Q: I NEED TO KNOW WHY GEICO CANCELLED MY POLICY WITHOUT NOTIFYING ME. THEY TOLD ME IT WAS BECAUSE THE NEEDED A VALID DRIVERS LICENSE FROM THE DMV WHEN I CANT REMOVE MY SUSPENSION UNTIL I SHOW MY THEM MY SR-22 FROM MY INSURANCE PLACE. I’M STUCK IN THE MIDDLE UNABLE TO DO ANYTHING AND NOT TO MENTION I CANT DRIVE TO WORK EITHER.

A: Well first, car insurance companies won’t insure someone that has a suspended license. This is why you were cancelled without notice. If you would have told them you had a suspended license at the beginning they most likely would not have even offered you a car insurance policy in the first place, which means you probably lied on your application.

Second, it’s your own fault that your license was suspended and you shouldn’t have done whatever you did to get it suspended in the first place. A suspension is a big deal and it means you did something bad enough that they want you to stop driving for a while. Taking the bus to work for a bit may help you think twice about your actions once you do start driving again.

Third, contact an insurance agent. You are most likely only going to get insurance in the high-risk, involuntary market and you are going to need a car insurance agents help in getting your insurance in place at this point.

Q: I was in voles in a hit and run they lady kept going now my car is messed up . I’m hurting now should I go to a dr?

A: If you are injured, whether it is a hit-and-run or not, it is your call if you see a doctor. Even if you ask your insurance company this question, they are going to tell you the same thing. There is never any guarantee that your medical bills will be paid by your insurance company (or the other insurance company if it wasn’t a hit-and-run) and an insurance company will never initially commit to paying them.

The good news is that if you have uninsured motorist coverage, medical expenses are included in the coverage. Unfortunately, still with no guarantee of payment. You can always ask your car insurance agent for the details of medical expense payments under this coverage, but most likely they will refer you to file a claim so a claims adjuster can review your policy. If you ask the claims adjuster, you will be told that they will pay accident-related medical expenses and to seek medical attention if you need medical attention. However, until they review the bills from your doctor they won’t commit to paying them.

So, if you are injured enough you feel you need a doctor, go see a doctor. Don’t base your decision to seek medical care on whether or not the car insurance company is going to pay for it.

Q: I don’t like how much I am paying for car insurance, but I don’t want to spend all day getting insurance quotes either, what should I do?

A: If you have all of your information together and ready to go it really doesn’t take all that long to get a new insurance quote. Best thing to do is to print out the declarations page of your current insurance policy, take it into an independent car insurance agency and hand them your declarations page. Tell them you are unhappy with your current car insurance rates and are looking for the same coverages for a better price.

After that you have nothing else to do, you don’t even have to hang out in their office if you don’t want to. The agent will put together a bunch of quotes for all of the different companies they write for and you simply have to choose which quote you like the best when they give you the information. They can do it all while you are in the office or you can arrange to come back at a later time.

If you prefer to do the quoting yourself and don’t want to go from one website to another, find a website (like ours) that has a quote aggregator. A quote aggregator allows you to put all of your information one time and will present you with quotes from a number of different companies. Again, you just have to choose which one you want.

In the end, the little amount of time you spend getting quotes this way is very much worth the amount of money you can save on your car insurance premium.

Q: Hi! I’m a US citizen and I am coming to Canada for a year through IEC working holiday visa, so I’ll be a temporary resident and I’ll be bringing my car with me. Do I need to get Canadian insurance on my car?

A: This is a great question for your car insurance agent as there are a couple of things going on here. First, I am located in the United States, so I can only speak of our insurance rules and regulations here. Second, your car insurance here in the US does normally cover you while you are traveling in Canada, so normally you would not need Canadian car insurance. However, with you being in Canada for a year as a temporary resident this changes your residency and the regular location of where the vehicle is for that long of a period of time; both items car insurance companies use to determine what state and country your car insurance should be from.

Your car insurance agent will be able to tell you if your car insurance company here in the United States would still extend coverage during your time in Canada or if you would need to purchase car insurance coverage on a Canadian policy.  The good news is, even if you do have to get Canadian car insurance, your US policy will still provide you at least temporary coverage while you are getting your Canadian car insurance coverage in place.

Self driving car technology: Changing the auto industry in the next 20 years

The advent of self driving car technology has the potential to disrupt the auto insurance industry immeasurably in the next twenty years.

There are already several car companies rolling out some form of “autonomous vehicle” (AV) that assists the driver:

• Audi
• Cadillac
• Mercedes-Benz
• Tesla
• Volvo
• Ford

All will offer vehicles in the near future that do some of the driving for you. Ford actually plans to roll out a fleet of driverless cars without a steering wheel or pedals in 2021.

Revolutionary effects

• Reduction in auto accidents: According to a report by McKinsey & Co, widespread adoption of self-driving cars could eliminate 90% of auto accidents in the US.
• Less need for collision insurance: With fewer accidents taking place, the need for collision insurance will plummet. In a February 2017 interview with CNBC, Warren Buffett theorized that “when a significant portion of the cars on the road are autonomous, it will hurt Geico’s business very significantly.”
• Shrinking of auto insurance sector: Furthermore, according to a report by the global accounting firm KPMG, the personal auto insurance sector could shrink to 40% of its current size within 25 years as cars become safer thanks to self-driving technology.

Elon Musk’s perspective: reducing insurance premiums for self-driving cars

Elon Musk of Tesla has argued that insurance premiums should be adjusted to account for its cars being safer. The National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTA) has found that crash rates for Tesla vehicles have plummeted 40% since Autopilot was first installed in 2015. Musk asserts that Tesla owners should be rewarded accordingly with lower insurance premiums.

Today, the market is highly focused on service, price, and other factors. Thus, consumers are seeking out car insurance reviews before choosing a policy. It’s certain that a lot will change when insurance is bundled to the car or service provider, rather than the driver (as it is today). It may actually be similar to the fleet insurance model.

Change in responsibility for accidents–blame the automaker

As more AV technology is employed in cars, the responsibility for accidents will shift from the driver to the automaker–it will increasingly be faulty technology that will cause accidents rather than driver mistakes. Already automakers are announcing that they will take full responsibility for accidents that take place in Autonomous Vehicles. Volvo set a precedent when it announced in 2015 that it will accept full liability in the event its self-driving car gets in a crash.

Exciting possibilities

Time and accident litigation will tell how adoption of AV all shakes out. The US government will also face challenges to develop laws that reflect the new reality of self driving cars on the roads. Regulatory agencies tend to err on the side of caution, so this may end up slowing the adoption of fully autonomous vehicles. But overall, Autonomous Vehicle technology opens up an exciting new future for drivers while disrupting the auto insurance industry.