In baseball, the tie goes to the runner; in insurance, the money goes to the loaner.

When you take out a loan to buy a car, the company that gives you the money is actually the legal owner of the vehicle that you now get to drive. Your name will be on the registration and on the insurance policy. However, they are the ones on the car’s title and listed as the lienholder on the insurance policy that you purchased.

Their listing as the lienholder on your car is what protects their interest in your vehicle. It also tells the insurance company that they are to be paid first in the event that your vehicle is a total loss. This is so that the money is used to pay off the money that you owe them on your car loan.

The only time you will see any money from a total loss, if you have a lienholder, is if the insurance company deems the vehicle to be worth more than what you owe to the lienholder. For example, if the insurance company determines that you vehicle is worth $5,000 and you owe $3,000, you would only receive $2,000 from the insurance company.

Even though you are out of a car, your loan (or at least most of it) will be paid off.

Don’t let your insurance company get out of paying an accident claim on a new vehicle.

You have up to 30 days to add a new car to your insurance policy. As long as you are within that time period, any accident that you get into with your new vehicle should be covered.

Now, if you do get into a car accident and the insurance company challenges you on who the registered owner of the vehicle is, you need to be prepared. Because the vehicle title will most likely not be completed yet, you will have to depend on the bill of sale. The bill of sale will show that you are the new owner of the vehicle, even if it has not been registered yet.

If your insurance company still refuses to pay the claim after you have proven ownership, you may have to get the Insurance Commissioner or the Department of Insurance in your state involved with this one. They will be able to give you any additional advice you need, or step in on your behalf with in the insurance company to get your accident claim paid.

Any insurance premium refund taking more than 10 business days should be acted on.

When you cancel your insurance policy, an insurance premium refund should be processed in the insurance company’s billing system immediately. It may not be actually processed and mailed until the next day, but the request itself is done as soon as you request the cancellation.

After the company gets the refund in the mail, it can take 7 to 10 business days to get to you through the mail. This is not the insurance company’s fault; you can blame this one on the postal service.

After 10 business days (remember don’t count the weekends) if you still have not received your check, call the insurance company for the status. You can always ask for a replacement check, but be cautious. If you ask for a replacement check, the original check will be cancelled when a new check is sent to you. So, if the original insurance premium refund check does end up showing up a couple days later, it will not be any good.

You grab an umbrella to protect you during a rain storm, so don’t forget your umbrella coverage to protect you during a car accident.

Rich or poor, umbrella coverage is there to protect your finances.

You buy insurance to protect yourself if you ever have an accident; that and it’s required. But, required or not, it is there to protect you financially. With the rising cost of medical bills and court settlements, it is prudent to purchase a high level of insurance.

This may mean purchasing more than what is offered under a normal car insurance policy.

What Is Umbrella Coverage?

Umbrella coverage is an extension of your car insurance policy. It provides you with liability coverage up to limits that are not available on a normal car insurance policy. We are talking limits of 1 to 5 million dollars.

Umbrella coverage is for liability coverage only. It does not cover any damages done to your car. It also does not cover any medical bills or other expenses that you or any of your passengers might have after an accident.

It also only kicks in after you have exhausted the coverage from your regular car insurance policy. In other words, your umbrella coverage is just like an insurance policy for your insurance policy. You will only use it if your primary insurance policy isn’t enough to cover all of the monetary damages from the accident you are found at-fault for.

Who Needs Umbrella Coverage?

Umbrella coverage is for anyone that wants that extra protection from anything that can go wrong in a car accident claim. Especially those that have a lot to lose; such as drivers that have property, investments, and a lot of money put away in bank accounts. These types of assets can be at risk of being lost in the event that you cause a serious accident where the medical bills and the settlement amount is more than what you have in insurance coverage. If the claim ends up in court, you could lose even more.

Even if you don’t have these assets, you will still owe the money to the insurance company or the other party if you don’t have enough liability coverage. You could be paying on this for the rest of your life if the amount is substantial. If you had umbrella coverage though, it would take care of the expense for you.

How Do You Buy Umbrella Coverage?

Umbrella coverage is actually sold as a completely separate policy that is attached to your car insurance policy. You need to purchase umbrella coverage from the same insurance company or agency that currently holds your car insurance policy.

To qualify for an umbrella policy, your car insurance policy limits must be at the maximum allowed limits. As an example, if the most your insurance company sells in liability coverage is 250/500/250; that is the amount of liability insurance you must purchase before you could buy umbrella coverage.

It’s not the insurance company trying to cheat you out of your money, the reasoning is behind it is rather simple. If you only have liability coverage for 25/50/25, why would they want to sell you additional liability coverage of 1-5 million dollars? There is a huge gap in what your normal car insurance policy would cover up to and when your umbrella coverage would kick in.

New Hampshire doesn’t require that you have insurance, but if you don’t you better have a something else in place.

New Hampshire welcomes you to the state without mandatory insurance

New Hampshire car insurance is a mixed bag of requirements. First of all, it doesn’t actually require that its residents carry liability insurance. Second, if a resident does decide to purchase insurance, New Hampshire car insurance requires that almost a whole policy be purchased. In fact, the only major things missing from the minimum New Hampshire car insurance policy is the comprehensive and collision coverage.

New Hampshire Car Insurance Not Required

Like a handful of other states, New Hampshire does not require that you carry liability insurance on your vehicle. Actually, you don’t have to carry any insurance at all on your vehicle if you don’t want to.

Wait! Don’t get too excite yet!

They do however require that you still comply with the New Hampshire Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Requirements. This means that you have to be able to prove that you have sufficient funds to meet these requirements.

Sufficient funds are assets that can be sold in the event of an accident. These funds have to be easily accessed so they can be used to fully pay for any damages or injuries that you may cause.

If you can’t provide proof that you have sufficient funds and you have no insurance coverage you are looking at penalties that include your driver’s license being suspended. Since most people don’t have these sufficient funds, they just opt to buy the required New Hampshire Car insurance.

What Is Required if You Do Opt For New Hampshire Car Insurance

The New Hampshire car insurance requirements are the equivalent to almost a whole policy. Not only do they require that you carry the usual bodily injury and property damage liability coverage, they also require medical payments coverage and uninsured motorist coverage.

New Hampshire car insurance requirements for liability coverage, currently stands at 25/50/25. Meaning $25,000 for a single person’s injuries, $50,000 of coverage for the total injuries of the other party combined, and finally $25,000 in coverage for damage you do to the other person’s property.

Medical payments coverage pays for your medical payments that you or your passengers may obtain during to an accident. The state requires that a minimum of $1,000 in coverage is purchased on a New Hampshire car insurance policy. If you don’t have personal health insurance, you may want to purchase more than the minimum $1000.

Lastly, uninsured motorist coverage is also required. This coverage protects you in the event that you are hit by a person that has no insurance or not enough insurance. The amount of coverage you are required to have for your uninsured motorist coverage has to match what you have for your liability coverage.

For example if you chose to have the state minimums of 25/50/25 for your bodily injury coverage, you have to carry the same for your uninsured motorist coverage on your New Hampshire car insurance policy.