Major Insurance on How to Switch Insurance Providers Without Forgoing Coverage

It’s not uncommon to find a better deal on auto insurance than your current provider offers – especially if you’ve been insured for quite some time without filing a claim or having one filed against you. More times than not, though, consumers tend to make a mistake during the process of switching over that results in their rates being higher than was previously quoted.
 
Here, Major Insurance takes a look at the primary reasons your new auto insurance provider won’t be able to offer you the rates that you were originally quoted and how to avoid them.

Lapse in Coverage
One of the most common mistakes made by consumers when signing up for a new policy is cancelling their current policy before activating the new one. The main reason you would have been offered a better insurance premium is because of your continued coverage. If you have a lapse in coverage – even only a 24 hour period – you are no longer eligible for a continued coverage discount.
 
A premature cancellation in coverage is happening more frequently in this digital age in which automatic debits are common. To avoid having an automatic withdraw taken from their account for a policy that consumers will no longer need, insured drivers simply cancel their account in enough time to prevent an automatic withdraw. A wiser alternative to account cancellation is simply to call the auto insurance provider and have a live representative remove the automatic billing information and set the account up to receive a paper bill with a remittable invoice.

Lower Credit Score
 
There are times in which an individual may be looking for numerous ways to acquire means through which to buy groceries or other necessities while looking for ways to save money. In these cases, said individual may be submitting multiple quote requests to different insurance providers while submitting applications for credit cards, payday loans, bank loans, or other types of loans. If this is the case, this person’s credit score is dropping with each request.
 
Many people don’t realize that your credit score is a determining factor of the rates offered by insurance companies. If your score has been dropping from the time you received your original quote to the time you actually purchased a policy, your actual premium will be slightly higher than that which you were originally quoted.
 
There are also cases in which a decreased credit score is not a result of consumer behavior, but rather the result of identity theft. If your identity has been recently compromised and you switched policies during the beginning of the month when the results of your identity theft made it to your credit report, your rates would be affected tremendously. Major Insurance stresses the importance of an accurate credit score when switching insurance providers, especially during this time in which identity theft is running rampant.

Failure to Report Moving Violations
 
When you submit a request for an insurance premium quote, you are asked to provide certain details about your identity and driving history. Sometimes – whether on purpose or by accident – drivers omit moving violations they had accumulated within the past 3-5 years. Sometimes, it’s not believed to be a matter of omission; it’s just an assumption by the driver that enough time has lapsed for the infraction to have disappeared from the public record. If an MVR (Motor Vehicle Report) is pulled on a driver by an insurance company and it’s discovered that there are moving violations which were not indicated on the original quote, the insurance provider generally won’t honor their quote and will charge higher rates based on the actual driving record. If you’ve received tickets in the past for any moving violations and you’re not sure if they’re still on your record, take the time to investigate or have your prospective insurance provider run your MVR to make sure you qualify for the auto insurance rates being quoted to you.