Go Direct To The Source For Auto Insurance

You may be wondering if direct auto insurance right for you. Perhaps you’re trying to cut costs these days and are evaluating your expenses for areas where you can trim your outgo and maximize your income. If that’s the case, then shopping for better auto insurance deals is a wise move.

Would you trade lower rates for dealing with a website rather than a human being? If you are considering direct auto insurance, that’s the question you have to ask yourself. Two factors have combined to create direct auto insurance: no-fault insurance and the Internet. With direct insurance, you deal directly with the insurer rather than through an independent agent. Cutting out the middleman allows direct insurers to offer lower rate. Some provide offices; some are strictly available over the phone or across the Internet.

The majority of direct auto insurance firms operate only in states or areas where no-fault auto insurance is mandatory. In circumstances where fault determination is taken out of the settlement equation, firms can calculate their rates with much higher statistical certainty. The downside is that safe drivers must go to civil court to recover monies lost to higher insurance rates due to claim-filing for damages that were not the fault of the policyholder.

In fault-allocation localities, who pays the cost for damages and losses incurred in a traffic accident is determined by a finding of fault. It is a fact that payouts are delayed and civil court cases are many in fault-finding jurisdictions. In these jurisdictions, the job description of the insurance agent includes hand holding and claims expedition. But under no-fault rules, the payout is made simply based on damages incurred. This means an insurance appraiser, rather than an agent, is the key player.

The no-fault states, which include the three states with highest populations (New York, California, Florida) enacted no fault legislation in part to simplify and speed payments to accident victims, and in part to reduce the number of time consuming cases in our bulging civil court system. Claims appraising becomes the only bottleneck and no-fault states ease that by instituting approved collision centers. In some jurisdictions the claim centers are government-run.

But for consumers, the real weakness in the direct insurance business model is the position it puts the consumer in when at his/her most vulnerable. The human body is not a machine and evaluations of what it will take to recover from injury are not always reliable, primarily because full recovery, while always the goal, is not always possible. These types of claims are where a good agent is worth their weight in gold. The agent stays up to speed on your condition and navigates you through the claims process.

All things considered, going with a direct auto insurance firm rather than through an insurance agent is a risk – reward question. If you are adequately covered, are the savings worth having to act as your own agent? That is the question you’ll need to ask yourself, but then again, millions of satisfied customers have asked and answered that same question in the affirmative.

Getting car insurance direct isn’t going to be as cheap as getting it at a thanksgiving sale but you will be able to get a good price. When you go looking for a way to spend the money you save you will wait for the Cyber Monday Sales