Has anyone checked out the MINI Motoring Insurance from Liberty Mutual?

 

They must only write drivers that are not involved in accidents because again... NEVER heard of them. Actually, that's not a fair statement. I've handled thousands of claims... maybe I handled one with them but just don't recall it (that would not be a bad thing). But if they continue to grow, I'm sure I'll remember them.

You sound proud of them. Must be a pretty good company to work for.

 

You should get GAP insurance if you owe money on the car.
I'm not sure if you get GAP if you don't owe money (I don't
think so).

You should also get rental insurance if you don't have a spare car.

These things take weeks and weeks to be repaired even months if
something happens.

Neither adds very much a couple dollars a month usually.

 

I've been doing this in Maryland for 25 years and I have never heard of Cincinnatti Insurance either. But then again, I just had my first claim with a company called 'Bristol West' recently. Its been a PITA so far.

 

rdwatt, I saw that link on the MINI site, so I called my agent who writes for Liberty Mutual. Apparently, this is a promotion set up by another Agency who writes for Liberty Mutual. My agent could not find any special deal for MINIs with Liberty Mutual at all.

Let me know if you find out something different! I'd be interested in looking at it.

 

Condor, you are absoultely correct about GAP. But only if you owe a substantial loan on your vehicle.

I have be telling all my clients that if they have an SUV or other vehicle with a big loan balance on it, they should immediately contact their insurance company or bank to try to get GAP coverage.

The recent plummeting of the value of large cars and SUV's is going to come back to slap a lot of owners in the face and wallet. If you are in a serious accident and your vehicle is declared a total loss, or if your vehicle is stolen and not recovered, your insurance company is only obligated to pay the "fair market value" of your vehicle.

That big SUV you bought a few years ago may have lost 30, 40, or even 50% of its value in just the last few months. If it is totaled or stolen, the insurance company is only going to pay present fair market value, which could be THOUSANDS of dollars less than you owe on it. YOU ARE THEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BALANCE! And because the value of these vehicles has declined so much recently, the vehicle will be declared a total loss much faster, since it is worth so much less. So, even though you had it insured, and did nothing wrong, you are now sitting at home with no vehicle and a large debt owed to the bank. GAP insurance will cover this loss.

The best place to get this coverage is through your auto insurance company. Usually just a few more dollars per premium period. My bank, PENFED, also provided this coverage as a part of my loan. You can cancel the coverage once your loan balance drops down below the value of the vehicle.

THE WORST PLACE TO GET GAP IS FROM YOUR CAR DEALER. They sell a policy from a third party company at a ridiculous price. I have seen deals where people pay $500 or even $1,000 up front for coverage they can get for a few dollars from their existing auto insurer.

But again, if you have a larger car or an SUV and owe a large amount on it, ADD THIS COVERAGE TO YOUR POLICY NOW. All that has to happen is for some idiot to run a red light or your vehicle is stolen. You could owe thousands to your bank on a car that is in the junk yard.

 

This has been a good discussion of insurance needs........posts by experienced insurance agents who know what they're talking about.........thanks for sharing your professional knowledge with us. Further evidence of the need to consult a PROFESSIONAL insurance agent and not just rely on advice of friends, or, for that matter, to just choose the cheapest coverage you can find!!

 

....and one of those dreaded personal injury lawyers.

 

Rich, if you're a personal injury attorney in Maryland, I would bet I've negotiated BI settlements with you in the past.

 

Very likely.

I'm gonna go on vacation in a bit. In our little group are the following:
-a defense attorney who has worked for State Farm and Geico
-a State Farm property & casualty adjuster
-a State Farm agent from Florida

......man, I gotta get out more.......

 

You keep good company ! I probably know that P&C adjuster. Small world !!

 

Hi guys,
thanks all for the info.

I thought the Navy used too many acronyms..You guys take the cake...But, you've convinced me to telephone USAA and increase my coverages across the board.

CHEERS!

 

Glad to be of service!

 

They do have pretty strict underwriting standards and rely on the independent agents to weed out the undesirables...position themselves as a 'premium' insurer with a very low risk profile. Their commercial insurance is far more common than personal lines though.

Good company, but not very innovative in the IT department I was working in and decided to move on. I don't know how much more life there is in the old fashioned face-to-face agent business model. Generation X+ prefers doing things over the net and they were adamantly opposed to that.

 

I know what you mean. State Farm prides itself in being one of the few companies that still has agents in nearly every small town around America.

It may hurt us in competiting for some of the young driver business, but it's the cornerstone of what we do and if we did away with our agent force, we would very likely loose many of our long-term policyholders... the cornerstone of our customer base.

 

In CA, we can go up to $100,000 medical per person Just for in case anyone's curious

edit: I always gets in on these insurance discussions too late! probably because *gasp* I'm working! And you can count one more state farm agent in your analysis

 

I thought it was State Farm that recently went about trying to separate itself from having direct agents and going the independent route instead so they could be free to move away from that in the future...or was that Allstate?

Some weird things coming to the insurance world. Discounts if you allow a monitoring device to be placed in your car, especially with teen drivers. Talks of personality tests to set premiums rather than outright statistics. Should be interesting.

 

You sure that's not your bodily injury liability limit ??

Wowzers !! Of course, the cost of medical care if probably pretty high there, too.

 

State Farm's agent have always been independent agents, techinically. They are not employed directly by the company. They own their own offices and work on commissions.

But no, State Farm hasn't made any drastic changes and will not go away from having a huge agency force in our lifetime.

 

yeah, that's our medical payments coverage. It's amazing and fairly cheap too.. It pays primary to any health insurance one may have and without a deductible, like most health insurance does (a co-pay or whatever)...

and it pays per person in your car and even pays chiropratic, which most health insurance's don't cover!

of course, I'm probably preaching to the choir by now, but in case anyone else is still reading this thread

 

Wow... that's some good PIP limits ! Can you collect both PIP and BI liability in California, or do you have to elect one or the other, in cases where you qualify for both ?

And, Chiro is being more and more accepted by insurance companies as a valid form of medical care. We pay a lot of claims where chiro care is part, or all, of the treatment.

 

Not quite sure if I understand quite what you mean, but in the event of an accident that is not your fault, and you are hurt, you can go the minute after the accident if you want, to the doctor without having any sort of idea if ultimately you or the other person will be at fault, because it pays from your coverages. So regardless of fault med pay will allow you to go to the doctor.

But if the other person is ultimately at fault your company will definitely go after the other company in subrogation (as part of their liability). What's so good about med pay is you're not paying out of your pocket while the claims process is going on to even determine a fault.

So, there is no "double dipping," in essence..

Hope that kinda answered it?

 

Got it. PIP is subrogatable in California... that means one company can seek reimbursement from the other. You can't do that in my jurisdictions.

I'm glad to hear you can't do what people here in MD can do... collect on their own PIP coverage and also get paid under the at-fualt party's liability coverage. If you could do that on a $100,000 PIP coverage, imagine the insurance fraud that would take place !! And imagine the premiums insurance companies would have to charge to remain profitable.

Interesting... thanks for sharing.

 

10 worst insurance companies...according to their sworn enemies, trial lawyers
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news0...e_lawyers.html
1. Allstate
2. Unum
3. AIG
4. State Farm
5. Conseco
6. Wellpoint
7. Farmers
8. UnitedHealth
9. Torchmark
10. Liberty Mutual

 

It's a compliment to be considred "bad" by attorneys. Like my boss once said after I told her I pissed off six lawyers one morning, "Good, you're doing your job well".

Imagine how our mutual policyholders would feel if attorneys said they liked us.

Right, Rich ??