Friday, October 1, 2010

Can anyone tell the pro and cons of have auto insurance with AARP?

AARP's program is a "national" account - underwritten by the Hartford Insurance Company, which has been around for a LONG time - so, the company, as a whole, is pretty solid.

The drawback with a national program is having a national agent that handles your account and NOT someone that you can go visit and sit down across the desk and get answers. Sometimes you might not even know what questions to ask, and that is what we (an independent agent) do a lot of - is counseling.

Typically, insurance rates will vary from State to State and can even vary by ZIPCODE! It also will depend on the type of car/truck, coverages, limits of liability, and driving record. Some companies run credit scores and MOST run a motor vehicle report and CLUE (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange) report to see about undisclosed accident involvement.

The best thing to do is call a LOCAL independent agent. Don't go across town, or to some other city - look for someone CLOSE. Just look in the phone book for the PIA or Big I (Trusted Choice) logos and you will find a professional licensed agent that will be able to help you solve your insurance problems, and give you rate comparisons of several different companies.

An independent insurance agent will normally have a dozen different companies and if he cannot help you, he should be networked with other local agents that can.

In my agency, we have companies that do NOT run a credit score and welcome drivers with "less than perfect" driving records and have companies that specialize in the Senior insurance market, and from time to time - have gone "head to head" with The Hartford rate thru AARP (which by the way is less expensive than The Hartford agent "down the street" can sell it to you for!

Most of the replies on this site say "go to this on-line carrier or that on-line carrier or that 1-800 number" but I'm sure that when you do, you will find some impersonal computer user with a script to work from and you won't be able to talk with the same person every time you have a problem!

Good luck, drive RESPONSIBLY and I hope this helps!


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