Auto Insurance Coverage

Usage-based insurance is one of the biggest innovations the auto insurance industry has seen in quite some time. The question is – will it catch on with Americans?

Here’s the idea: you place a little device (which usually plugs into a fuse port under your dashboard) in your car that reads data from your vehicle’s on-board computer. It collects information on your driving time, mileage, speed, acceleration, braking, and similar categories. This data is transmitted to the insurer, who sets your insurance rate based on your actual driving behaviors, rather than estimating it based on what your peers do. As a result, many people can potentially save a great deal of money on their auto insurance policies.

Do American Drivers Like Usage-Based Auto Insurance?

On paper, it sounds like a great idea. What do regular Americans think?Read More »What Do People Really Think About Usage-Based Auto Insurance?

You hear about the scourge of “insurance fraud” from reading the newspapers and websites like this one. The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud estimates that a mind-boggling $80 billion in fraudulent insurance claims are filed in the U.S. each year. Much of these costs are passed on to consumers in the form of higher insurance premiums. For instance, the National Insurance Crime Bureau says that about $200 to $300 of your auto insurance premiums are a direct result of fraud and its related costs.

But even though you’re aware of auto insurance fraud, you may not have a clear picture of what the term means. Chances are, you  may not have much of an idea about how this type of fraud is executed and how insurance companies lose money as a result. With that in mind, here is a close-up look at the anatomy of one auto insurance scam that was recently discovered in New Jersey.

Read More »Anatomy of an Auto Insurance Fraud Scheme