There are seven things you should always tell your insurance agent when you're purchasing new insurance and as things change over time there's a lot of discounts we've gone over this Channel and definitely subscribe if you want more of that but we're going to talk about the seven pieces that could affect you both ways some of these could save you a ton of money some of these could cost you a lot of money which
Technically saves you the money if you know about it ahead of time but let's go over it and explain what these seven pieces are and how it's going to affect your car insurance first I'd like to take a shout out to Yahoo finance they actually came up with the article and it's actually one of the few articles I mostly agree with it's one of the few that I haven't seen just a bunch of spam and just like do a quote get this you know trying to trick somebody into
Selling their information don't get me wrong they probably have a link at the bottom that says get here a quote just like I do in my description that's neither here nor there this information is for you to use to help you either with your current insurance or if you're shopping links below if you want to shop with other companies the first one is the part I don't agree with as much and there's a reason why so the first thing they say is that you should always call
Your company if you have an accident and yes you should always do the right thing if you had an accident call the police get a report whatever that case is whatever you decide to do make sure you do the right process so that you don't get stuck with the bill now calling an agent is different than calling a 1-800 number and this is where I don't agree they say insurance company but an insurance company nowadays means check your app go to this 1-800 whatever
Policy.com if you're working with an agent like myself for example you're going to call me up and say hey I had a claim I don't know what to do and I'll give you my advice get a police report whose fault was it you know what's the damage look like okay is there a lot let's get an estimate let's figure out what we need to do before we go to the insurance company now in the opposite direction if you call 1-800 my insurance company most of those are call centers
So when you call a call center it's not that the person doesn't want to help you they can't they're not trained to do so so what they're going to do is they're going to instantly transfer you over to a claims department specialist that person has to track their work every day so when they're working and doing calls and writing things down they're going to notify and update your policy that you have a claim some companies count the claim against you
Regardless if you're with them if you had a claim whether they pay it out or not the fact that you had that claim raises the risk on the other hand if you're actually with an agent where you can get that advice those insurance companies know that you're getting that advice they're not going to file a claim unless you're ready to go forward it's your choice at that level yes you could get it removed in most cases because especially if you're shopping and you're
Switching companies those other companies won't necessarily count that claim against you as long as you can show proof that it wasn't an actual claim that you filed it's more of a headache on your end but it's fixable other cases I've seen it every so often where a claim does show up and it shows a zero dollar payout commonly that means that that happened in that scenario it can mean other things but in most cases it was a claim
That somebody called on it got filed and it wasn't necessarily a claim that went processed now that could impact the rate that you pay so just know the right place to call at the right times now I'm going to put an asterisk because I'm probably not your agent so I am not telling you what to do here it's up to you to make that choice I always recommend doing what's the best what's right file the claim if it needs to be filed don't file if it doesn't the
Second important thing that you should always tell your car insurance company is your driving habits if those change it can impact the price that you pay in most cases you're going to call them if something positive happens if you're driving lower miles that could qualify you for a low mileage discount typically anything below 5000 miles is good some companies offer a whole package where if you're not driving barely any
Miles that they'll actually give you a discount on top of that so some new programs that they've come out with is they go a lower base pay and then you pay per mile if you go over that because mileage has been playing a large Factor as these companies start to micro price and discount pieces that's one of the pieces that causes the risk the more chances the cars on the road the higher the risk is if you're willing to do what they call a telematics to show that
You're driving low mileage and to show that you have good braking acceleration you're not driving at midnight to 5 a.m and you're overall a good driver that alone can save you 10 to 40 percent off of your policy as well the third important thing you should always tell your car insurance company is your security systems if you add any type of an alarm system to your car that can get you a discount if you have the side mirrors that warn
You that there's blind spots that also could get you a discount the biggest and best as far as security goes is if you have a vehicle recovery system in most cases like a Tesla they can track the car a BMW or even an OnStar system in a car will typically have some sort of vehicle recovery device in that case you're going to get a pretty decent discount if you have that included number four kind of goes in the opposite direction is if you start using
The car for business you don't necessarily have to purchase a commercial policy and when we say business it just means that you drive to different locations typically the way that insurance rates cars is based off the commute so if you drive how many days a week to your work five is common how many miles each way 12. if I'm doing that back and forth they're going to estimate you're right around 11 to 12 000 miles per year that includes some
Extra for driving for gas station and trips and things like that but that's common when you're driving for business you're going to different locations let's say for example you're a realtor you're going to go from this house one week to that house the next week in that case you're going to be adding some more risk to that be very careful in that specific situation if you are ever transporting people most insurances don't actually cover that scenario if
It's for business then you need to add what's called a ride share endorsement to that policy if you're not driving people around let's say you're going to a construction site and it's okay to grab some Lumber throw it in the trunk bed and whatever the case is as long as you're not Towing any commercial vehicle Properties or Towing things for the job in that case you're going going to use it for business use it's a little bit more of a risk so you're going to see a
Couple percent tick up on the price but it's good to have that just in case something comes up and that way they don't deny you for that use number five is also kind of going backwards and charging you more but it's if you have people that drive your car often sure if you let your friends throw in the key they go to the gas station that's fine it's a couple hours a week maybe we'll let them borrow the car for a couple days that's okay in most cases with most
Insurance companies but if they regularly have access to your car and they regularly drive it normally an underwriter will say if they drive a few days a year that counts as access to the car in that case it's not so much permissible use which is what you would do if a friend just needed to borrow the car it's now actually somebody that should be listed on your policy and rated for that risk the sixth thing that you should always tell your
Insurance company is when you purchase a new vehicle commonly a lot of people don't realize that you technically are insured even if you drive off the lot as long as you have a current policy in most cases Most states most insurance companies you have a 30-day window from the time you purchase a vehicle till the time that you put it on your policy it follows whatever coverage you had on the previous vehicle or the current
Vehicle so if you don't have full coverage on that one you're going to have a problem if you get into an accident in this case most dealerships won't let you leave the lot anyways until you show proof of insurance their responsibility is to make sure that the car is insured so that if you drive off the lot they don't have to sue you to try to reimburse themselves for that claim worst case scenario is you do
Drive off the lot you didn't have insurance you get in an accident and now nothing's covered you still owe that loan and you paid for that car and now you're a couple hundred dollars out without a car not worth it I do get it if you're buying a car used and you're going to pick it up from somebody yes the majority of the time you're probably fine to drive the vehicle home even with tags and whatnot as long as you show that you have the purchase agreement for
That same day and you have insurance from your other vehicle with you typically you won't necessarily get any type of a ticket or any type of a loss in that scenario 27th and never the final reason that you should tell your car insurance company that things have changed is when you add upgrades to your vehicle if you've added anything a body kit new rims certain types of stereo systems that are several thousand dollars if you've added TV if you've
Added anything that adds value to the vehicle it has to be bolted to the car in order for it to count as part of the vehicle if that happens a lot of companies limit the amount of accessories or equipment that you can have on a policy commonly fifteen hundred to three thousand is usually the max depending on the type of insurance policy that you've got set up if you're over that Mark you may want to explain that to them in case
You do have a claim now I've personally ran into this myself where I added an alarm system to my car and it was an upgrade it was actually a better alarm system than what you can get stock I ended up totaling out that car and they paid for the additional expense that I had because I had that alarm system listed I let them know that I had purchased that accessory and that was something that was just covered in the claim didn't cost me anything but in
Your case if you aren't going over that limit it may cost you a little extra to add each additional accessory on top of it it's normally a dollar amount in the thousands so every few thousand we'll probably add a few dollars a month to your current policy so what are some things that you've noticed on your policy that may or may not have affected the rate I'd love to hear that in the comments if you are looking for more of a discount based topic I'm going to put
My discount video deal right here if you're still unfamiliar with the types of insurance and you're new to the whole insurance industry I'll put my car insurance one-on-one as well so you can check that out don't forget to like if you like the video subscribe if you want more advice like this otherwise I'm marked with think insurance I'll see you in the next one