The different types of home insurance

There are a number of different types of home insurance - the type you choose will depend on where you live. Each policy will typically cover the contents, structure, and liability for the home and its owners. Specific policies might cover more things than others, so it's important to understand your individual policy.

Insurance for the house

There are currently 3 different types of house insurance available - HO-1 (basic), HO-2 (broad), and HO-3 (special). Both broad and basic coverage will only cover what is named - therefore, they are often referred to as peril coverage. Basic coverage applies to eleven types of losses: hail or windstorm, impact, riot, fire, sprinkler leakage, volcanic eruption, vandalism, sinkhole, smoke, lightening, and explosion. Broad coverage includes these eleven plus falling objects, weight of snow/ice/or sleet, and accidental water damage. Special coverage means the opposite of peril - everything is covered, unless it is excluded in the policy. The type of home insurance coverage you need is a personal decision and it is best to consult with an insurance expert.

Insurance for the condominium

Condominium insurance policies cover your condo for the things that are not covered by the association's master policy. Each association policy is different, so it is necessary to go over it before purchasing condo insurance. These policies are typically very flexible and allow you to choose how much and what coverage you require. Your association might determine what you are required to buy, but the specifics vary from condo to condo.

Insurance for rented properties

Finally, there is rental insurance. This insurance is necessary if you own a home but are renting it to others. Tenants bring additional liability, making a traditional home insurance policy inappropriate. Since you are receiving income, a rental home will require a business policy. Rental insurance policies provide you with additional coverage such as the loss of rent, and also remove much of the personal property coverage - tenants should purchase their own insurance for their personal property.

Replacement cost against actual cash value

One last thing to be aware of when shopping for home insurance is if the insurance covers the replacement value or actual cash value of your home. Replacement means your house is insured for the cost to replace the items with new items. Actual cash value covers the depreciated value of your home and its contents. Actual cash is cheaper, but it means less coverage. What you choose is up to you and the value of your home and property.

A brief survey of the factors less recognised in auto insurance quotes trends

Looking ahead in order to plan your budget, you love any spendinghs to be easily or at some degree predictable. But the real life is rarely a predicatble thing so, without any warning, you can suddenly find all your careful plans thrown out of joint. Insurance rates are no exception to this. To understand why, we need to remind you how auto insurance works. Everyone pays into a central fund. When accidents happen, people claim and the money is paid out. The rest must cover the administrative costs and provide a profit. So, in their business model, insurers are looking for drivers who will never claim or only make small claims. If you suddenly look like a bigger risk, your personal rates will rise. If too many people have been claiming, your rates will rise. But there may be other less obvious reasons for your rates to rise.

Let's start with changing your vehicle. Most people upgrade, buying a new or newer vehicle. With more money at risk, you may decide to buy collision and comprehensive cover. This will be required if you have taken out an auto loan. Inevitably, this means you will pay more unless your new vehicle is cheaper to insure. Look carefully at the theft rates and insurance ratings before deciding what to buy. Now think about changing your job. If you now have to commute a longer distance during peak hours, the risk of an accident rises and so will your premium. If your new job will involve more driving, the rates will also rise. Similarly, before you change your address, look at the premium rates associated with the proposed ZIP code. Many people face an increase even if all they are doing is moving across the street. If you manage to take these three factors under your control, you can minimize their impact on your auto insurance quotes next time. Failure to plan could mean a very unpleasant surprise when the next auto insurance quotes arrive and throw all your careful budgeting into disarray.

The Great California ShakeOut

Quality Claims will join the Great California ShakeOut this week as they host their annual statewide earthquake drill.  The drill has garnered more than 9.1 million registered participants for 2012, and will officially shake out at 10:18 am on Thursday, October 18th.  Quality Claims’ Safety Squad strives to offer many drills and safety seminars for employees throughout the year.  For additional information on this week’s event and earthquake preparedness tips, please visit:  shakeout.org/california.

Quality Claims to Present at National 2012 First Party Claims Conference

Quality Claims’ President Ron Reitz will present at this year’s First Party Claims Conference in Providence, Rhode Island.  The event is set to take place October 15-17.  Reitz will speak on Mortgage(e) Rights and Interests and the Dispensing of Insurance Proceeds.  The conference is a dynamic educational event for professionals in the first party property insurance claims community.  For additional information, visit http://www.firstpartyclaims.com.

Some questions you should ask yourself for using free auto insurance quotes effectively

There are a few rules to follow when getting free auto insurance quotes. The first is to get as many as you can to compare. The second is to make sure you are comparing the same things. The third is to do a little bit of research on the company that is giving the quote.

If you already have a policy, review it. If not that is ok, this guide should help you go over the finer points to analyzing your quotes. Get out some paper, write down these questions, or copy paste this into a document, and leave space for answers.

Does the quote represent adequate coverage for my assets?

Quotes for liability usually follow a pattern like this: 50/100/25 This means in any one accident $50,000 is the max for an individual's medical coverage, $100,000 for total medical bills for any number of people in one accident, and $25,000 total for property damage. If you have little or no assets and you don't make that much income, then this should be fine. However, you should purchase auto insurance coverage that is equal to the net worth of your assets or the limit of coverage from the company. If the limit is a lot lower than your total assets then you need to carry an umbrella policy to take up the slack.

Do I need to carry PIP or under/uninsured medical coverage?

PIP is personal injury protection. Find out how much your personal medical plan will cover in the event of an auto accident. You may find if you need extensive work or rehabilitation therapy your personal medical insurance might not cover this for an auto accident, and you will need to sue for damages. If the other person has no viable assets and his policy is a minimal policy you may be paying out of pocket for your injuries; or worse yet have to forego treatment. If however your personal medical can handle such treatments, then there is no need to purchase this coverage.

Is the company credible?

Once you have your quotes research the insurance company. Price isn't everything. The company may have the cheapest quotes because they don't pay out claims. Use an online search engine to see if they have had service complaints. You're buying a service, and they should perform professionally.

Using free auto insurance quotes is a great way to save money; let us help you get started.

Getting the cheapest car insurance for your new car

When you go out and buy a new car, chances are you will finance it. Not too many people walk up to the dealership and pay cash for the car. When you finance, part of your contract with the bank or the finance company is to keep a minimum amount of car insurance. They generally stipulate that you have to buy comprehensive coverage in addition to your liability coverage. While you get online and search for the best car insurance in terms of price, and compare quotes and specific coverage's, you probably aren't thinking about depreciation.

Depreciation is when the value of a good declines over time from its original price. Cars are notorious for quick depreciation. Part of that is because cars are a production commodity. As quickly as a model hits the factory line, a new and improved one is in the prototyping phase of production, and still another is being worked out on the computer. Technology for communications and entertainment as well as materials used for safety equipment and fuel efficiency are making new strides in innovations that customers want to see in their new car. Therefore, last year's model left on the parking lot loses value, and the one you drove away and used loses value even quicker. The fact that you are now moving parts and putting wear and tear on the vehicle just speeds up the loss in value.

Your loan pays the amount down in a linear fashion. You create the loan to be a consistent debt you can pay over time. If you were to graph it, it would be a straight line sloping down. The degree of slope would depend on how many years your financed the car. The depreciation graph would look more like a steep slope that eventually slows down near the middle to end. If you graph the two lines on the same space for a five-year loan, somewhere around year three your loan value will equal then drop below the depreciated value of the car. If you were to get into an accident in the first year or two of the loan, you would cover the loan amount still owed above what the insurance company paid for the depreciated value. To insure against that get a quote on GAP insurance. GAP insurance will mean the cheapest car insurance you have for your new car won't leave you without a car if you are in an accident that totals you auto.

Auto insurance quotes and identity theft after an accident

Even minor auto accidents are stressful. Your prized vehicle has been damaged. You may feel shaken physically. You may feel angry, whether with yourself or the other driver. This makes it easy for you to say too much. Let's start with a simple rule. Although it costs you nothing in a no-fault state, making any type of admission of fault is a bad idea in all the at-fault states. This goes double if the other driver or passengers are holding devices that may be recording what you say. Say as little as you feel possible in all the circumstances. This protects your position until you have a chance to think calmly about what happened.

In a recent survey, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found about 40% of drivers were prepared to share all the information on their driver's license. About 17% admitted they would allow the other driver to take a photograph of their license. Although this may sound a convenient way of exchanging information, this opens you to identity theft. The information on the license is one of the standard tools used to establish your identity for telephone and internet transactions. Giving other people your home address and license number potentially allows others to assume your identity. Indeed, 25% of respondents said they would always pass on their home address and 30% would give their personal telephone numbers. Neither disclosure is legally required. The law only instructs you to give your name and proof of insurance. The only telephone number you need give is that of your insurer.

What can you do to protect yourself and maintain auto insurance quotes?

In 2011, there were more than 9 million reported cases of identity theft. This seriously disrupts your life, damages your financial reputation and leaves your credit score on the floor. So don't expose yourself to the risk of further losses by saying too much. Keep yourself safe after the accident and, by so going, keep your auto insurance quotes lower when renewal time comes round. More importantly, if everyone keeps their losses within reasonable limits, everyone's car insurance quotes stay lower. So whether for selfish or altruistic reasons, take care.

Black boxes can help to prove your good driving record to qualify for safe driver discount

You are the kind of person that does things right the first time. You did your comparison shopping, got your insurance quotes. You have a clean record, and think you are getting the most car insurance discounts possible. However, your still wondering is there anything else I can do to get cheap car insurance. Maybe...are you willing to put your driving to the test?

Technology is allowing insurance companies to add another tool to their arsenal that helps them decide if you are a good driver or not. Your driving record may be spotless, but not flawless. Just because you have no tickets, no points, and have been accident free for a number of years, you still may exhibit risky driving patterns. Or, you may be as safe a driver as you think you are.

Most new models (over 80 %) have black boxes already installed at the factory. Moreover, the US senate passed a mandate for cars built in 2015 to have a data recorder that monitors at least 15 different variables leading up to a crash. You can check your owner's manual to find out if you car is equipped with an EDR (event data recorder). EDR's record you speed at the accident, how long it took safety equipment to engage--like airbags to deploy, how the brakes were applied and more. This data belongs to the owner of the car. They can only access the data after an accident and if you give them access or they own the car. If your car is totaled and the insurance company pays you, your insurance company owns the data and can analyze it.

However, if you want the chance to get the best safe driver discount you can opt to have the insurance company add an additional black box to your vehicle, which will sends them data about your driving habits in real time. It will record your momentum around curves, driving speeds, breaking distance, application of the brakes, average distance verses speed and more. IT does not record your GPS. While some of the advertisements say your premiums will not go up if you employ an insurance company black box, that generally is limited to the current contract. At renewal time, if your driving proved to be more risky than you thought, you will see a premium increase. However if your driving is truly safe then a black box is a great way to get cheap car insurance.

Learn about the 10 car insurance discount for green cars

When talking about green cars, most people automatically go to Hybrids. They were the first on the market to catch the public eye. They were also very expensive initially. The difference in price between a standard combustion engine model and a hybrid use to be an additional 15 to 20% for the sticker price. That kept many people from going green. Add to that most insurance plans base their premiums on the MSRP of a car and it took a number of years to recoup your original purchase and insurance from not going to the pump. Now the times have changed.

There are more makes and models qualifying as green cars, and many of them will surprise you. Even better many insurance companies are offering 10% discounts on car insurance quotes to green cars owners (more exactly on the annual premium). What is a green car?

A green car has more to do with its carbon footprint than what fuels it. A green car minimizes its impact on the environment. The green car category contains: hybrids, natural gas, electric, and high efficiency combustion engine using either diesel or gasoline. Hybrids tend to be some of the most expensive models of the green cars, and are offered in the luxury class. However, the motor companies have been developing mid-class hybrids like the Ford Fusion hybrid, Honda Civic Hybrid, and the Toyota Camry hybrid. The 10% insurance discount helps to offset the cost difference between the hybrid and non-hybrid model allowing for you to see your at the pump savings accrue faster.

If you want to take advantage of the 10% discount there a number of reasonably priced electric only cars. The prices on these models are dropping as new battery technology comes down in price and more outlets for recharging becomes available at roadside stations.

If you want the comfort of a regular car but still stay green then you can opt for the minis , micros and high fuel-efficient models. Fiat's 500, Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, For Fiesta, and Nissan Versa qualify as green and got high ratings for safety and repair costs by the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety.

So think over the idea of getting a green car. It turns that insuring such a vehicle becomes for affordable. Remember to ask to apply the green car insurance discount. Then go out and test-drive the different models that fit your budget and way of life.