Hello Everyone.  Hoping this article helps you avoid the headache in your car insurance that I had.

I recently got my daughter a nice used little car for her 17th birthday.  We went through an online insurance company and I told her just to get everything she felt she needed.  I would pay for it until she moved out of the house.  She knows this now, but I paid just under five thousand dollars for her little black Saturn. She loved that car.  It had electronic locks and keyless entry, the company that sold it to us even included a real good stereo and a GPS system.  Well I think she had it for about three months before I noticed the insurance bill.  It was well over $400.00 a month.  That meant that within a year I would have paid as much for her insurance as I did for her entire car.  Automotive insurance shouldn’t be this expensive. So I went online and logged in to my policy.  Then I saw the problem.

If it was a type of insurance, my loving, caring, and wonderful daughter had check marked it.  I was paying for every kind of insurance.  For collision she had chose the lowest deductable which was $250.00.  I’m a good provider and a larger deductable to me isn’t a bad thing so I unchecked the online insurance form there and rechecked the $2,000.00 deductable.

Next was Collision.  She put down full coverage, uninsured motorist, and third party coverage.  This meant that if my daughter was letting her friend drive the car, and they hit by someone else, the car would be covered.  Well number one; nobody but my daughter is allowed to drive her car and I had already made that clear.  Second we live in a state where insurance is mandatory and is she already has full coverage on the car, if she is in a car accident bad enough that we need a claim, our state can actually find the other party guilty even if it is not their fault if they do not have insurance.  So, knowing I would rather buy her another car if hers was wrecked than trying to fix it, I unchecked those boxes and put her insurance down to liability.
Comprehensive automotive insurance to me has its ups and downs and I probably spent the most time on this one.  It covers her car in the event that it is stolen, vandalized, set on fire, explodes, etc.  Well we have a three car garage and she parks her car in there every night.  The mall that she takes the thing to the most, and the school she attends, all have cameras and roaming security.  So it is unlikely that her car is going to get vandalized or robbed.  Finally, the alarm on that car has a dead switch and the car itself has a lo jack system that promises more money if the car isn’t recovered than the value of the car.  I decided it wasn’t really worth it and unchecked that box.
Bodily injury and property damage were next on the list and it pays for injuries done to people or places when the driver is at fault.  I kept that one checked imply because she is a teenage girl after all.
Medical Payments was a weird one for me.  I looked at the online insurance description and apparently it pays for your medical bills if you are in a wreck and your passengers.  Well we have full medical through my company and unless it’s my daughters fault, she wouldn’t be liable for the passengers anyway.  I know most of her friends and their parents and am confident they all have medical so I unchecked that box.
The next on the list that the online insurance brokerage offered was Personal Injury Protection.  In essence it seemed like it covered the same as the Medical payments as well as child care expenses should she be laid up along with loss of income.  Well since my daughter doesn’t have a daughter (thank God), and she doesn’t have a job; this one was unchecked with a sigh of relief.
Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist was next on the….Hey, didn’t I already uncheck that?  I scrolled up the online insurance companies coverage options and sure enough, it was in the comprehensive coverage as well.  But apparently, they had no problem charing me a second time for the same thing.  As it was doubtful they would double pay me if something happened, I unchecked that box.
Finally I got down to mechanical break downs and auto glass replacement among the insurance options that my little girl check-marked.  Well first of all, We have triple A so if her car breaks down they will come get her and tow her so there was no point to that.  As far as auto glass, I can replace her windshield if it breaks so I pulled that off the list.
Finally, was the one that really had me laughing.  You may argue the rest and tell me why they would be good to have; but there is no way that you are going to tell me that my little girl needed this in any way, shape, or form.
Car Rental Reimbursement is an insurance that will cover you in case you are in a car accident and need to get a rental vehicle while yours is getting replaced.  Here is why that is such a joke.  In our state you have to be 25 years old to rent a car in the first place. So my little angel was covered for something she wouldn’t be able to use for eight years.
I will tell you, I did save money by getting several online quotes for the proper coverage my daughter had for her car.  Her rates went down to right around $65 a month and when she was in a little fender bender the following year, the damage was less than the deductable and so I paid it out of pocket for less than one tenth of the money I saved on going over her online insurance policy.
So before you get all gung ho on your insurance, sit back, take a deep breath and ask yourself how much coverage you really need.  If I saved you just a couple of dollars then this was worth it.