If McDonalds Sold Car Insurance – Would You Get Fries With That?
With more and more locales around the nation requiring car insurance as a legal measure, people are more and more finding ways to circumvent having to actually spend the money on serious car insurance. There has been, because of this need to avoid mandated expenditures, a rise of a class of car insurance companies that definitely provide the equivalent of fast food protection.
As dangerous as this might be, the analogy is not totally misplaced. Many short term car insurance companies and even some of the plans offered by the larger, supposedly more reputable, large insurance companies, simply do not hold water if you are talking about actually the second car, the driver, the other guy and any property damage that might occur in the event of an accident.
What makes it worse is that some of these fly-by-night companies, because they have been getting so much business, now have the gall to offer a selection of programs that do absolutely nothing. They even use the fast food combo as a source of inspiration, breaking up the portions of their car insurance packages so you can actually be coerced into getting worthless collision insurance along with worthless medical insurance and worthless property damage insurance.
Thus the question above – if McDonald’s sold car insurance, would you get fries with that?
If you ask anybody who has the gall enough to call themselves an expert, they would say to stay away from these types of short-term and long-term car insurance companies no matter what. These companies are better than any large company when it comes to not paying out anything in the event of an accident. Most of their expenditures and overhead is on lawyers who draft contracts that are densely worded with the legal semantics that basically give those types of insurance company a loophole out of everything that you could ever hope to ensure. So if you’ve got insurance and did not look over the contract, you could definitely find yourself on the losing end of the stick when it comes to actually getting your car fixed or reducing the medical expenses that you may have someone got hurt in a car accident with you.
How Can You Avoid These Companies?
The easiest way to avoid these types of car insurance companies is simply to read the contract as it is given to you, and have a lawyer look it over as well. However, most people do not have the funds or the time to hire a lawyer to look over their car insurance every six months, much less the ability to do it themselves. Therefore, the easiest way to stay away from a car insurance company that makes a living out of not paying anything to anyone is to simply stick with the big boys.
It is also much, much easier to find testimonials and reviews of car insurance companies online. There are many sites that are actually dedicated to being an independent third-party for car insurance website reviews. Finding these sites is as easy as typing in the name of the car insurance company that you want to vet into your favorite search engine, and then putting one of two words after that – “review” or “scam.”
You can also check the big review sites such as Yelp – they will usually have reviews on the larger companies and some on the more local car companies as well. As a matter of fact, you probably want to stick with the big review site such as this for the local companies, because with a local car insurance company, you will need to check out the source, and on a large review site, you can very easily check out the reviewer to make sure that he is not a agent of the actual company.
The Bottom Line
The main advice for anyone who is looking for car insurance is definitely to just pony up and spend the extra money for a reputable package from a reputable company. However, if you absolutely must have a discounted car insurance package from a local company, there are good ones to be had. Just keep in mind that it takes a great deal of patience to weed through all of the scam companies that exist, and you should not be discouraged if you do not find any in your area that are willing to insure you. Keep your record clean and your credit history clean as well, and you will definitely have more options when it comes to car insurance than most people who are looking for insurance in the market today.
Also, to make sure that you are getting the best deal and that you continue to get the best deal, recheck your policy against the overall car insurance market every six months.
