Having a teen driver in your house is certainly a cause for being agitated. First of all, when your teen takes on the responsibility to drive a car it’s a serious step towards independence, and that alone is a time of trial for most parents. Besides, driving a vehicle is a potentially dangerous activity and when there’s a lack of experience in the domain the risk of ending up in an accident is rather high. So the responsibility is definitely quite high when there’s a teen driver in the house. That’s exactly why insurance companies charge younger drivers with the highest rates possible.
Monthly Archives: August 2011
Obamacare rules the headlines on health insurance but what is the real situation. Are the health insurance companies against this reform?
No matter who you are and how well insured you and your family, there are increasing problems in getting access to health care. The main reason is the falling number of doctors opting to join the ranks of the frontline troops in general practice. Not only is the image of a surgeon in a large hospital more attractive, the financial rewards are also substantially better. Put the two together and the best in each new group of doctors vote with their feet. Many rural areas now lack adequate cover. Gone are the days when good ol’ doc would negotiate to take a chicken in return for delivering a baby. Now few want the life of a country doctor where they are on call round the clock and may have long distances to travel between house calls. The financial rewards are poor and for-profit doctors are not willing to accept chickens and the respect of the community as adequate substitutes. It’s the same in the more run-down urban areas where the few who do set up a practice find themselves routinely snowed under by communities without access to adequate care.
Computer chips in your car are a big facet on this list. The Black Box is a small device that reports back to the insurance provider on driving habits (how fast you go, how quickly you stop, etc.) and mileage. For this reason, safe drivers can get rewarded with lower rates, because their insurers see the evidence.
OnStar, as well as Black Box, enables you to get Pay As You Drive insurance-which charges monthly fees based on the exact number of miles you drive. Many people save money this way.
Modern Crash Safety
The crash safety standards of vehicles these days are incredibly high. You have seatbelts that lock smartly based on the area and force of impact, crumple zones that absorb the impact, improved bumpers, and oodles of well-placed airbags. These things save more than lives-they save insurance money. That’s why newer vehicles are often more affordable to insure than older ones.
Despite the extremely high insurance rates due to frequent natural disasters, Japan pays well over twice what America pays in the ratio of premiums to gross domestic product: 8% to 3.5%. This ratio is known as insurance penetration and is used to assess how well covered a nation is.
In fact, this preparedness is one of the reasons the disaster has not been worse and will not be as difficult to recover from as it has been for Haiti. The 2010 earthquake in Haiti was of magnitude 7.0 MMS, nowhere near the 8.9 of Japan, but caused well over 300 thousand human deaths, 300 thousand more grave injuries, and over a million cases of homelessness. The country is still nowhere near recovery.
Very few people in Haiti were insured.
Destruction in the US would be similar to Japan.
Having your car insured is definitely a good way to have some peace of mind regarding your vehicle. If you have comprehensive coverage it is even more comforting because there are many different situations covered under this type of insurance. But for many drivers having such an option can be a rather costly decision and not everyone can actually afford it. Even if it may look very useful. Still, there’s an effective way you can make your insurance cheaper and what’s great about it is that you’re killing two birds with one stone: getting cheap insurance and improving the security of your vehicle.
