The Fine Print – Presented by Insure.com

He got me! There I was, caught like the proverbial deer in the headlights of a police cruiser on a darkened road in the New Jersey pinelands. The red and blue bubble-gum machine lights atop the cop car alerted every motorist within miles that I was getting a ticket.

It was humiliating, and a costly courtroom experience, even when you pled guilty. But my worst fear was that my car insurance rates would go up $400 a year with those dreaded points on my license.

Well, that didn’t happen.

“We don’t raise your rates because you get a ticket,” said my insurance agent. Whew! And when I had an accident that wasn’t my fault but still cost my insurer $1,500, my yearly rate still didn’t go up.

Apparently I’m not alone. USA Today recently cited a study by Princeton Survey Research Associates International that said just 31 percent of drivers who received a moving violation within the last five years were hit with higher rates.

Total recall

Some insurance experts felt that the survey results were bogus. (continue reading…)

It’s no secret that us baby boomers will live longer than our ancestors. But there’s a grim reality. In doing so we will feel older and sicker.

A study by Dr. Dana King recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s (JAMA) Internal Medicine shows that our final years of life will probably be worse than those of our parents. And it’s already happening. King’s survey reports that only 13 percent of those born between 1946 and 1964 say they are in excellent health — compared with 33 percent of the previous generation.

Sofa sadness

It’s our own fault. Despite the feeling that we’re always racing against the clock, baby boomers are notorious couch potatoes. Nearly 40 percent of us are obese and more than half do not exercise regularly. We are legendary pill-poppers of the legal drugs advertised on TV, and 7 percent already depend on a cane or walker to get around.

So is there any good news? Yes. Fewer of us are developing emphysema and having heart attacks, mostly because we stopped smoking. (continue reading…)

At their annual conference in January, auto insurers actually worried about whether theirs was a “shrinking business.”

All newer vehicles come equipped with “black boxes,” which tell police and courts what really happened in an auto accident, providing them with the proper place to put the blame. BMW has already introduced autos that are truly auto — they drive themselves.

Voluntary vehicle monitors in cars, such as Progressive’s Snapshot, which tell insurers if the driver is going too fast or braking too hard, are catching on with motorists lured by the possibility of lower rates for better driving. Progressive is the 4^th largest auto insurer in the nation, but it’s Snapshot program is now the 20^th largest car insurer on its own, with more than a million members, according to analysts.

But most importantly, until recently serious car accidents were trending sharply downward. I repeat, until recently. (continue reading…)

Newspapers and television stations in New York and New Jersey are still covering the sad stories of those who thought that they were insured from the damage done by Superstorm Sandy — until they learned that they weren’t.

One such story appeared in The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. about a retiring couple who insured their beachfront cottage and its contents for $225,000. The house was torn apart, but their insurer gave them only little more than $6,000.

That’s because the majority of Sandy’s damage was caused by flooding, so if you didn’t buy federally sponsored flood insurance, you weren’t covered.

Like hundreds and perhaps thousands of others, this couple is taking their case to court, according to the newspaper, but probably won’t win. The insurance contract that they have with their private carrier is crystal clear: It doesn’t cover flood damage. (continue reading…)