory or will save you more money in the long run than what you would save if you dropped the coverage. But, if you feel that having full coverage on your vehicle may not be what you need right now, you need to ask your agent: “should I drop full coverage?”

Vehicle is Not Worth Much

If your vehicle is an older model and not in very good condition or the vehicle just does not have a high value the premium that you may be paying for full coverage on your older vehicle may be more than the insurance company will ever end up paying out for it. Instead it may be a good idea to cancel the full coverage on your vehicle and just put the money that you would be paying for the insurance aside to cover any damages that may happen to the vehicle.

If you are good at not spending this money, you will even have a down payment for a new vehicle if you older vehicle is totaled in an accident.

You Have the Cash to Pay for Damages

If you can afford to pay out of pocket for any damages that may happen to your car or a down payment on a new car if your vehicle is totaled, it makes no sense to pay an insurance company to do something that you can do yourself. If you never get into a car accident and the insurance company never has to pay out on any claims, you basically just wasted your money

You Cannot Afford Full Coverage

Sometimes no matter how hard you try the ends just don’t meet. To save money in your monthly budget you may want to consider dropping your full coverage on your vehicle as you only need the liability coverage to legally drive. However, if you were to get into an accident you are on your own to get your vehicle fixed and if your vehicle is declared a total loss by an adjuster you will have to find a different mode of transportation to get where you need to go until you can get the money together to get a new vehicle.

So keep in mind the consequences if you do drop full coverage on your vehicle and consider if the risk is worth the money you will be saving each month.

Auto insurance can increase because of your own driving habits and also for reasons that are out of your control, like other drivers — and the economy.

Many factors can make your auto insurance continue to increase.

Insurance rates go up for all different kinds of reasons, some of the reasons you can control and some you cannot. Factors such as other driver’s unsafe driving, weather and the economy are all factors that you have no control over.

But, the one thing that you can control is your own driving habits, which is the one factor that is what causes auto insurance increases the fastest.

The Economy Increases Auto Insurance

While this one can’t be seen immediately it does have an effect on your insurance premiums.  An insurance company usually doesn’t just have their business dealings in auto insurance. They have investments, they are insuring businesses and homes and they themselves are usually owned by stock holders.

So when the economy takes a down turn and stocks start to fall, businesses fail and homeowners stop paying their insurance premiums insurance companies start to lose money. They have to still turn a profit so that their own stock holders don’t start selling their stock and they do this by raising rates on the clients they still have, including car insurance customers.

Statistics Increase Auto Insurance

Insurance is all about numbers and insurance companies love statistics.  Statistics show what categories of drivers are the safest, what geographic locations have the highest theft rates and what credit ratings are most likely to commit insurance fraud. A negative change in the statistics of any of the categories that you are in can make your insurance go up at your next renewal.

Other Drivers Increase Auto Insurance

Your driving record is not the only driving record that can make your insurance premiums go up. Drivers that are not even insured with your insurance company have a large impact on making insurance premiums go up, especially uninsured drivers. When an uninsured driver hits another driver that is insured with your insurance company, your insurance company has to pay out for the damages for their driver (if there is coverage).

This means that there is no other insurance company to reimburse your insurance company and getting the money that was paid out for the accident from the other person can take a long time. So to make up for the money they had to pay out, they increase everyone’s premiums.

You Make Auto Insurance Increase

The only factor that you have any real control over is your own driving habits and how safe of a driver you are. Drivers that cause accidents and are ticketed for unsafe driving are going to be charged higher insurance rates. Insurance companies want to collect as much premium as they can on these unsafe drivers before they cause the accident that they are at high risk to.

Driving safe and obeying traffic laws will keep your insurance premiums down. Also if you are a good driver and go a certain period of time without a ticket or an accident, not only will you be paying lower rates, you could also qualify for good driver discounts that could decrease your premiums even further.