Do you recall the last time your insurance rates went down? Now I’m not talking about after your 3 speeding citations fell off your record but an honest rate reduction. I deal with this every day and I can’t recall either, other than to say it has been a while. My only claim in the past 25 years was due to hail damage to a rental car while in Oklahoma for my daughter’s college graduation in 2013! So why do my rates go up?
The cars of today are engineered with a lot of safety features which save a lot of lives when crashes occur. If you want to see how far safety engineering has come, watch Ryan Newman’s crash at the Daytona 500 this year. He walked out of the hospital 2 days later! But all this safety equipment costs money when damaged in an accident. Cameras in the bumpers. All those airbags. Windshields with sensors and heads-up displays. Sensors in the rear view mirrors. 15 years ago my agency would have 2 to 3 total losses every year but today 30% of the accidents result in total losses. Accident frequency is also up mostly due to distracted driving. More accidents = higher premiums for us all.
What can you do to offset this? 1st you can drive and live safely which will help keep your premiums down. 2nd if you can afford it, you can accept more of the risk yourself by having a larger deductible. If you would like to discuss this please send me an email or call me at (805)985-5488
The cars of today are engineered with a lot of safety features which save a lot of lives when crashes occur. If you want to see how far safety engineering has come, watch Ryan Newman’s crash at the Daytona 500 this year. He walked out of the hospital 2 days later! But all this safety equipment costs money when damaged in an accident. Cameras in the bumpers. All those airbags. Windshields with sensors and heads-up displays. Sensors in the rear view mirrors. 15 years ago my agency would have 2 to 3 total losses every year but today 30% of the accidents result in total losses. Accident frequency is also up mostly due to distracted driving. More accidents = higher premiums for us all.
What can you do to offset this? 1st you can drive and live safely which will help keep your premiums down. 2nd if you can afford it, you can accept more of the risk yourself by having a larger deductible. If you would like to discuss this please send me an email or call me at (805)985-5488
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