Consistency is Key

"It's best to try and think of insurance companies as fortune-tellers."  

Did you know many factors go into coming up with your insurance rate? Many of these factors you are probably familiar with, like accidents and tickets. Many others have nothing to do with YOU, at all, like where you live and the safety ratings of a vehicle.

​Today I'll focus on one of the factors, because it seems to be one that is often overlooked. It is the NUMBER OF MONTHS OF CONTINUOUS COVERAGE; and more recently, companies are looking at how long you've been with your current company. The more months of continuous coverage you have, the better your rate. You can certainly consider this a reward and penalty. In fact, for some carriers, this has as much, if not more, weight as tickets and accidents.

WHY you ask!? Because insurance companies like to get people riled up! Obviously, I'm joking. 

It's best to try and think of insurance companies as fortune-tellers. They are constantly trying to predict the future and the chances of "something" happening. They do this by looking at the past via data and statistics. When you have a coverage gap, there is missing data. They don't like this, because they don't know what happened during that time (most companies will forgive up to 30 days of a gap). For an insurance company, this can be disconcerting, because this is the land of the lost, which means less ability to be a good fortune teller.

The moral of the story is, do everything in your power to keep insurance in place. This could equate to hundreds and thousands of dollars over the years. Keep your carrier, or better yet your agent, in the loop! Don't just assume they can't, or won't, help. If you have a good agent, trust me, they want to keep you, and so does the carrier. If you have an incapacitated vehicle or don't have one, there are coverages specifically for that. I'll address those in another post. 

I highly encourage you to work with a, as Dave Ramsey says, good high octane agent. We will guide you through coverages that make the most sense for you, not us, and go to bat for you with the carriers. If you haven't done a review of your policy coverages, there's never been a better time.