Insurance World

For any driver, finding the best car insurance company is an important task. While the insurance we take out for our automobiles is, much like the health insurance we choose for our families, a service we hope to have very little need to avail of, there is little doubt that should the worst happen, we hope that we will have chosen our car insurance company wisely. For any individual, however, or even the group of individuals we might know, like our family and friends, exposure to insurance companies will have been limited. But thankfully, there are people who deal with car repairs on a regular basis, making them ideally placed to help us select the best car insurance company for our needs.

Who on earth are these experts, you might ask, and how on earth can we find them? The answer is simple, and you will be able to locate them in your own area more easily than you might think. Simple take a quick trip down to your local auto body repair shop, and you will find yourself in the midst of several car experts, who will each have amassed, through their years of experience in dealing with them, an essential insight into the workings of your local car insurance companies.

There are two groups of people that we call if we are unfortunate enough to find ourselves in an auto accident – the car insurance company with whom we took out our personal policy and the local body repair shop. Because these are our two ports of call when dealing with this kind of event, they necessarily have quite a bit of interaction with one another, making them ideally placed to determine the reliability and professionalism of the other’s operations. So if you are trying to find the best auto insurance company in your area, why not give them a call, or better yet, pay them a quick visit?

Body shop managers and other personnel deal with insurance adjusters from several companies as a natural part of the course of their day. They will be able to tell you which car insurance companies are most professional, which are speedy in their response. Car repair shop workers will have the hands on experience of car insurance companies that allows them to determine which carriers offer the most user-friendly claims procedures, and which offer customers a more time-consuming and complicated service. They are ideally placed to offer you an unbiased opinion on which companies they would assign the best overall ratings in terms of the quality of the product they provide, and the quality of the customer service.

When you are unfortunate enough to experience an accident in your vehicle, you will want to deal with people who are both speedy and professional, and no one can offer you a better insight to this end than the body shop workers who deal with car insurance companies every day. So if you are looking for reliable and unbiased ratings of the best companies around, then don’t forget to give the body shop a call.

As a small business owner, you know the importance of being able to offer your employees health insurance. You also know the expense associated with it. What do small business owners do? How can they afford it? Well, depending on which state your business resides, there may be government help.

For instance, in the state of New York, Governor Pataki has proposed and Legislature has approved and enacted a program called Healthy NY. This program assists small business owners in providing health insurance for their employees.

Similarly, the state of Ohio, allows Group Purchasing Arrangements (GPA’s). This is where small and large employers may band together to purchase insurance plans and reap the benefit of lower premiums. Some are formed as a result of state legislation/regulation and others GPA’s a re formed by associations.

Kansas has the Kansas Health Partners Benefit Association. Their mission is to help reduce the number of uninsured in their state by helping small business so that they may be able to offer affordable health insurance to their employees.

A bill introduced on to the House of Representatives by Georgia Democratic Representative John Barrow. The purpose of the bill, H.R. 2073: Small Business Health Insurance Promotion Act of 2005 is to “…to provide tax subsidies to encourage small employers to offer affordable health coverage to their employees through qualified health pooling arrangements…”

This is a proposal before Congress. It would have to be passed by both the House and Senate and signed by the President before it is law. Get involved, contact your representative. Tell them to vote in favor of this proposal. After all, we elected them to do our bidding.

Bottom line, if you’re a small business, visit your state’s web site to see what legislation has been passed in your state. Additionally, check to see if there are program in existence that offer you help in providing health insurance for your employees.