Tips you can use car insurance rates comparison

There are so many ways that you can use to keep your auto insurance rates down and some of them you can use at the same time as other discounts to maximize your savings.

Here are some things that you can ask your auto insurance company for:

- Ask if you can receive a discount if you have more than one type of insurance with their company. For instance, you may find that you can have your auto insurance and your homeowner’s insurance with this company and they will provide you with a combined discount. Carry all of your insurance policies with them, such as auto, home, and life and you may find that you can get even more money off.

- If the driver of the car is a student or is listed as a driver on the car, you may find that you can get a good student discount. This is where the student maintains at least a B average on their report card. You may be required to take that report card to the automobile insurance company each time it comes out, but it really pays off. If grades go down, the discount may disappear until the grades go back up.

- See if there are any safe driver discounts available. When you haven’t had a ticket or an accident, you may find that there are discounts available for you.

- If you are a senior citizen and you’ve not had any accidents in a specific amount of time, there may be discounts available to you.

- You can always raise your deductible to cheaper car insurance premium online from auto insurer. However, you need to keep in mind that doing so will result in a higher out-of-pocket expense if an accident does occur. The standard deductible is $500, but some individuals will go as high as $2,000 to save some money on their premium. If you can pay $2,000 if an accident occurs, then that will work fine. Just make sure your deductible is not higher than what you can afford in case damage is done to your car and you need to pay it.

- You may wish to shop around. You may find a company that offers the same coverage for a lower price. You always want to compare before you make a commitment.

You want to use all of these tips so that you can save yourself quite a bit of money.

How you can compare auto insurance quotes online?

When finding the right company to do business with, it is very important that you compare. You can do this by calling companies and recording the different rates that they quote you. You can also do this by going to their websites and filling out the forms on their websites to receive quotes for the auto insurance you want. This allows you to compare in a much easier way. Take all of that information and make an informed decision.

Financial Services Consumer Panel chairman calls on the FSA to impose personal fines on senior executives

Bank bosses should face personal fines if their companies are found to have mis-sold insurance policies, according to the head of one of the UK’s leading consumer-advocate bodies.

Adam Phillips, chairman of the Financial Services Consumer Panel (FSCP), said he wanted the most senior executives to be held to account by the Financial Services Authority.

He told the Observer: “I want to see more senior people, the heads of UK retail banking, sanctioned for mis-selling payment protection insurance [PPI]. At the moment the most senior person [to have been sanctioned] is the chief executive of Land of Leather.”

If his view prevails, then the chief executives of the retail divisions of major banks such as Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland could face fines if their companies are found to have mis-sold plans.

PPI is designed to cover loan repayments if a borrower falls ill or loses their job. Sales of the policies are believed to earn lenders around £4bn a year.

The Competition Commission had planned to ban the sale of such policies at the same time as a personal loan or credit card is taken out, making companies wait seven days before contacting customers to see if they wanted cover. The move, intended to make it easier for customers to shop around, was put on hold after it was challenged by Barclays.

Paul Briant, chief executive of Land of Leather, was fined £14,000 for failing to properly oversee the sale of PPI by his firm. The FSA found that the company had not ensured that all its sales force was fully trained to sell PPI over a six-month period in 2006 and that it had failed to make any effective check on its sales force until February 2007, exposing 58,000 customers to the risk of buying unsuitable plans. Land of Leather was also fined £210,000.

But when Alliance & Leicester was fined £7m for mis-selling PPI over the phone, none of the bank’s senior staff was penalised.

The Financial Ombudsman Service, which handles consumer complaints about numerous regulated products, has received fewer than 30 complaints of mis-selling from Land of Leather customers in the first six months of this year. In contrast, it has upheld nearly 3,500 complaints of PPI mis-selling against Lloyds during the same period, and another 2,000 against its subsidiaries Bank of Scotland and Black Horse Ltd, yet no individuals have been held responsible at these companies.

Other financial services companies that have had a high number of PPI mis-selling complaints upheld include Barclays, MBNA, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Welcome Financial Services.

Phillips said: “Banks are supposed to have systems to make sure they don’t have these failures. It’s clearly the case that there was a massive systems failure. Someone is responsible for making sure that doesn’t happen.”

A spokeswoman for the banking regulator, the Financial Services Authority, said it had taken the action it thought appropriate against firms where mis-selling had taken place. She said: “We’ve got complete commitment to taking action against individuals where there’s the evidence for us to take action.”

Phillips, who joined the FSCP in 2004 and took over as chairman in July, believes the next big mis-selling problems are likely to involve self-invested personal pensions and equity release products, which allow older people to realise cash from the value of their home.