Auto Insurance
Pages (29) : « First ... « 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 » ... Last »Legislators likely to give no-fault car insurance a one-year extension.
Struggling over how to improve Florida’s no-fault auto insurance law, state legislators likely will park the issue for a year.
The Personal Injury Protection, or PIP, provision of the state’s insurance code will expire next year if the Legislature fails to extend it. Drivers spend, on average, about $125 a year for $10,000 worth of coverage. Drivers statewide are required to carry the coverage that pays medical bills regardless of who’s at fault in a crash.
Without it, medical costs from an auto accident are paid by an accident victim’s own health insurance and victims would sue in court for other damages, such as lost wages.
Proponents of the PIP system argue it speeds up medical payments to accident victims, and keeps cases out of court. Critics claim Florida’s no-fault system is rife with fraud, and that attorneys…
Source : accessmylibrary.com
The Record, Hackensack, N.J., personal finance column.
GROUP WANTS TO MAKE INSURANCE EASIER: Insurance is different from most of the things you buy.
You know you need it, but you hope you’ll never have to use it. You find it so confusing that you are tempted to buy the first policy you stumble across – or just go without.
But an organization of state insurance regulators wants to make it easier for you to protect yourself against rainy days. On Tuesday, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners introduced Insure U, a new program of consumer protection and education.
“If you’re not shopping around, you’re throwing away your money,” warned Diane Koken, Pennsylvania’s insurance…
Source : accessmylibrary.com
Repeal no-fault law, say insurers.
Insurance companies and others who want Florida’s no-fault auto insurance law to lapse may not be in the driver’s seat. But a study released Friday pushed their cause.
A report by the national Insurance Research Council shows the insurer costs to pay personal injury protection claims jumped 18 percent in the past three years, about twice the rate of inflation. In other words, insurers say, the law that requires coverage for uninsured motorists and accident victims isn’t working.
But the study was immediately called into question by the group that wants Florida’s no-fault law extended.
The study showed that as claim costs increased, the seriousness of injuries declined. In the meantime, the study said, the use of chiropractors and lawyers…
Source : accessmylibrary.com
Repeal no-fault law, say insurers.
Insurance companies and others who want Florida’s no-fault auto insurance law to lapse may not be in the driver’s seat. But a study released Friday pushed their cause.
A report by the national Insurance Research Council shows the insurer costs to pay personal injury protection claims jumped 18 percent in the past three years, about twice the rate of inflation. In other words, insurers say, the law that requires coverage for uninsured motorists and accident victims isn’t working.
But the study was immediately called into question by the group that wants Florida’s no-fault law extended.
The study showed that as claim costs increased, the seriousness of injuries declined. In the meantime, the study said, the use of chiropractors and lawyers…
Source : accessmylibrary.com
Effort to shed ZIP code dies: AUTO INSURANCE IN EAST P.A. HIGHER.
Incensed about paying higher insurance rates than their neighbors, several hundred Palo Alto residents signed petitions to break away from the 94303 ZIP code they share with East Palo Alto. But now, secession leaders have done a U-turn, concerned about the impression they would give if they ask to cleave 94303 by community, class and race. “My intent is not to…
Source : accessmylibrary.com
Drivers trying to escape higher insurance rates give up on effort to shed E. Palo Alto’s ZIP code.
Incensed about paying higher insurance rates than their neighbors, several hundred Palo Alto residents signed petitions to break away from the 94303 ZIP code they share with East Palo Alto. But now, secession leaders have done a U-turn, concerned about the impression they would give if they ask to cleave 94303 by community, class and race. “My intent is not to say I don’t like East Palo Alto,” said Arthur Keller, president of the Adobe Meadow Neighborhood Association in south Palo Alto. “It’s a bread-and-butter economic issue.” Yet until last week, the group and the Duveneck/St. Francis Neighborhood Association had talked of pushing to join other Palo Alto ZIP codes, or to create their own. They…
Source : accessmylibrary.com
Insurance policies puzzle S.C. consumers.
The notice from Charleston County last year caught Robert Devereux’s attention: Efforts by the Awendaw area fire department to be more prepared for emergencies led to an improved fire rating from the Insurance Services Office. Homeowners’ premiums could fall by December as a result.
He called his agent, only to learn that carriers adjust rates when policies are renewed - once a year.
It wouldn’t have been so frustrating, except that Devereux’s premiums on his tidy doublewide mobile home on Lieben Road jumped 49 percent from $480 a year in 1998 to $715 this year, and for less coverage. He no longer has flood insurance, which his carrier Nationwide dropped in 2000, and the company raised the out-of-pocket claims cost for wind and hail damage from $500 to 1 percent of the insured value of $85,000, or $850.
“My question is, if insurance companies get increases in rates through heavy losses after disasters, why does the next year stay the same? They made up their money,” he said.
Likewise, Ann Elish was puzzled by her latest auto insurance bill. The Isle of Palms resident saw the premium jump 15 percent last year, even though her 1996 Ford Taurus is a year older. “I wasn’t too pleased with that,” she said.
Source : accessmylibrary.com
Florida plan targets auto-insurance fraud.
Staging phantom car accidents would become a second-degree felony under a series of legislative proposals unveiled Friday by state Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher.
The proposals come as legislators will reconsider the state’s no-fault automobile insurance laws, which allow accident victims to get faster treatment,…
Source : accessmylibrary.com
Three charged with insurance fraud.
Two Sacramentans and a Galt man have been charged with insurance fraud after they and other members of their ring staged vandalism on two luxury vehicles and then filed multiple damage claims, state regulators said Thursday.
Brian Keith Talley, 35, and Lillybeth Tirado, 29, were each charged with two felony counts of conspiring to commit insurance fraud. The couple is accused of filing multiple damage claims for the same loss.
Michael George Fischer, 44, of Galt,…
Source : accessmylibrary.com
Solution for high insurance.
When you’re out driving this morning, count eight cars around you. Odds are good at least one of those drivers will be uninsured. California law makes it quite clear that all licensed drivers must carry a minimum level of coverage, but the reality is a lot of people just flat out can’t afford it. When it comes to a choice between eating, paying rent or ever-increasing health costs, auto insurance is well down the list. In San Joaquin County, it’s 11.7 percent or approximately 40,000 drivers who don’t have coverage. That compares with at least 301,000 drivers who do follow the rules, according to…
Source : accessmylibrary.com