Keep your eyes on the road to keep your car insurance down this Fourth of July.

Fourth of July is a fun summer holiday that most of us look forward to each year. However, for all of its fun, it is also a holiday that is full of distractions that make driving on the road dangerous. Here are some tips on how to keep safe and not become just another statistic on the road this holiday.

Keep Your Car Insurance Down by Keeping Your Eyes Down

We all know that fireworks are the icing on the cake for the 4th of July holiday. It is something we usually only get to see once a year and something that grabs our attention both in the visual and audio sense. This also means that it grabs our attention away from concentrating on driving when we do hear or see one. Now, being distracted by a single firework is not usually enough to cause a car accident; a steady stream of fireworks in the air is.

If you are driving and spot a fireworks show you want to watch, do yourself and everyone else on the road a favor and pull over. That way you will stay safe and you will get to enjoy watching the show without a pesky thing like concentrating on the road interrupting you.

Another distraction on 4th of July is children running out in the road. They also are distracted by the fireworks, as well as playing with friends and even running around with sparklers. Because they aren’t paying attention, you have to be especially vigilant for them while you are driving.

Don’t Spike Your Car Insurance Rate with a Spiked Drink

Drinking on the 4th of July is as popular as fireworks are with some people. If you choose to include this in your 4th of July celebrations please don’t include driving as part of that. Stay at home, stay with a friend, or stay with having a designated driver. With the invention of Uber and Lyft, there is no reason at all for you to be getting in your vehicle after you have been drinking.

Also, there are enough distractions on the road this night without adding a drunk driver to the list of things that other drivers have to look out for. So do everyone a favor and keep your car insurance rates down by keeping off the road that night.

Welcome to the world of needing an SR-22, not that you are going to enjoy being here.

An SR-22 is not an insurance coverage nor is it part of your insurance coverage. It is a filing that your insurance company does on your behalf to the state telling them that you do indeed have insurance coverage. Things usually get to this point because you have seriously misbehaved behind the wheel and now the state is going to keep an eye on you for a few years to make sure that you at least have car insurance coverage.

Not all States Have SR-22

An SR-22 is a financial responsibility verification and it is not called the same thing in every state. Some states call it an FR-44 and other states call it an FR-19. Your state will tell you exactly what you need in the documents they provide you when they tell you that you now have to have a financial responsibility filing on your policy.

The Cost of an SR-22

There is no set cost for an SR-22 filing. The average cost is about $25 per policy period, but that varies by state. It’s really not the SR-22 filing cost that is going to get you though, it’s what you did to earn the need to have to have an SR-22 filing. People that need a financial responsibility filing have usually earned a DUI/DWI or other very serious infraction. Once whatever you did shows up on your driving record and your insurance company finds out about it, that’s when you will see your rate increase and usually increase by a lot, on top of the SR-22 filing fee.

These 6 car insurance claim mistakes trip most people up.

When a car accident happens, making a mistake on what you need to do with your car insurance claim is the last thing that you want to do. Usually, your car insurance ID card has an accident checklist for you to follow at the time of the accident, but here are some other mistake to avoid making during the course of the car insurance claim itself.

Mistake #1: Failing to Get the Other Person’s Information

On your car insurance ID card, it should state to collect the other person’s information. If you fail to do this at the scene of the accident you are going to have to wait until you get the police report to be able to provide your insurance company with the other person’s information or to be able to file a claim with the other person’s insurance company. This can seriously delay a claim and even cost you money you wouldn’t have had to pay out if you had collected the information at the scene of the accident.

Mistake #2: Not Gathering Fault Information at the Scene of the Accident

Don’t just tell your insurance company that you weren’t at fault for the accident, show them. Take pictures of where the cars ended up, the damage, where the damage is, and the area around where the accident happened. Your claims adjuster or the other person’s claims adjuster will not be at the scene of the accident, so you have to show them the accident. Also, if at all possible call the police and have them file a report at the scene.

Mistake #3: Not Acting Timely on your Car Insurance Claim

Call your insurance company from the scene of the accident or call them when you get home, it doesn’t matter where just call them as soon as possible. You want to file that claim while the information is still fresh in your mind. Don’t let time go by and not get your claim in.

Mistake #4: Not Buying Enough Car Insurance Coverage

This is something that you need to take care of BEFORE your accident. Make sure you have enough coverage on your insurance policy to be able to adequately cover the damage you may accidentally do to another person or their property. Keep in mind that state minimum insurance is nowhere near enough to pay for a new vehicle that ends up being totaled or for serious medical bills. Anything not covered by your policy is paid for by you.

Also, make sure you can actually afford the deductible on your comprehensive or collision coverage.

Mistake #5: Being Pushed to a Body Shop

Yes, there are insurance approved body shops you could use, but you don’t have to and don’t let your car insurance company bully you into going to one of them. If you are interested in using one of their shops, get a list of the approved ones and do your own outside research to choose the one with the best reviews. If nothing else go with the body shop you usually use and trust with your vehicle.

Mistake #6: Low Ball Offers

If your vehicle is totaled by your insurance company or the other person’s car insurance company, don’t accept the first offer they make. Take the numbers and tell them you will think about it. Then do your own research into how much your vehicle is selling for at dealerships and with private sellers. Take that information, along with the Kelley Blue Book value and give a counter offer with the information you have gathered.

Always remember that you have hired your car insurance company and the other person has hired their car insurance company for protection in times like these, you have the control to get what you need from them within the limits of the car insurance policy you or the other person purchased.

Q: I am not happy with the way my car insurance claim is going, I don’t think that I am being treated fairly and it’s my own company. Is there anything I can do?

A: It all depends on what you mean by “being treated fairly”. If you feel that the claims adjuster is rude, condescending or discriminating, demand to speak to their supervisor to complain or ask to be assigned to a new claims adjuster. You paid for this insurance coverage and you do not have to put up with being treated badly by your own company.

If the claims adjuster refuses to let you speak to their supervisor, contact your car insurance agent for help. They have more resources available to them to get you to who you need to speak with and they are not going to want to lose your business.

If you feel the numbers the claims adjuster is coming up with for a totaled vehicle is not fair, it is up to you to prove why. Gather current selling price for the same exact year, make and model of vehicle you have from 3 different dealers and/or private sellers. Also look up the Kelley Blue Book value of the vehicle. Arm yourself with information to give to the adjuster to get your fair settlement.

If you feel you are not being treated fairly in regards to medical bills from your car insurance claim being paid and you get no help from a supervisor, it’s time to contact your state insurance commissioner and file a complaint.

Q: Why doesn’t the declarations page of my car insurance policy tell me what is covered under my car insurance policy?

A: It all comes down to expenses. The declarations page of your car insurance policy gives the policy specific details of what your coverages are and what they cost. The declarations page is also only a few pages, so it is not all that expensive to mail out to you every 6 to 12 months.

The legal contact part of your car insurance policy, however, can be 20 to 70 pages. This is much more expensive to mail out and if you multiple that by how many clients an insurance company has, the expenses can be astounding. So to save money, insurance companies only send out the declarations pages when your policy renews. These are really the only pages that change at renewal, so unless there is a revision in the policy contract there is really no reason to send the same contract packet out to you every 6 to 12 months.

Besides, if they sent out the same packet to you twice a year with the same information you would probably just trash that part of the packet and keep just the declarations pages anyways. Making it a waste of money and a waste of resources.

If you have lost the legal contract part of your car insurance policy that the insurance company did provide you with when you first purchased the policy, your car insurance agent can provide you with a copy of it for your records.