Insurance Companies

My husband runs a small business, but has had trouble obtaining small business insurance. He has contacted many local companies, and noone seems to return phone calls these days. We live in the Wilmington NC area. Does anyone have any advice on this? Is it best to go with a local company or can you find it elsewhere? Any suggestions on reputable companies? We have hit a road block and any sincere, knowledgeable advice will be greatly appreciated!

Use this site to find an independent agent in your area. An independent agent represents more than one company so they have a better chance of having a company that will be able to write the insurance he needs.

http://www.iiaba.net/agentlocator/findagent.aspx

Today I called several local auto insurance companies because I need insurance for my Taurus and I found some ok rates, how ever after doing a Google search I found a site called Auto Insurance Monster (www.AutoInsuranceMonster.com) and they had some reviews for several auto insurance companies.

After reading some of the articles I decided to get a quote from one of the insurance companies listed there.

After getting my quote I found that the rate was 17% lower than my local insurance company.

Are these rates real? could they be scams, the companies listed are always on tv and they have very professional websites, but I just can not believe the rates I found on Auto Insurance Monster.

Should I stay with my local insurer or go with the online services?

Of course it’s possible that the rates could be lower. Things to watch: the rating of the insurance carrier, are the limits they are offering the same as what you have?, are they Excluding any coverages you had before. There is always a better deal out there but you must pay close attention to what you are buying

you should contact a small local agent for a quote.

I had a fraudulent check card item post and they froze my card for 30 days and I need to get car insurance and all the local companies can’t compete with the online deals.

State Farm – that’s how I paid my initial premium – and set up a plan where my checking account was debited monthly – no charge for doing this, btw.

I know for sure that a local company is commiting insurance fraud.
How do I turn them in and what happens next?

They are providing services to people and telling them that their insurance will cover everything (no money out of the customers pocket.)

This is not legal is it?!

There are services that can be covered entirely through insurance. That in itself is completely legal. Many Mental Health facilities work this way, as do quite a few independent hospitals, doctor’s offices, dentists, and opticians. So long as the service is provided and the paperwork is filed correctly, they operate completely legally with no (or little) out of pocket expense for the client (depending on the insurance type). Worst case scenario is that the customer receives a bill for the amount unpaid by insurance.

The question is what service they are provided and who they send the insurance claim to. If they are over claiming, or fraudulently claiming, there there is an issue. From what little you have said, that doesn’t sound like the case. Even so, they would be reported to your State’s Insurance Commission. I believe some States also call it the Insurance Commissioner or the Fair Trade Board. You’d have to look that up on your own. Realize, though, that claims of insurance fraud can be devastating to a small company, even if they’re not true. Make sure you have real evidence of illegal activity before reporting them.

I started a local sorority on campus and we need to get insurance in oder to get full time recognition. i was wondering if anyone could give me some suggestions on which insurance company would give us the best deal/coverage… so far i’ve heard that we would have to pay about 15,000 dollars as a whole per year. i just need some suggestions on what i should do.

Liability insurance for sororities is expensive, and for local groups even more so. (As they don’t have the group purchasing power of NPC groups and also don’t tend to have rigid, established risk management policies.)

Most of the NPC groups use the same carrier. (Perhaps one or two use a different once.) That might be a good place for you to start – with a group that’s familiar with all that’s entailed in covering a sorority. Or, you could find out who other local groups use. www.greekchat.com has a local sorority forum that would be perfect to connect with other local groups across the country and see who they use.

I need to leave UK for 3-4 months and I need car insurance for my car. Currently I have Elephant insurance but they only offer 30 consecutive days for driving abroad but I need longer than that. Is there other company which can insure for longer than 90 days? Or what do you usually do? Can I insure car with local insurance companies if I have UK registration?

Thank you

when I was in the Army based in Germany I used a UK based insurance company with a permanent green card for european insurance.
I think there were only a few which offered this in the UK.

If you do a search for "BFG car insurance" it should show the companies that offer more than 30 days

(BFG is British Forces Germany)

A friend of mine recently had his car totaled by a reckless driver while it was parked outside his house. There was a police report on the incident and it was passed along to the at fault motorist’s insurance company. They used CCC in order to come up with what they consider to be a fair value for the car and they will not budge from that number.

Our major issue is that in order to come up with their offer they used the local market value of five comparable cars and came up with an average based on those values. This seems like a perfectly fine method except that the closet car used to determine the local market value was over 1,300 miles away and the furthest was about 2,500 miles away. I don’t see how they can consider this a "local market" when these sales took place so far away. It seems as though their offer should also take into account the amount that it would cost to ship any of these "local market" cars to our locale (an average of about $1,200*).

My friend mentioned this to the person handling this claim but they would not give him and answer and said that they will not going any higher than their current offer.

Do insurance companies ever take into account the cost of shipping associated with a vehicles used to determine a local market value? If so how to we go about getting them to increase their offer? I know that arbitration and litigation might be possibilities but ultimately that would probably end up costing us more than the $1,200. Is this something that could be taken to small claims court either against the insurance company or against the reckless driver?

Additionally the insurance company may not reimburse us for the total cost of storage and towing, if this were to happen what would our recourse be?

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide with this issue.

My friend lives in CA.

*determined by using the calculator on transportreviews.com and averaging the cost of shipping the cars from the five states that were deemed to be the local market.

No- insurance companies do not owe you shipping costs.

The reason the local market survey is so large is because your friends car is very old and there are very few like it for sale. So they had to go further out to find more vehicles. Would you rather a market survey based on 2 cars because those were closest?

Have your friend tell the company to send him a copy of the CCC evaluation. Make sure all the options are listed on the car and the condition of the car is proper.

Some insurance companies will use NADA to determine a car’s value. You may want to look the car up on www.nadaguides.com and see what it says. Keep in mind, the NADA is for a car in good condition. There may be reductions to your friends car for it’s condition.

If your friend has collision coverage he can file w/ his own policy and see what they come up with.

Yes, your friend can turn down the insurance company offer and sue the at fault driver. Your friend would need to speak to the local magistrates court to learn about that. No guarantee he’ll get what he wants – he still has to prove what the car is worth.

Does anyone have any suggestions whether a salesperson in insurance is self-employed or not in your local area? My friends told me that insurance company offer no basic salary to salesperson at all, their income 100% based on their commissions. Since they are using company’s facilities, they are required to work like an employed staff, and to meet in the office at specific time regularly. Will it be the same situation in your local area?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions

Most insurance jobs are commission only. If you’re an agent, then chances are that your income is 100% commission. Some companies offer a subsidy for a couple of years when becoming an agent – but usually it has to be paid back, or may have to be paid back based on your sales numbers in those 2 years.

Some insurance jobs may offer a small salary, or be totally salaried. Some agents will hire producers at either a commission split + salary, or pure salary. The people are given sales goals, and either they meet those goals or they get fired. This isn’t a normal situation, since in insurance you’re more motivated to sell if you know you don’t eat if you don’t sell. In my agency my producers are required to set at least 1 life insurance appointment daily, they are guaranteed a $500/month salary and the rest of their income is a 70/30 first year commission split with a 30/70 renewal split. If they’re content with $500 a month, then they can sit there and answer phones and not much else, but if they want to keep the new car, apartment and wife, then they gotta sell.

My friend has a drug problem and needs serious help. I told him to talk to his boss at work, tell him you have a problem and
you need help. I wanted to find out what type of policy his company offers, make sure he’s covered by them. Does anyone know where I go or who I should call to find out??

Your friend will only have insurance coverage if he opted for it on the job application AND after he has been employed for a certain length of time. He can look at the employee manual to find out that time period to see if he has met it. If he has he needs to talk to the HR department about it.
As far as finding the type of policy etc…Only your friend can do that. You are not entitled to that information.
I work for an HVAC contractor (air conditioning) so I can tell you that they will not give you any private information about your friend. They also will not discuss their insurance policies with you since you are not employed with them.