Q: No matter how much I lower coverage we don’t need and they wouldn’t pay anyway I find every 6 months car and home insurance increases.

A: Understandably, people get upset when their car insurance rates and homeowners rates increase at their renewal. Insurance is a hard commodity to understand because you can’t touch or see it, but it is no different than anything else you purchase. Just like when your gallon of milk increases in price to make up for the increased price of gas to deliver it or because there is a drought and they have to pay to bring in extra feed to replace the dead grass, so your insurance premium has to increase to make up for the increases in cost for medical treatments, building materials and more technologically advanced vehicles. If they didn’t increase your premium to keep up with the rising costs everywhere else they wouldn’t have enough money to pay out for claims.

Q: I’ve had 3 car accidents this year…I know… terrible! First was not my Fault but the person did not have insurance, so my insurance paid… second was my fault, minor fender tap but involved 2 other cars, even though no one had damage, surprising enough everyone filed a claim so that was more than $2k between the 2 cars… and now  Today I got into an accident again… this one was pretty bad but no one got a ticket… how likely is progressive to drop me? Should I try to avoid filing a claim?

A: Sorry, we can’t tell you if you should file a claim or not.  However, unless you can afford to pay for the accident, that is what your insurance is for.

As far as whether you are going to get dropped or not for that many car accidents, probably not with Progressive. Progressive seems to be a more forgiving insurance company than others, but you never know. Also, insurance companies don’t look at years like everyone else does, they  look at years in terms of your policy dates. So, if your accidents happened in different policy terms that would work out to your benefit.

Q: My car insurance company wants me to exclude one of the drivers that live with me, what does that mean?

A: It means that your insurance company does not want to insure the actions of that driver.  Most of the time it’s because they have too many accidents or violations and the insurance company considers them a high likelihood of causing an accident. Your only options in this case, is to sign the papers to exclude the driver or find another insurance company.

On the other hand, you can also use a driver exclusion to your benefit and exclude high-risk drivers from your policy to decrease your premium, but if that excluded driver has an accident in your vehicle the insurance company will not pay for it and you will be on the hook to pay for the damages.

A: How do I get a copy of my Liberty Mutual car insurance policy?

Q: There are three ways you can get a copy of your car insurance policy. First, go to your agent and have them print you off a copy. Second, call the company directly and have them order you one to be mailed to you or ask them to email you a copy. Third, create an online account with your car insurance company and print them off for yourself.

If you need the legal packet that accompanied your car insurance policy that tells in details what is or what is not covered, you have to ask for that specifically.  That is usually only sent out when you initially purchase your policy because of mailing costs.

Q: Why is it so hard to get my insurance company to send proof of car insurance coverage to the DMV?

A: This topic is such a sore spot for customers and those that work for insurance companies. With electronic proof of coverage that is sent to the states, many things can go wrong.

1) The person keying the information could get one digit wrong and the state rejects it.  There is no forgiveness when it comes to proof of coverage the DMV

2) Just like any other form of electronic communication it can get lost in cyberspace

3) The DMV is known for having LONG processing times and just because your insurance company sent it within 20 minutes of you asking for it, it can still take some DMV’s up to 11 weeks to process.

How can you expedite this process?

Try and find a direct contact at the DMV that would accept proof of coverage from your insurance company, try and get an email address as this is much more reliable than a fax number. Then contact your insurance company or agent and ask them to send your car insurance ID card directly to that contact.