Insurance companies are all about protecting from risk and your payment to them is no different.

Insurance companies make you pay when you get your insurance policy (down payment) to protect themselves from providing you insurance coverage for free. If they provided you insurance coverage and didn’t bill you until later, there is nothing stopping you from cancelling your insurance policy and going to another carrier without paying. And if you had a claim in that time period they would be on the hook to pay for it even though you never paid them.

Now, you can argue that they could just cancel the policy back to the effective date if you don’t make the payment. However, there are so many laws that dictate that they have to give you so many days of notice before they can cancel your policy and technically you have signed a contract with them that they will provide you coverage. With these two legal aspects, a good attorney could argue that they would be responsible for paying for the damages if you had an accident.

So for an insurance company, your down payment is an “insurance policy” (please excuse the pun) for them. Besides, if you think about it, anything you buy has to be paid for in advance before you walk out of a store and it is really no different with insurance.

The 2013 Toyota Prius may be good for your gas budget, but it’s not as clear with your insurance budget.

One of the 2013 Toyota Prius Models.

The introduction of the 2013 Toyota Prius’ predecessor made green citizens, as well as drivers tired of the ever rising gas prices rejoice. They rejoiced all the way to the dealership, right up until they saw the price tag for the car.

They found that this new part-electric car that sipped gas may not have been as friendly to budgets as it was to the environment. However, this higher price and the very nature of the car have made it rather friendly to insurance budgets with some insurance companies. With other companies, they seemed confused as to what to do with this new vehicle type.

Safety Ratings of the 2013 Toyota Prius

The 2013 Toyota Prius is a “Top Safety Pick” for the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety. The Prius could have been a “Top Safety Pick +”, but it was not tested in the small overlap front crash test which tests the how the vehicle does when the very front corner of the vehicle is hit. This test is a requirement for a vehicle to be considered as a “Top Safety Pick +”.

Other than that, on each separate test the 2013 Prius was rated with the highest rating that the IIHS gives to the vehicles it tests. It rated “good” on the front crash test, the side impact test, the rollover test, and rear crash test.

2013 Toyota Prius Recalls

Things are looking good for the 2013 Toyota Prius with no recalls in sight this year.

Insurance Thoughts on the 2013 Toyota Prius

The insurance rates on the 2013 Toyota Prius are going to vary from insurance company to insurance company.

The reason for this variation is because the companies are confused as how to rate this risk. On one hand, the vehicle is mostly associated with safe drivers that care for the environment and are financially responsible. You never see a Prius in a drag race, you don’t see young drivers falling over each other to buy one, and the price keeps most young drivers from being able to purchase them. This means that the Prius is associated with drivers that have a lower chance of getting into a car accident.

On the other hand, these vehicles have no crash data for insurance companies to use to assess how likely they are to be in a car accident. The 2013 Prius, as well as other electric cars, are also a new product to the market and cannot be repaired with standard parts or after-market parts. This makes them more expensive to repair.

And until there is some more data on these types of vehicles you can expect a larger premium difference from one company to the next than what you would see with a gas engine vehicle. So with all that being said, before you get your heart set on buying a 2013 Toyota Prius, or any other electric car for that matter get a quote from your insurance company first.

It’s time to switch insurance companies if you have experienced any of these 4 reasons.

Is it time for you to switch insurance companies?

In advertising, there is a lot of concentration on price being the main reason to switch insurance companies. However, price is not the only reason that drivers should look around for new insurance coverage. Here are four other reasons that you should give your insurance company the boot if they fail to meet your expectations.

Reason #4: Quality of Website (or lack of)

At the bottom of the list, but still important, is the quality of your insurance company’s website. Can you make your monthly payment on the site? Can you get your insurance cards or verify what coverages you have?

If your insurance company is still in the dark paper ages it is time to tell them goodbye. Any insurance company that is not keeping up with the times of providing their clients with the convenience of accessing their information or even getting quote online is not worth staying with for two reasons.

One, they are failing to put their client’s needs first by not catering to the desire to conveniently access information and take care of business online. Two, any insurance company that is not keeping up with current trends falls behind the rest of the pack, and in the competitive field of insurance the ones that fall behind get eaten by the pack leaders.

Reason #3: Company Instability

When you start hearing bad financial news about your insurance company, it’s time to start jumping ship with the stock holders. News about offices closing, layoffs, and “restructuring” all mean that there is a money problem. When insurance companies have money problems the first place they turn to try and get more money is their clients, by raising premiums.

So before this becomes about switching insurance companies because the premium is getting too high, save yourself some money and start looking before the price hikes come.

Reason #2: Poor Claims Department Quality

I read through every insurance company review that gets posted on Car Insurance Guidebook, and I can’t tell you how many times I have read that the other driver’s insurance company handled everything about a claim better than their own insurance company. If this has ever happened to you, you should be looking for a new insurance company as soon as your claim is closed.

Why the heck would you continue to pay your hard earned money for an insurance company to provide you with financial claims protection only to be treated like garbage by the very claims department you paid for? That’s like paying for a meal that ends up tasting disgusting and then going back for seconds.

Don’t do it!

Reason #1: Bad Customer Service

Customer service is the most important expectation you should have of your insurance company. There is absolutely no excuse for bad customer service! I don’t care if the customer service rep or the insurance agent is having a bad day. They are paid to treat you with respect and help you with your insurance needs.

If they can’t do their job because they are having a bad day, they need to take the day off. If they can’t provide good customer service ever, they need to find another job.

And you as a paying customer should never put up with bad customer service. Insurance is a very competitive field, and you can easily switch insurance companies to one that will better value you as a customer.

The 2014 Subaru Forester is almost a completely new car inside.

The 2014 Subaru Forester

The 2014 Subaru Forester is the first 2014 vehicle for our insurance analysis. It feels rather odd though that here we are only in March, and we are already talking about a 2014 model.

Regardless of the year, the new Forester is definitely a forward thinking vehicle that Subaru seems to have worked hard to improve. They have made improvements to make the inside roomier, the engine more powerful, and the technology more advanced.

They have also made improvements to the safety features. Improvements like adding anti-whiplash front seats, EyeSight driver assist., and an airbag for the driver’s knees. Yes, that last one may sound silly, but I wish I had a knee airbag in my car during my car accident.

Will these new safety features affect your insurance though?

Safety Testing of the 2014 Subaru Forester

The 2014 Subaru Forester is a “Top Safety Pick” by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS). It would have most likely been a “Top Safety Pick +”, but the vehicle was only put through 4 of the 5 safety tests that the IIHS does, and they require at least an acceptable rating on the 5th test for the vehicle to qualify as a “Top Safety Pick +”.

2014 Subaru Forester Recalls

So far so good for the 2014 Forester with no recalls in sight.

Insurance Thoughts on the 2014 Subaru Forester

With the price range of the new Forester ranging from just under $22,000 to $32,995 the price for the comprehensive and collision coverages should vary depending on the model of 2014 Subaru Forest chosen. The more expensive models will see the highest premiums for these coverages, but it should not be much.

The biggest difference in premium between models will most likely be attributed to the engine differences between models. The Forester 2.0XT has a turbocharged engine that runs at 250hp compared to the 170hp in the base model. This increase in engine power can affect the premium for the liability, comprehensive, and collision coverages because the increased power strength can lead drivers to do things they would not normally do in vehicles with less power; leading to a higher chance of a car accident.

Compared to other vehicles in its class though, the increased safety features like the EyeSight drivers assist. could balance out the higher premium for the more powerful engine. The EyeSight is a camera-based active safety option that includes precollision braking, warnings when you are going to drift out of your lane, as well as an adaptive cruise control.

Overall, the 2014 Subaru Forest has a number of extra safety features plus a high safety rating from the IIHS that even if the premium was a little bit higher than other models, the extra safety provided to those in the vehicle may be well worth it.

Whether you hate them or love them, red light cameras make a surprising difference.

Red light cameras can help to prevent intersection accidents like this.

Red light cameras have been controversial since they first started appearing at intersections. Many people feel that it’s not fair that “big brother” is watching us all the time. Sorry, but it is also not fair to the rest of us when you cause a car accident because you felt you didn’t need to stop for that red light.

Unfortunately for those that don’t like red light cameras, they will not be going away anytime soon thanks to studies like the one just released by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS).

What Does a Red Light Camera Do?

For those of you that live in larger cities, you may be surprised to know that there are many drivers across the country that don’t even know what a red light camera is. As popular are they are becoming (they can be found in 540 communities currently), there are just some places that don’t need them or don’t have the money to install them.

In fact, a city near where I live paid to have them installed but they don’t work because they can’t afford to run them now.

So for all of you that have never seen a red light camera, it is a camera that sits near at intersection and takes pictures of the vehicles that run red lights. The camera is triggered if a car crosses a certain point in the intersection after the light has already turned red. The vehicle information is then recorded and the driver can expect a ticket for running a red light to arrive in his or her mailbox shortly after that.

How Do We Know Red Light Cameras are Useful?

There have been many studies of red light cameras to verify if they are as effective as local government seem to think they are. In 2011, the IIHS found that these cameras decreased the chance of a fatal car accident caused from a driver running a red light by 24% in the major cities that had cameras installed.

In 2010, the IIHS embarked on a yearlong study in their hometown of Arlington when the city decided to install red light cameras at major intersections. The IIHS had recording cameras installed at the intersections that had the red light cameras, intersections near the ones with cameras, as well as at intersections nowhere near where the red light cameras were.

After a year of the cameras being installed they found that the cameras had significantly altered the behavior of the drivers. At the intersections that had cameras drivers were 39% less likely to run the red light after it had been red for .5 seconds, 48% less likely to run the light after it had been read for 1 second, and an amazing decrease of 86% likely after the light had been red for 1.5 seconds.

What Do These Red Light Camera Studies Mean?

Both of these studies by the IIHS flat out mean that red light cameras work. First, there is proof that the number of accidents from drivers running red lights decreases when there are cameras present. Second, the IIHS has shown that these red light cameras significantly alter the behavior of drivers making them less likely to run a red light which leads to the decrease of red light running accidents.