Insurance Blog

I regularly tell friends there’s always an insurance angle, no matter the event. And so it is with Lindsay Lohan’s latest fall from grace.
As Lohan’s jail time continues to fuel the news headlines, our colleagues at the Insurance Information Network of California (IINC) remind us that we can learn from Lohan’s mistakes, at least from the insurance perspective.
As reported by Insurance Journal, IINC has determined the average insurance premium difference Lohan could pay for auto insurance because of her risky behavior based on her profile, ZIP code, vehicle model and current record of two DUIs and an at-fault car accident.
A single, 24-year-old female who lives in the Beverly Hills ZIP code of 90210 (Lohan lives in a condo in West Hollywood) and drives a 2009 Mercedes SL550 convertible would have access to 100 percent of the insurers offering auto coverage in California, according to IINC.
With a clean driving record, Lohan […]

Read the rest of this great post here

Turns out the Fourth of July holiday can be a dangerous one. Before you head out to enjoy the barbecues and fireworks, consider the following.
The Fourth of July is the most dangerous holiday for drivers, according to State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company. The Hartford Courant’s Insurance Capital blog reports that over the past five years an average 6,031 collision claims have been made by State Farm policyholders nationwide on July 4.
By way of comparison, New Year’s Day saw 5,403 collision claims and Memorial Day 5,321 claims over the same five-year period.
Similarly, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) reports that July 4 is one of the days with the highest number of crash fatalities. From 2004 to 2008 there were about 148 crash deaths each July 4, compared with 114 on a typical day.
Check out I.I.I. facts and stats on highway safety for more information.
Have a safe and happy holiday!

Read the rest of this great post here

It’s perhaps inevitable that amid rising concerns about cellphone use and distracted driving a lawsuit has been filed against a cellphone manufacturer and wireless provider by the daughter of a woman killed after her car was hit by a driver talking on his cellphone. A December 6 article in the New York Times by Matt Richtel outlines the details of the suit which alleges the companies failed to provide adequate warnings of the risks of cellphone use while driving. It goes on to cite legal experts explaining why the suit – currently the only such case and one of only a handful ever filed – faces steep challenges. Over at the Consumer Class Actions Mass Tort Blog, Russell Jackson, a partner at law firm Skadden Arps and quoted in the NYT article, offers analysis on why various legal defenses should make this cellphone suit untenable. First and foremost is the […]

Read the rest of this great post here

Some 38.4 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, up 1.4 percent over last year when 37.8 million traveled, according to the AAA. This year’s expected increase in travel reflects improved customer confidence from one year ago, better financial market performance and a growing sense among many consumers that the worst of the global economic crisis is behind us, AAA said. In 2008 Thanksgiving travel dropped a precipitous 25.2 percent in the wake of the ongoing housing and financial crisis. Some 33.2 million motorists are expected to hit the road this Thanksgiving, a 2.1 percent increase on last year. Another 2.3 million plan to travel by air, a decline of 6.7 percent, while the number traveling by train, bus or other transportation is expected to increase by 1.2 percent to 2.9 million. According to AAA’s Leisure Travel Index (LTI), Thanksgiving holiday travelers […]

Read the rest of this great post here

The more gadgets we have the more gadgets we need, or at least that’s the way it often seems. But put this in the context of the distracted driving problem and you may have a solution that reduces fatalities and auto insurance premiums. An article in Saturday’s New York Times by Sam Grobart explains how technology companies are trying to solve a problem caused by technology with more technology. It points to the rising interest in services that automatically disable an individual’s cellphone when it is in a moving car. Apparently a number of companies have started offering call-blocking systems that place restrictions on phones based on its GPS signal, data from the car itself or from cell towers. Incoming calls would then be routed to voice mail or message. The concept goes a step further than hands-free systems. A key takeaway from the article is that while proponents of […]

Read the rest of this great post here

Safer roads and vehicles appear to be contributing to what has been a steady decline in U.S. highway deaths since they reached a near-term peak in 2005. Preliminary statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimate that 16,626 people died in motor vehicle crashes in the first half of 2009, down 7 percent from 17,871 fatalities in the first half of 2008. The fatality rate (the number of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled) also dropped to 1.15 in the first half of 2009, down from 1.23 in the first half of 2008. A New York Times article by Matthew Wald notes that the recession and high gas prices may also have helped a bit. Preliminary data reported by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) shows that the number of vehicle miles traveled in the first half of 2009 declined by about 0.4 percent, or 6.1 billion miles. […]

Read the rest of this great post here

The number of vehicles on U.S. roadways has grown by 7 percent over the last five years, but the number of times those vehicles have collided with deer has jumped by 18.3 percent. In its latest study of annual deer claims, State Farm estimates 2.4 million collisions between deer and vehicles occurred in the U.S. during the two-year period between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2009. Among the 35 states where at least 7,000 deer-vehicle collisions occur per year, New Jersey and Nebraska posted the largest increases of 54 percent. Deer-vehicle collisions also jumped by 41 percent in Kansas, by 38 percent in Florida, Mississippi and Arkansas, by 34 percent in Oklahoma and by 33 percent in West Virginia, North Carolina and Texas. For the third year in a row, West Virginia tops the list of those states where a collision with a deer is most likely. State Farm […]

Read the rest of this great post here

The U.S. Department of Transportation has announced the schedule for its two-day distracted driving summit scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Panelists will discuss a range of issues including: the extent of driver distraction; research results on the nature of the distracted driver problem; how technology is both contributing to and can prevent the consequences of distraction; proposed legislative and regulatory approaches to address distracted driving; and initiatives to increase public awareness of safety issues. Participants include Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. One of the issues to be discussed is how proposed federal legislation would address cell phone use by bus and truck drivers. According to an article in today’s New York Times by Matt Richtel, the trucking industry says on-board computers that hundreds of thousands of truckers on U.S. roads use for directions and to stay in contact with dispatchers can be […]

Read the rest of this great post here

There were 6 percent fewer highway deaths in 2008 than in 1960 despite the fact that last year there were nearly three times as many licensed drivers, four times as many cars and ten times as many miles driven than in 1960, according to I.I.I. president Dr. Robert Hartwig. His comments came in a keynote speech on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Dr Hartwig noted that IIHS has been on the vanguard in highway and automobile safety for half a century. “Without exaggeration, over the past 50 years, hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved and millions of injuries avoided—or their severity lessened—in whole or in part because of the fine work of this institution,” Hartwig said. While for most of its first 50 years IIHS got its message out primarily through television and the print media, the institute is […]

Read the rest of this great post here

Guidelines on how to meet the auto insurance requirements under President Obama’s Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), also known as the “Cash for Clunkers” program are expected to be available today at www.cars.gov. Administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the program helps people purchase a new, more fuel efficient vehicle when they trade in a less fuel efficient vehicle. Depending on the difference in fuel economy between the new vehicle and the trade-in vehicle, people will get a credit of between $3,500 and $4,000 to help pay for the new vehicle. An important feature of the program is that the trade-in vehicle must have been registered and continuously insured for the past year. Check out I.I.I. facts and stats on auto insurance.

Read the rest of this great post here