Insurance
Coverage, deductibles and claims, explained without the sales pitch.
Adding a driver to your policy
Six illustrative households, one new driver each, and what adding that person tends to change on a car policy.
Choosing a deductible: the break-even arithmetic
Premium saved per year against extra cost at a claim, worked out as years to break even.
Filing a car insurance claim, hour by hour
A composite incident log from the moment of impact to the settlement letter, with what to write down at each step.
Gap coverage, and when it earns its keep
A loan balance and a car value drawn on one chart, with the stretch where gap coverage matters shaded in.
Insuring a leased car: a requirements checklist
What a lease usually asks of your insurance, item by item, and where in the agreement to confirm each one.
Liability limits, decoded
What each number in 50/100/50 pays for, where it runs out, and who covers the rest.
Roadside help you may already be paying for
An audit of the places roadside assistance hides, and a diagram of where they overlap.
Shopping your car insurance at renewal
A phone script for getting like-for-like quotes, and a sheet to compare three of them line by line.
Uninsured motorist coverage, in three crashes
Three different collisions with three different at-fault drivers, and which of your coverages steps in for each.
What moves your premium at renewal
The factors behind a car insurance renewal, sorted into the ones you can turn and the ones you can only watch.
What your insurer pays when your car is totaled
Actual cash value built step by step for an illustrative car, then the places the number can be questioned.
When dropping collision coverage makes sense
One rule for deciding when collision coverage has outlived its use, tested on three cars of different values.
Why your credit can affect your car insurance
From credit file to premium, one link at a time, including where some states cut the chain.
“Full coverage” isn’t a policy
The phrase everyone uses for car insurance, taken apart into the coverages it bundles and the ones it leaves out.