Smart Auto Insurance Blog

American Commerce Insurance offers a wide variety of insurance products including motorcycle, home, renters and auto insurance.  Most people carry different types of insurance policies to protect them in the case of different kinds of accidents.  But there isn’t really an insurance product for everything that can go wrong and that’s where umbrella insurance comes in handy.  American Commerce offers umbrella insurance and does a great job of explaining how it works on their website.

Basically umbrella insurance is a catch-all insurance product.  It takes care of larger incidents that are highly unlikely, but still can devastate you.  Some examples of these incidents are your dog biting a neighbor, your child accidentally causing a fire, or a guest trips on your steps and goes on permanent disability.  All of these scenarios are relatively rare, but they do happen regularly across the nation.  Some of these incidences can cause million dollar lawsuits which most consumers are not prepared for emotionally or mentally.

Umbrella insurance can help reduce some of this stress.  It provides an extra layer of protection that can put your mind at ease.  You can add up to $5 million in extra liability protection for your homeowners, watercraft or auto insurance policies.  It’s generally a very low annual cost at just a few hundred dollars per year.  It’s a great protection to ensure you are protected in the case of lawsuits, attorney fees or garnishment of wages.

According to Jeffrey Krasner in the Boston Globe, Progressive Insurance’s website recently showed incorrect comparisons with other auto insurance companies, making their rates appear cheaper than they really are. A computer glitch compared the price of Progressive’s 6-month policy with 12-month policies from Commerce Insurance or Liberty Mutual. (Unlike most Massachusetts auto insurance companies, Progressive sells policies in 6-month increments.)

Progressive spokesperson Cristy Colt stresses that they weren’t intentionally trying to mislead consumers; rather, the system is meant to divide competitors’ prices in half to show fair auto insurance quote comparisons. For now, the rate comparison tool on their website is down, and Progressive is sending letters to inform about 21,000 consumers whose decisions may have been affected by the error.

(Photo credit: wallyg under CC 2.0)