How Car Insurance Really Helped Us Out

My wife and I recently moved from Tucson, Arizona to Los Angeles, California. Just before the move, we had to make a car insurance claim after our car was hit by a truck. The insurance covered the loss and made what could have been a big hassle, a minor inconvenience.

We had a two-car garage at our house in Tucson, Arizona. We would always park our cars inside the garage, never on the street. Shortly before our move, our daughter was running some errands and parked in front of the house. Several hours later, we went outside to pack more stuff into the car and when we went around to the driver's side, which was facing the street, we were horrified to see the entire side was scraped and dented, as a large truck of some kind had hit the side, while moving. The whole side was damaged, the door would not even open. There was no truck there, no note, the culprit was long gone.

So on the eve of our move, we now had a new hassle to deal with. Although we had a moving truck, we were relying on the car to take a lot of our stuff and had to be out of our house by a certain day. We were not too worried, as we knew we had good coverage and were relying on it.

We contacted our auto insurance company, Progressive, and they sent out a inspector the same day. They also arranged for a rental car, to be brought to our house, which was also helpful. The inspector assessed the damage and arranged for the car to be picked up and taken to a body shop. We did check which body shop and asked our neighbors and friends for a recommendation. We ended up using the body shop authorized by our local Toyota dealer, where we bought our car in the first place.

We had a low $250 deductible, so that was our only cost for this whole ordeal. The "free" rental car did have a $20 a day insurance charge, but we declined the coverage, knowing one of our MasterCards included rental car coverage as long as we used it to charge the rental. The repair of our car took a week, so this little tip saved us $140.

Good car insurance coverage is essential. Get a realistic level of coverage, not just the state minimums. In California, the minimum requirement is $15,000 in liability coverage. If you hit a $90,000 Mercedes, you are personally responsible for the difference. We have $100,000 minimum liability policy, which is the minimum level most people should retain. This is also the coverage required by most leases. The difference in cost between the different levels of coverage can be low, some companies allow you to see the various prices when you get an online quote.

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