Auto insurance prices vary widely. On average, car insurance cost Americans $789 per vehicle annually in 2008, the most recent year of data provided by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

But your costs could be far higher or lower because of the state you live in. For example, Florida, New Jersey and New York were among states where the average was more than $1,000
annually. North Dakota’s average expenditure was the lowest at $503.
Texas fell in between with an $854 average.

Here are ways to save on car insurance:

Compare

If you think all auto insurance rates within a state are about the same, you’re wrong. Premiums can be different for the exact same policies, depending on what factors an insurer chooses to emphasize in its rate formula.

For the youngest drivers, comparison-shopping could save about $1,100 a year, according to a study by CarInsurance.com. You might think you get better service from higher-priced insurers, but there seems to be no correlation, according to a study by the Consumer Federation of America.

“Many people stick with the same insurance carrier year after year without ever shopping for abetter deal,” Consumer Reports says in its guide to car insurance. “Blind loyalty to one insurer can cost you dearly.”

You can request quotes by phone or online.

Also, check your state insurance department website for comparative information on insurers in your state.

You can check on the financial health of an insurer at such rating agency websites as moodys.com and standardandpoors.com.

Bundling

Choosing an auto insurer is important, too, because you might want to get your home insurance through the same carrier.  Auto rates vary more and probably are more expensive, so let that be the insurance that, well, drives your decision.

Like bundling your pay TV, phone and Internet access with one company, you can get discounts for bundling your insurance with a single insurer.

If you have multiple vehicles with the same company, your most expensive driver will be assigned, by default, to the most expensive car. So if your teenager will drive the Honda far more than the Lexus, make sure the teen is listed as primary driver of the cheaper vehicle.

Deductibles

A deductible is the part of the bill you pay out-of-pocket before insurance kicks in. The higher the deductible you’re willing to accept, the lower your premiums will be. Changing from a $200 deductible to $1,000 could save you 40 percent, says the Insurance Information Institute.

Personal finance experts typically advise choosing the highest deductible you can financially stomach if it will give you big price breaks on premiums.

Big brother devices

There are some new high-tech devices that insurers are starting to offer. For example, some devices will block the use of cellphones in a moving car, often used for teenage drivers.

Insurers are also starting to introduce optional “telematic” devices, which, once installed on a vehicle, collect data about your driving habits for the insurance company. You get a discount for agreeing to use one, and your rates are based on your driving habits.

People who drive less and drive slower might have lower rates than people who drive a lot at high speeds, for example.

Such devices are available from several insurers and are allowed in most states.

Insurance companies say the devices are used only for discounts, not for raising premiums.

Credit

You wouldn’t think your proficiency at paying bills would have anything to do with whether you’ll crash your car, but auto insurers insist there’s a link.

Drivers with problems on their credit reports, are more likely to file claims, they say, and are charged higher insurance rates in states that allow tying rates to credit

Carriers aren’t so much looking at your three-digit credit score as they’re looking at the stability and good standing of your relationships with creditors.

A CarInsurance.com study showed that drivers with credit scores over 750 save an average of $783 a year compared with a drivers in the same age bracket with average scores.

Check your credit report once ayear for free from each of the three major credit bureaus at AnnualCreditReport.com.

Discounts counts

Make sure you’re getting all the discounts you’re entitled to — for driving low miles every year, for example. A teen driver, who can raise rates 50 percent, can get a discount for good grades, typically at least B average.

Taking time annually to review your coverages with your auto insurer will make sure you’re getting those discounts. You’ll not only incorporate your life changes into your auto insurance, but you’ll also learn about the insurer’s new products and pricing, which change often.

Saving on Car Insurance is a post from: Accident & Injury Law in Texas

Manage Subscriptions is a post from: Accident & Injury Law in Texas

Over the years, different medical groups have created guidelines in order to establish a standard of care among their peers.

Although various medical guidelines exist that have become important benchmarks for quality of care, many insurance companies use guidelines that are outdated, based on inadequate evidence, or biased expert opinions.

The Mercy Chiropractic Guidelines is a great example of a set of medical guidelines that have failed miserably in setting an adequate “standard of care.” The Mercy Chiropractic Guidelines were developed by a 35-member commission and were initially published as a working document to be updated and revised, but it hasn’t been updated since its initial development in 1993. The document is now widely rejected by nearly every chiropractic organization on all levels including the organizations which initially sponsored it.

After numerous issues found with the guidelines and rejections from nearly all chiropractic organizations worldwide, you would think that it is obvious that these guidelines are useless and inadequate in determining the proper “standard of care.” Apparently Allstate Insurance never got the memo and they continue to base their settlement offers (in which chiropractic treatment is involved) on these guidelines that haven’t been updated in nearly 20 years!

Allstate Insurance adjusters are taking advantage of the many flaws associated with these guidelines so they can justify their low offers. For example, The Mercy Chiropractic Guidelines set limits on the number of visits a patient should have with a chiropractor.  Allstate adjusters refuse to pay for any treatment beyond that magic cut-off date.

When adjusters exclude “excess” visits, they decrease the value of a claim by denying consideration to the cost associated with these “excess” visits. Adjusters then base their settlement offers on the cost of only visits deemed necessary by the Mercy Chiropractic Guidelines. This usually leads to unreasonable settlement offers and at times, an innocent injured victim of a collision may even have to pay out of pocket for the medical bills not considered by the adjuster, when all the victim did was follow the treatment plan set out by his doctor.

Allstate Insurance adjusters seem to ignore the fact that each case – like each person – is unique and the determination of the duration of care should be a decision made by the doctor and patient. Allstate adjusters must recognize that The Mercy Chiropractic Guidelines have failed completely and should not be used to regulate or judge the practice decisions of any chiropractors and their patients.

In a recent case, when we pointed out that the Mercy Chiropractic Guidelines the adjuster was using have been reject by the Chiropractic Society of Texas, the adjuster still refused to budge.  Talking to an insurance company adjuster is sometimes like talking to an elephant.  Big body, small brain, hard to move.  That’s why you often need to hire a personal injury lawyer to light a fire under them.

Allstate Adjusters Use Discredited & Outdated “Medical Guidelines” to Justify Their Low Offers is a post from: Accident & Injury Law in Texas

45 year-old Juana Arrellano-Aviles struck and killed 62-year-old Felipe Duran when she sped up while trying to park her pickup.

Mrs. Aviles was driving without a license and without insurance.  She has received and paid seven traffic citations since 2003, including five tickets for not having a license with the last one being in October of 2010.  Mrs. Aviles has never obtained a driver’s license and has been driving unlicensed for the past seven years.

The police were unable to pursue criminal charges.  All she received was a Class C misdemeanor citation for reckless damage, failure to maintain financial responsibility, and not having a driver’s license.

It’s scary that people like this can continue to be on Texas roads with no license and no insurance, kill someone, and only get a ticket.

We need criminal laws for people who injure someone while driving a car without a license.

Until that time, you can at least do something about being hit by someone without insurance – carry your own.  It’s called Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist coverage and it may be the most important insurance you carry if you’re hurt by someone else’s carelessness.

Very Sad Story is a post from: Accident & Injury Law in Texas

About eight years ago, at the age of 78, a vascular surgeon in California operated on a woman who then developed a pulmonary embolism. The surgeon did not respond to urgent calls from the nurses, and the woman died.

Even after the hospital reported the doctor to the Medical Board of California, he continued to perform operations for four years until the board finally referred him for a competency assessment at the University of California, San Diego.

“We did a neuropsychological exam, and it was very abnormal,” said Dr. William Norcross, director of the physician assessment program there. “This surgeon had visual-spatial abnormalities, could not do fine motor movements, could not retain information, and his verbal IQ was much lower than you’d expect.”

Yet “no one knew he had a cognitive deficit, and he did not think he had a problem” Norcross continued. The surgeon was asked to surrender his medical license.

One-third of the nation’s physicians are older than 65, and that proportion is expected to rise. Many doctors, of course, retain their skills and sharpness of mind into their 70s and beyond. But physicians aren’t immune to dementia, Parkinson’s disease, strokes and other ills of aging. And some experts warn that there are too few safeguards for patients.

“My guess is that John Q. Public thinks there is some fail-safe mechanism to protect him from incompetent physicians,” Norcross said. “There is not.”

Often the mechanism does not kick in until a state medical board has found it necessary to discipline a physician. A 2005 study found that the rate of disciplinary action was 6.6 percent for doctors out of medical school 40 years, compared with 1.3 percent for those out only 10 years.

If you are injured by a doctor in Texas, it gets even worse because tort reform not only caps your damages, but, by deterring lawsuits, makes it harder for negligent doctors to be removed.

Aging doctors bring fears of incompetence is a post from: Accident & Injury Law in Texas

I’ve uploaded my first YouTube video and would appreciate your comments.

“The Ant & the Grasshopper – A Texas Tale” is Aesop’s Tale told with a Texas Twist.  Watch this short (3 minute) video and you may just discover something about Texas law you weren’t aware of.  The authors of this video feel a duty, as lawyers, to make the public aware of recent changes in the law that effect the citizens of Texas.

The Ant & the Grasshopper – a Texas Tale

Ant and Grasshopper Video is a post from: Accident & Injury Law in Texas

Ask any personal injury trial attorney in Austin (not necessarily those guys who advertise on T.V. but don’t actually file suit or try cases) and you’ll find that an overwhelming number of lawsuits are filed against two particular insurance companies.

When you buy auto insurance, you’re supposed to be buying peace of mind.  But, there’s a built-in problem—your goal is to have the insurance company settle and pay any accident claim in which you were at fault, but the insurance company’s goal is to take in as much money as possible while paying out as little as possible.  When someone is making a claim against your policy, you fall on the “pay out as little as possible” side of the business.

So what happens is the insurance company tries to negotiate a quick, low settlement with the claimant.  If the person making the claim is representing themselves or if they hire an attorney who is known to settle quickly and not fight for top dollar (believe it or not, I have had one of the TV lawyers tell me that one insurance company told him they didn’t believe his threats of filing a lawsuit because he had never filed one before—and that was after handling hundreds, if not thousands, of claims).

But if the person making the claim against you is smart enough to hire an experienced accident injury lawyer, you may be on the receiving end of a lawsuit if you don’t have the right insurance company.

What is the right insurance company? The right one is one who will settle the claim for a fair value without forcing you into litigation.  The wrong company will force you to be served with a suit (possibly at work), then they will chose an attorney for you (though your policy will almost always allow you to chose an attorney), the attorney and them will convince you that they are doing the right thing and to let them handle everything (though the judgment, if it goes to trial) will be on your record, force you to take a day off of work for you deposition to be taken, and force you to take several days off of work to go to a trial you know you will lose.

My own personal survey of several of my peers and some mediators as well as reviews of the cases that I have filed suit on shows that if you have Allstate or Farmers insurance, you’re at a greater risk of being sued than with other insurance companies because they are the stingiest insurers.

I see ratings from time to time saying this insurance company or that is the best, but I’ve never seen ones for the worst.  Maybe I should start a survey to ask people who were at fault for an accident what insurance company they have and whether they were sued or it settled before suit was filed?

Are You Buying Insurance or a Lawsuit? is a post from: Accident & Injury Law in Texas

Here’s a great article about how tort reform is unlikely to cut health care costs.

Here’s some of the article:

The health economists and independent legal experts who study the issue, however, don’t believe that’s true. They say that malpractice liability costs are a small fraction of the spiraling costs of the U.S. health care system, and that the medical errors that malpractice liability tries to prevent are themselves a huge cost– both to the injured patients and to the health care system as a whole.

“It’s really just a distraction,” said Tom Baker, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and author of “The Medical Malpractice Myth.” “If you were to eliminate medical malpractice liability, even forgetting the negative consequences that would have for safety, accountability, and responsiveness, maybe we’d be talking about 1.5 percent of health care costs. So we’re not talking about real money. It’s small relative to the out-of-control cost of health care.”

Insurance costs about $50-$60 billion a year, Baker estimates. As for what’s often called “defensive medicine,” “there’s really no good study that’s been able to put a number on that,” said Baker.

Contrary to Rick Perry’s claims, a recent analysis by Atul Gawande in the New Yorker found that while Texas tort reforms led to a cap on pain-and-suffering awards at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which led to a dramatic decline in lawsuits, McAllen, Texas is one of the most expensive health care markets in the country. In 2006, “Medicare spent fifteen thousand dollars per person enrolled in McAllen, he finds, which is almost twice the national average — although the average town resident earns only $12,000 a year. “Medicare spends three thousand dollars more per person here than the average person earns.”

The Medical Malpractice Myth is a post from: Accident & Injury Law in Texas

The Fort Worth City Council unanimously approved a $2 million settlement Tuesday with the family of a mentally ill man who died after police used a Taser to subdue him. His death was ruled a homicide.

The officer was not disciplined by the department or indicted, and the city admits no wrongdoing in the settlement deal with relatives of Michael Patrick Jacobs Jr.

“From the onset of the tragedy, so many lives have, been impacted … but not any more so than this young man and his still grieving family,” Councilwoman Kathleen Hicks said.. “Hopefully with this settlement, which will avoid a long. trial, we as a city can begin the prbcess of reconciliation and dialogue.”

Jacobs’ family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, which doesn’t limit the amount a city could be forced to pay, unlike cases filed in state court.
Police Chief Jeff Halstead declined to comment Tuesday.

Last fall, he said his officers still used Tasers and would receive more training on use-of-force and handling situations with mentally ill or emotionally disturbed suspects. Police Lt. Paul Henderson said officers have already begun that training.

On that day about a year ago, Jacobs’ family called police to report a disturbance and said the 24-year-old had not taken his medication for bipolar disorder.

Although a Taser is designed to deliver a five-second charge of up to 50,000 volts of electricity, Jacobs was shocked for 49 seconds and then for five seconds, according to the autopsy report.

An autopsy concluded that the primary cause of death was “sudden death during neuromuscular incapacitation due to application of a conducted energy device.”

$2 Million Settlement in man’s death is a post from: Accident & Injury Law in Texas

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel has overturned a Texas law that bars medical professionals from contacting victims within 30 days of an accident and lawyers from contacting people within a month of getting arrested.

Judge Yeakel ruled that the law was unconstitutional and infringed on free speech. Legislators approved the law last year, saying it was aimed at unethical solicitations. The case was brought by a Houston lawyer and an Austin chiropractor.

In his ruling, Yeakel said the chiropractor in the case and his patients showed that early medical treatment was beneficial to accident victims.

Yeakel also struck down banning lawyers’ written solicitation of people who had been arrested or received a summons. The judge cited a higher court opinion that drew a distinction between the privacy due to accident victims or those in wrongful-death cases compared with those recently arrested.
“While a criminal or traffic (defendant) may be shaken by his arrest, what he needs is representation, not time to grieve,” the judge wrote.

Attorney Martyn B. Hill, one of the plaintiffs, said the ruling means a letter sent by a lawyer to someone who recently was arrested or received a traffic ticket is protected as free speech. Hill said the ruling also allows medical professionals to send truthful marketing to people within 30 days after an accident.

As always, be careful if you are contacted by a doctor after an accident – request our free report for accident victims to find out why.

Judge overturns limits on medical and lawyer solicitations is a post from: Accident & Injury Law in Texas