Although there can be differences between the way the actuaries calculate your risk profile, the attorneys tend to flock together when it comes to writing down a policy. There are differences but these tend to be in the detail. To make progress, all you need do is assume the wording of the policy will never be favorable to you. Attorneys always look out for the interests of their clients. So what should you be looking for in the standard policy? In a way, this will be decided by how much you are spending. If this is a “cheap” policy, the coverage will be very limited. If you have bought a comprehensive policy, there will still be limits on what you can claim, but more situations will be covered. Nevertheless, most policies include lightning strikes, wind damage, damage caused by falling trees and similar objects, and some water damage. The problem for insurers is the need to avoid any possible liability arising from “flooding” which has grown both because of changes in the weather pattern and because more of the land is now covered in concrete and no longer drains so efficiently. So insurers exclude all water damage unless the wind or general storm conditions force the rain in.

In the days when life was simple and there were few risks, the insurance industry was profitable and able to offer a reasonably good service to its customers. But now the world is more complicated, there are real challenges for the insurers. If you look at the market for insuring vehicles, you can see the extent of the change. Back in the 1950′s, there were not that many people on the roads but, thanks to the arrival of the Boomers, the number of drivers increased dramatically and car ownership expanded. Millions of new vehicles came on to the roads. With all the extra vehicles, the chances of being involved in an accident increased. As more people had access to credit, they were buying new vehicles which were more expensive to repair or replace. The cost of labor to do all the repairs was also rising fast. Put all this together and you have a recipe for rapidly rising premium rates.

If you listen to the commentators, they all sing the same song. We’ve now entered the internet age. This is supposed to convince us something new and wonderful has happened. It’s such a complete break with the past it heralds the beginning of a new information age in which, somehow, we can all get ahead and do things never possible before. This is, of course, pure rubbish. The only difference between the digital age and the hard-copy age that went before it is the ease of access. Having a PC or some other online device gives you access to a vast library with a search engine to help you find the pages you need more easily. But, when you have the right page on the screen in front of you, it’s the same words you could have found in a book or some other written material. All that’s changed is the way the words are presented to you.

In these difficult economic times, everyone is playing the game of looking for savings on the must-haves. When the job may be lost because of cuts in state or federal budgets – for example, if the defense cuts follow on from the failure of the Supercommittee to agree a deficit reduction package, thousands of jobs will be lost – no one wants big regular commitments. That means discounts is the name of the game when it comes to shopping for insurance. Putting the question of the deductible to one side, the most common saving comes from bundling an auto with a homeowners policy. Insurers usually offer not less than 10% in premium rates which, in these difficult times, can be a good deal. Of course, before you sign up, you complete the shopping around, getting quotes for the policies separately and bundled together from several different companies. Never assume you cannot do better separately if you change insurers.

The world frequently disappoints us. We all hope people will prove honest and good neighbors. Yet we more often find ourselves on the receiving end of dishonesty and selfishness. When this is just one-to-one, we can attempt to arrange our affairs to minimize future losses or opportunities for conflict. But when the dishonesty is on an industrial scale, it ends up costing us all extra dollars, and there’s little or nothing we can do about it. Over the last two or three years, it’s been impossible to pick up a newspaper without seeing a story about rising auto insurance premiums, often caused by the rapidly increasing levels of fraud. That, as they say, is the tip of the iceberg. The wave of gangs crashing their cars and claiming medical expenses is only worth a few billion a year. Unfortunately, a few billion is peanuts. When it comes to Medicaid and Medicare, the FBI estimates the amount fraudulently claimed to be between $60 and 200 billion a year.

It seems that the traditional discrimination between male and female drivers will end very soon thanks to the European Court of Justice, which has approved the ban on price discrimination and set a three year period for the insurance companies to comply. This is certainly good news for male drivers, especially the younger ones, who are traditionally charged with higher premiums, and also means that female drivers will be subjected to higher premiums as a logical move by the insurance providers to split even the costs in order to comply with the new rules.

The debate over car insurance price discrimination has been a long and heated one. Traditionally male drivers were charged with higher premiums because they were more often involved in accidents if compared to female drivers. And knowing that the insurance providers deal only with risk factors when calculating their rates as a result female drivers were always getting better rates then men. There are a lot of explanations of why female drivers are less risky then men behind the wheel. Male drivers tend to be more aggressive on the road, driving faster and taking more risks. And this of course leads to more accidents and insurance claims filed by men. So, in fact the math behind such discrepancy in rates for different genders can be understood.