Pet owners spend a whopping $40 billion on their furry friends each year. That’s enough to buy a gallon of gas for every man, woman and child in the United States … 44 times.

Insurance companies haven’t always viewed pets with the same passion as their owners. If you’re in an accident, generally everyone in the car – except your four-legged friend – is covered.

The Progressive Group of Insurance Companies now recognizes Fido and Fifi as family members. A Progressive policy with Collision coverage now extends to cats and dogs. The coverage pays up to $500 if your dog or cat is hurt or dies as a result of a car accident.

And, best of all, the coverage is free.

“We know how much our customers love their dogs and cats. Many of us have pets, too, and we feel the same way,” said Geoff Souser of Progressive. “Progressive has a long history of product and service innovations that prove you can teach an old dog new tricks. Knowing that most people think of their pets as family members, it felt like the right thing to do.

Eight Tips To Gear Up To Motorcycle Season (NAPS)—To steer this riding season in the right direction, you’ll want to make sure your motorcycle—and your motorcycle insurance policy—are in good working order before hitting the open road. While you should always check your owner’s manual for specific guidelines, here are some general tips for getting ready:

1. Change the oil and filter. Many manufacturers recommend changing the oil and filter before storing a bike for any extended period of time and again when you bring it back out for riding season. Be sure to first start up the motor-cycle to warm the engine and then shut it off before changing the oil and filter

. 2. Check the belt or chain. Make sure it is set to the manufacturer’s recommended tension. And if you have a chain, lubricate it.

3. Check nuts and bolts. Start off the riding season with a solid bike. Make sure everything is tight. “A well-maintained motorcycle not only assures a fun time, it can save you money by avoiding accidents, which helps to keep your insurance rates down,” says Rick Stern, motorcycle product manager, The Progressive Group of Insurance Companies.

4. Inspect tires. Look for any damage and also make sure each tire is inflated to the correct pres-sure. You’ve only got two tires, so for maximum stability it is very important to avoid underinflation as well as overinflation.

5. Look for fluid leaks. The easiest way to check for this is to look at the floor under the motor-cycle. Leaking oil or brake, radiator or clutch fluid can cause their own special problems. For example, being low on brake fluid could make it hard to stop your motor-cycle. You don’t want to find that out after you’re already on the road.

6. Check all lights. Make sure headlights, taillights, brake lights and turn signals are all functioning properly.

7. Brush up on your riding skills. Find a safe place to practice riding skills such as fast stops, figure eights, U-turns, etc., so you’re ready for the season. You’ll be glad you did.

8. Update your policy. Perhaps one of the most important things you can do at the start of the season is review your insurance coverage to be certain you, and your bike, are covered. Talk to your local independent insurance agent. Independent agents represent many companies and they can help you to understand the cover-ages you need. An independent agent can also help you find the combination of price and service that’s right for you. Did You Know? To steer this riding season in the right direction, you’ll want to make sure your motorcycle— and your motorcycle insurance policy—are in good working order before hitting the open road.

Fact vs. Fiction: Uncovering auto insurance myths (March 2008)

Like a teenager eager to try a new video game, playing before reading the rules, many drivers buy insurance without really understanding what they’re buying.

In the rush to feel “covered,” they can skip the details. That can lead to frustration.

Following are five insurance myths heard by some of the more than 13,000 claims people at Progressive, one of the country’s largest auto insurance companies:

Myth: I bought “full coverage” so everything’s paid for.

Reality: There is no such thing as “full coverage.” In most states, only liability insurance is mandatory. There are a lot of other coverage options out there, so select what you need and can afford based on your personal situation.

Myth: I need three estimates before my wrecked vehicle can be repaired.

Reality: Not necessarily. Very few insurers actually require this, although some might. If you decide to use a shop that’s in an insurance company’s “network” of pre-approved shops you may just have to get an estimate from that shop.

Myth: My insurance premium always increases if I’m involved in an accident.

Reality: It depends. Your rate can increase, decrease or stay the same. The information about your accident is combined with other information about you, your car and your driving history to determine your rate.

Myth: If I lend my car to someone and he/she crashes it, I’m covered.

Reality: Not so fast. If you or your friend don’t have optional physical damage coverages, damage to your vehicle generally won’t be covered.

Myth: If I buy a new car, my auto insurance company automatically knows; and my new car is covered.

Reality: No. Most insurance companies require that you notify them or your agent within a specified number of days. Generally, you have 30 days to add the new vehicle to your policy.

“Insurance can be complicated,” says Chuck Crist of Progressive. “It’s not something people deal with every day. So the more informed you are, the better choices you’ll make.”

To learn more, contact an independent agent or broker.

Commercial Insurance 101

(NAPS)—If you own a business, it’s important to match the insurance you carry to the company you keep. Doing so can save you time and money down the road.

Commercial auto insurance can be especially important, so if you’re not sure what kind of commercial auto coverage you need, you may want to talk with an independent agent who specializes in that particular area. Independent agents work with you to put together a package that provides the protection that’s right for your business.

“Anyone who owns a business with a commercial automobile needs to have coverage that is appropriate for the industry and the size of the business,” says Brett Stalnaker of The Progressive Group of Insurance Companies. “An independent agent who specializes in commercial auto cover-age can provide business owners with the kind of advice they need to make the right choice.”

Here are some tips to help you find a commercial auto insurance agent:

• Get objective advice. There are different types of insurance agents. A captive agent represents only one insurance company. Independent agents represent a number of different insurance companies. Independent agents tend to be more flexible, because they can offer coverage options from various companies, increasing your odds of getting the combination of cover-ages, price and service that fits your business needs.

• Visit the Web site of a larger insurance company. Web sites such as driveinsurance.com can provide you with coverage option information and a way to find an agent in your neighborhood.

• Seek referrals. These can come from professional organizations or other contacts such as other business owners. Chances are, other business owners in your industry can recommend an agent that they’ve worked with.

One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to business-related insurance. A business that you start in the dining room or garage with just one vehicle can grow to the point where several vehicles are added and you move to commercial property. As your business evolves, your protection needs will most likely change, too. Be sure to check in with your agent periodically to reassess your commercial auto policy.

Texas‘ Financial Responsibility Verification Program – Consumer Information Page

This page is designed to assist consumers with information and questions related to TexasSure.

What is Financial Responsibility, and What Does Texas Law Require?

The Texas Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act, in Transportation Code §601.051, states that a person may not operate a motor vehicle in this state unless financial responsibility is established for that vehicle.  Transportation Code §601.002(3) defines financial responsibility as the ability to respond to damages for liability for an accident that arises out of the ownership, maintenance, or use of a motor vehicle.  Most people do this by buying automobile liability insurance as allowed by Transportation Code §601.051(1).  Texas law, under Transportation Code §601.072, currently requires minimum coverage of $25,000 per injured person, up to a total of $50,000 for everyone injured in an accident, and $25,000 for property damage. This basic coverage is called 25/50/25 coverage.  These limits will increase to 30/60/25 on January 1, 2011.

What is TexasSure?

TexasSure, the “financial responsibility verification program” was created by the 79^th Texas Legislature, Regular Session, in Senate Bill 1670, which added Subchapter N, Chapter 601 Transportation Code.  Section 601.452 of the Transportation Code, as added by SB 1670, provides that the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI), in consultation with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (TxDMV) and the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) “shall establish a program for verification of whether owners of motor vehicles have established financial responsibility.” 

Pursuant to SB 1670, the established program is designed to reduce the number of uninsured motorists in this State; operate reliably; be cost-effective; sufficiently protect the privacy of the motor vehicle owners; sufficiently safeguard the security and integrity of information provided by insurance companies; identify and employ a method of compliance that improves public convenience; provide information that is accurate and current; and be capable of being audited by an independent auditor.

TexasSure users include the DPS, sheriffs, local police, and vehicle registration offices.   These users obtain accurate and timely insurance information on a given vehicle promptly upon request. For example, law enforcement officers can electronically confirm whether or not a registered vehicle has insurance coverage in effect.

Unmatched Notices

TexasSure is able to match over 99% of all reported auto insurance policies to a registered vehicle. Beginning in November 2009, TexasSure will send a notice to the less than 1% of insured customers that cannot be matched to their registered vehicle. Customers will be provided with the insurance information submitted by their insurance company and specific guidance to help determine the reason for the non-match. A customer call center will be available for assistance.  

Uninsured Notices

There are approximately 4 million registered passenger vehicles that are potentially uninsured. Beginning in the spring of 2010, TexasSure will  contact the registered owners of these vehicles. Recipients will be provided with the vehicle registration information on file and specific guidance to help them correct the situation. A customer call center will be available for assistance.  

To learn more about TexasSure, please visit www.TexasSure.com 

For more information contact: TexasSure@tdi.state.tx.us

(Reuters) – The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season will produce an above-average eight hurricanes, four of them major, posing a heightened threat to the U.S. coastline, the Colorado State University hurricane forecasting team predicted on Wednesday.

In its second forecast in four months for the 2010 season, the leading storm research team founded by hurricane forecast pioneer William Gray said the six-month season beginning on June 1 would likely see 15 named tropical storms.

The team forecast a 69 percent chance of at least one major hurricane making landfall on the U.S. coastline in 2010, compared with a long-term average probability of 52 percent.

Major hurricanes pack powerful sustained winds of at least 111 miles per hour (178 km per hour).

For the Gulf Coast, from the Florida Panhandle west to Brownsville, Texas, including the Gulf of Mexico oil patch, the probability of a major hurricane making landfall was seen at 44 percent versus a long-term average of 30 percent, the Colorado State University team said.

“While patterns may change before the start of the hurricane season, we believe current conditions warrant concern for an above-average season,” Gray said in a statement.

An average Atlantic season has about 10 tropical storms, of which six become hurricanes.

The Colorado State University team also predicted a 58 percent chance of a major hurricane tracking into the Caribbean, where Haiti is vulnerable after a devastating January 12 earthquake that left more than a million people homeless.

‘EXTREME’ SEASON FEARED

The earlier forecast in December by Gray’s team had already predicted an “above-average” season producing 11 to 16 tropical storms, including six to eight hurricanes. It had said three to five of next year’s storms would become “major” hurricanes of Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale.

Another forecaster, AccuWeather.com, last month also forecast a potentially “extreme” hurricane season this year, with “above-normal threats” to the U.S. coastline.

AccuWeather said five hurricanes, two or three of them major, were expected to strike the U.S. coast, forming out of an expected 16 to 18 tropical storms, almost all of them in the western Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico.

The 2009 season ended November 30 had only nine storms, including three hurricanes, and was the quietest since 1997 due in part to El Nino, the eastern Pacific warm water phenomenon that tends to suppress Atlantic hurricanes.

But Phil Klotzbach, lead forecaster with the Colorado State team — whose research is followed closely by energy and commodity markets — said El Nino was expected to dissipate fully by the start of this year’s storm season.

“The dissipating El Nino, along with the expected anomalously warm Atlantic ocean sea surface temperatures, will lead to favorable dynamic and thermodynamic conditions for hurricane formation and intensification,” said Klotzbach.

The Colorado State University team has repeatedly cautioned that extended-range forecasts for hurricane activity are imprecise and can often miss the mark.

The university team originally expected the 2009 season to produce 14 tropical cyclones, of which seven would become hurricanes. But the season, which ended on November 30 and was the quietest since 1997, had only nine storms, including three hurricanes.

(Additional reporting by Tom Brown, editing by Tom Brown and Doina Chiacu

There actually is a lot to like about the bill. There are certainly feel-good elements, like extending coverage to lower-income Americans and prohibiting excluding participants based on pre-existing conditions. And as a buyer of individual coverage, I do like the idea of a national insurance exchange (even if it doesn’t come online for a while).

Here are three areas where I think this hefty and historic bill falls short:

1. Bye-bye to medical underwriting
Whether we’re talking about Allstate writing auto insurance or UnitedHealth  pricing health-care policies, the basic process is the same. Insurers gather pertinent information on the party to be insured, and, based on actuarial number-crunching, determine the premiums they’re going to charge for the policy.

Thanks to the new health bill, insurers are now hamstrung as far as what information they can use to set premiums. Specifically, they’re limited to whether the plan covers an individual or family, what state rating area the insured is in, age, and tobacco use. And for the last two, insurers are limited in terms of how much they can increase premiums — for tobacco, for example, they can’t exceed a ratio of 1.5 to 1.

Medical underwriting — that is, underwriting based on medical history and other important health facts — will be a thing of the past.

Why does this matter? It matters because it makes everyone look very similar in the eyes of insurers. It means that two people who are similar in the categories listed above will end up paying similar premiums — even if one person has been very reckless with their health in other ways. Without the use of medical underwriting, the reckless person will pay less than they should for insurance, while the not-so-reckless person will pay more. Nice use of incentives.

While creating stronger incentives for people to keep themselves healthy could hurt companies like Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD), and Diageo — all of their products aren’t exactly good for your health — it’s exactly the kind of thing we need to be doing if we want to actually bring down medical costs (more on that below).

2. Thou shalt buy health insurance
Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen the director’s cut of The Ten Commandments, but I don’t remember buying health insurance being on one of those tablets. Regardless, if you’re a U.S. citizen, you’ll soon be required to purchase health insurance and prove it at tax time. If you don’t, you’ll be hit with a nice thanks-for-not-playing penalty of $750 for not having coverage for the entire year. (That level is reached beginning in 2016, after a two-year phase in.)

Particularly after the new legislation’s reforms kick in (which for the most part is 2014), it may be a pretty good deal for most Americans to buy health insurance. However, someone who is fit as a fiddle and rarely ends up at the doctor may still be better off paying out of pocket. But for their good health, they’ll now have to cough up $750 to Uncle Sam.

To me, this seems like a government tip ‘o the hat to the health-care industry. Requiring individuals to have insurance is a big benefit to health insurers like WellPoint (NYSE: WLP) and Aetna (NYSE: AET), not to mention drugmakers like GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) and Merck (NYSE: MRK).

3. Cost containment called and it wonders why it’s not in the bill
Back in 2008, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute put out a report titled “The Price of Excess: Identifying waste in health care spending.” The report started by highlighting the high level of health care spending in the U.S., the low comparative results, and the poor perception of the U.S. system.

The report suggested that up to an amazing $1.2 trillion per year, or more than 50% of all health-care spending, could be attributed to wasteful spending. It then broke down that wasteful spending into three areas: behavioral (individual behaviors such as obesity and non-adherence to drug regimens), operational (inefficient administrative and other processing costs), and clinical (practitioner issues, largely the practice of defensive medicine).

While the bill takes half-hearted stabs at a few of these areas, cost containment is clearly an afterthought rather than the thrust. And in the end, that may be the biggest disappointment of all when it comes to this supposedly huge step forward in health-care legislation.

Personally, I do like the idea that more Americans will now be insured (and that actually can help lower costs), but in the coming years, one of the country’s biggest challenges will be the unbridled growth of our health care spending – particularly if outcomes continue to trail the rest of the world.

You can save money on homeowners insurance if you know how. Discounts from your insurance company are available for a variety of reasons, ranging from the type of building material used to build your home to how close you live to a fire station. Here are 12 ways you can save money on your homeowners policy:

Shop around. Check with several different insurance companies to get  Do your friends or family members like their insurance company? 

Raise your deductible. The deductible is the amount of money you have to pay toward a loss before your insurance kicks in. Typically, deductibles start at $250. Increase your deductible to:

• $500 and save up to 12% on your premiums.
• $1,000 and save up to 24%.
• $2,500 and save up to 30%.
• $5,000 and save up to 37%.

Just make sure you can afford to pay the higher deductible if something should happen.

Buy your home and auto policies from the same company. Many companies will give a discount if you buy both homeowners and auto coverage from them.

Consider insurance consequences when buying a home. If you’re looking at buying a home, think about the cost of insuring the home. A newer home’s electrical, heating and plumbing systems, and overall structure are likely to be in better condition than those of an older home. This can lead to a discount on your premiums.

Also consider the construction of the home and your geographical location. If you live on the East Coast, you’ll want the house to be able to stand up to wind damage; on the West Coast, you need to keep earthquakes in mind.

Insure your home, not the land. Although your home and its contents are at risk from fire, theft, windstorms and other perils, the land your house sits on is not. Don’t include the value of the land in deciding how much homeowners insurance you need to buy.

Improve security and safety. Items such as deadbolt locks, burglar alarms and smoke detectors often bring discounts of 5% each, depending on the company. Your insurance company may also offer a significant discount of 15% or 20% if you install a sophisticated home security system. If you’re thinking about buying such a system, check with your insurer to see which systems they recommend and which will earn you a discount.

Stop smoking. Smoking accidents account for more than 23,000 residential fires every year. Some insurers offer to reduce premiums if no one in the home smokes.

Try senior discounts. Insurance companies have found that retired people stay at home more and spot fires sooner than working people. Older people also have more time for maintaining their homes. If you’re at least 55 years old and retired, you might qualify for a discount of as much as 10%.

Ask about group coverage. Alumni and business associations often work out insurance deals with an insurance company, which includes a discount for association members. Ask your association’s director about any such deals.

Stay with an insurer. If you’ve kept your coverage with a company for several years, you may receive special consideration. Several insurers will reduce their premiums by 5% after you’ve been with them for three to five years, and some companies will discount you as much as 10% after six years.

Check your policy annually. You want your policy to reflect the value of your home and belongings. If you review your policy every year, you will be able to make the necessary adjustments. If, for example, you just sold a valuable painting, you won’t need the same amount of coverage. But if you added a garage, you’ll need to increase your coverage.

Look for private insurance first. If you live in a high-risk area (one that is especially vulnerable to coastal storms, fires or crime) and think you’ll be forced to buy homeowners coverage from your state’s high-risk insurance pool, check first with an insurance agent. You may find that you can still buy insurance at a lower price in the private insurance market than from the insurer of last resort.

Make payments electronically. Many companies now charge up to $5 for mailed payments, so have your payments automatically deducted to shave that cost. Sometimes the deductions can come from your credit card, so you don’t have to worry if the money is in your bank account when payment time comes.

Check your credit rating. Many companies check your credit and base your policy on the information they find. Make sure your credit is in good shape, and if it’s not, seek out companies that do not run credit checks.

Get replacement-cost coverage. Actual-cash-value coverage reimburses you for the cost of your property at the time of the claim, minus the deductible. This can result in a lower claim payout than you expect. If your TV is worth $50, for example, that’s all you’d get to buy a new one. Replacement-cost coverage will reimburse the full value of an item based on the cost of purchasing a new one. The upfront cost is greater, but you are more likely to receive accurate compensation for your possessions.