It is very important to choose the right auto insurance policy. Once you have invested in a policy, you are going to be stuck with it for at least a year or two. And if you want to back out of it prematurely, you will end up losing a lot of the money that you spent on it. Hence it is important to make the right choice the first time.
How do you choose the correct auto insurance policy for your needs?
Use the internet to find out as much as you can about different policies. It is important to do your research before you go ahead and take the plunge. Shopping around for a good policy is am important part of buying auto insurance.
First, start getting a few insurance quotes from websites on the internet. There are a lot of websites belonging to both the insurance companies themselves as well as other third party websites. These quotes will give you an idea as to how much you will be spending on your policy. It is important to conduct a comparative analysis before you buy your policy. Try setting the benefits of the policy as the same on all the websites and get a quote from each one of them. This way you will know which one is more expensive.
After doing the ground work, the next step is to contact the insurance company. Use the phone and make a couple of calls to each of the companies. You need to gauge how their customer representatives behave. Calling them is the only way to find out. And finally, fix an appointment with the ones you really feel are worth your time.
But before this, you need to talk to a few friends or family members. They will be able to give you a clear and unbiased view of what exactly their insurance company is like. They would have had experience in dealing with claims and other issues. This piece of information is very valuable and you must definitely try and talk to as many people as you can about this. It will help you understand the insurance company from a customer’s point of view.
It is even better if you know someone who works in the particular insurance company. They will be able to tell you how claims are processed. And they will also be able to tell you how customer friendly their company is. Make sure the person is close to you; else you will just end up talking to a salesman.
You also need to know other information like how they deal with late payments. Are they very serious about a delay in payment of premium? You need to know how this will affect the amount you pay every quarter. And other things you need to look into would be the existence of a 1800 number which you can call in case you need to clarify anything with the insurance company. There are a lot of issues that cannot be sorted out electronically. You need a human representative to talk and understand the problem. This is something that most companies do not have due to the excessive cost involved. And with the crackdown on outsourcing, a lot of insurance companies no longer have human service representatives.
