Car Insurance – Cheap or With Service?

How about that: a nice evening with friends, we take two cars to go move on to our next stop, the road is a bit slippery (it’s a real winter day in Ontario 😉 ), the first car turns around since he just missed his turn, the other car follows… BANG! We have a great friendship accident!

How stupid do you feel? You just hit… your friend’s car. Of all the car accidents you could have, this is probably the best story to tell when you are with your friends around a pitcher of cold beer. Well, this is exactly what happened to 2 of my friends a few weeks ago.

We had a good laugh (nobody got hurt, nobody was drunk before the accident and they even got the nicest cop around to complete the paperwork and a guy on the street brought them coffee and donuts… I’m telling you, people from Montreal know how to live 😉 ). However, the rest of the story got me thinking about the most important thing about car insurance; filing a car insurance claim.

car accident

Car insurance cheap quotes first?

When we look for car insurance, most of us will consider only one criteria: we want the cheapest insurance quote. However, once you are pretty happy about your car insurance premium, the second factor (the one that will really determine if you have good car insurance or not) is how easy it is to file an insurance claim. Since we don’t expect to have an accident, it’s hard to test your car insurance company before you are in trouble.

We don’t really think about this part until we get into a car accident. Even myself, I’ve been looking for the cheapest car insurance quote for the past 12 years (and finding cheap car insurance in Ontario is a tough sport …). Yet, I have never made a claim from my car insurance company so far (knock on wood!) so I don’t really know how great my car insurance is…

Back to my friend’s story (and how his car insurance dealt with him!)

I won’t tell you the car insurance company of my friend but let’s just say he got a nice quote since he went to a school who offer additional rebate for this company. So his first criteria was no different than mine when he picked his car insurance: he wanted a cheap car insurance premium… period.

But does cheap premium means cheap service? Let me tell you that it is not the case with this story! Right after filing the paperwork with the police officer, my friend called his car insurance company to explain the situation. The next morning he drove his car to a garage and got a courtesy vehicle right away. It was a good timing as he was leaving the same morning for 3 days trip…. With the other friend implicated in the accident!

Filing the car insurance claim paperwork was easy, people who served him were easy to deal with and proactive.  My friend didn’t have to wait long to get his car back. This is what we call a great service experience!

 

What’s the Morale of this Story?

 

You can get cheap car insurance that will actually pay when you need it! It’s not easy to find one, but it works. I’d like to know about your car insurance company; is it good or bad? Which one do you recommend?

About the Author

Financial professional and online entrepreneur, I'm best known as The Financial Blogger. I want to make money because I like enjoying life the way it should be; with a lot of great food and wine! I also love to spend time with my lovely wife and 3 kids!