fletchstock

Hi All

So my husband and I finally bought a car but in trying to set up insurance we can see that it works a bit differently to how it did in the UK.

It seems that we can't have collision and comprehensive coverage, I must chose one or the other is that right?

We want the car to be covered for damage in any accidents but also to be covered if it's stolen or suffers damage through natural causes (weather).
This seems to be a no brainier to us that insurance would cover both these both but not so here in California.

It's an old vehicle (secondhand) so most websites seem to advice against collision coverage for older vehicles as it costs more than it's worth.

Any advice would be mucky appreciated!

Pulaski

I am not clear what you are asking. Generally "car insurance" is comprehensive and includes everything that ,"collision " does. For older/cheaper cars you can get insurance that does not cover damage caused by yourself.

What are you trying to insure for? Thirdparty, fire and theft?

Be sure that the value for thirdparty liability is sufficient. State minimum liability coverage is usually woefully inadequate, and can leave you exposed to being sued for additional reparations/ damages.

Michael

This is my policy coverage in California.

• Automobile Liability Insurance
  • Bodily Injury
  • Property Damage
• Auto Collision Insurance
• Auto Compressive Insurance
• Rental Reimbursement (Not purchased)
• Towing and Labor Costs
• Uninsured Motorists Insurance for Bodily Injury (Same coverage as Liability)
• Automobile Medical Payments
• Coordinated Medical Protection (Not Purchased)
• Lease/Loan Gap (Not Purchased)
• Repair of Replacement Option (Not Purchased)
• Sound System (Not Purchased)
• Tape (Not Purchased)

Most of the cost is for liability and collusion. Collision primarily covers most of the damage to your vehicle when it is your fault, you are hit by an uninsured motorist, or some disasters.

Comprehensive insurance can help you pay for your car's repair, or even help you replace it entirely in the case of a total loss, due to any of the following:

• Damage not resulting from a collision, including:
  • Falling objects
  • Fire
  • Certain natural disasters
  • Vandalism
  • Theft
  • Glass damage
  • Damage from hitting an animal

fletchstock

You'd think that wouldn't you. Comprehensive in California (not sure if it's the same for all States) is basically everything but collision. So if I have comprehensive but not collision I'm covered if my car is stolen or set on fire but not if I'm involved in an accident.

It seems to me that collision is separated out because it's what will cost the most to insure against, it certainly makes a difference to the price when it's decline but surely it's a basic?!

Michael - who are you insured with? I'm on the Geico website & it's telling me I can only have either collision or comprehensive. Seems to me I'd silly not to have both!

Michael

Allstate.

For older cars, it may not be worth it to pay the premium for collision since collision is about 6x more expensive than compressive for my policy. My policy has a $500 deductible for collision and a $250 deductible for comprehensive.

Marc_ely

We're with Geico in California.
Although I do everything online, this was one I did over the phone.
It's worth calling them and discussing the options. If you are lucky they will give you their preferential experienced driver rate, even if you have no USA license. We had to scan and email our UK licenses.

The policies here break down the coverage into sections.

These three costs are split across our two cars:
Bodily Injury Liability $157.60
Property Damage Liability $171.60
Uninsured Motorist & Underinsured Motorist $52.50

This is for one of the cars, and the other is similar.
Comprehensive $21.70
Collision $101.70
Emergency Road Service $8.80
Rental Reimbursement $21.00

Giantaxe

Your biggest liabilities are body injury and property damage liability. Given medical costs in this country, even a relatively minor accident can result in $$$ of medical costs.

Separating out collision allows people with a low value car to keep their insurance costs reasonable relative to what the maximum that such coverage would pay for.

evanstim

Can I recommend you try a broker? Be aware that brokers seem to work differently in the US than how they do in the UK - they seem to be agents for a single insurance company only, rather than having access to multiple companies from which they can make a recommendation for you. However the advantage of using a broker is that you can ask them all sorts of questions, and they can tailor and tweak the insurance policy to suit you. They can also assist with getting past the lack of US insurance history.

We used a State Farm broker local to us in Burlingame. She was very helpful and was able to substantially reduce the premium for us compared to an online quote. We tweaked the policy to increase the coverage for Property Damage, which in the standard policy only covered us for $100,000, which seemed too low to us. We were thinking of the nightmare scenario where we lost control of the insured vehicle and it crashed into a building or some other valuable object, and so destroying it. We increased the cover to $1 million. An extremely unlikely scenario, I grant you, and the unlikelihood of it was reflected in the low extra premium we had to pay.

Nutmegger

If you go to a State Farm office or an Allstate office, they will certainly only work with their affiliated company, but there are of course individual, unaffiliated insurance brokerages who will review all the companies to find what works best for you. Just search for insurance brokers in your town and choose an independent.

MidAtlantic

There is no such thing as a State Farm "broker". S/he is an agent and works for State Farm only.

As Nutmegger says there are independent brokers. This a good place to start: https://www.trustedchoice.com/

evanstim

You are quite right - 'broker' was my term, not hers. She herself calls herself an 'agent'.

I had not been able to find a proper broker in the UK sense of the word. Thanks for the link!

bewildering

I used Progressive back in 2004. They were by far the cheapest as a new resident of CA. YMMV.

MMcD

I imagine the OP has sorted out auto insurance by now - but for any future searchers.....

Highly recommend the Auto Club (Automobile Club of Southern California)

Been with them for years. Throughout that time have consistently found their insurance rates to be more than competitive.

Plus - I like:
1) the concept of an insurance company which is a non-profit entity - owned by it's members. Any end-of-year company profit is reflected as a credit on your bill for following year.
2) Unlike many other insurance companies - their quotes are for 1 year (rather than 6 months). There is flexibility, however, in how you can opt to pay the yearly amount.