Online Auto Insurance News Wraps up December News Developments

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif., Dec. 28, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Cost increases, new "crash taxes" and new pay-as-you-drive programs. The following summary sheet wraps up a few of the biggest news developments reported on by News.OnlineAutoInsurance.com this month.

• Consumers may be slightly more inclined to look for cheap car insurance companies after the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released numbers showing the cost of coverage in the United States is still on the rise. Data made available this month on http://www.bls.gov/cpi/ indicate that November saw the second largest month-to-month bump in the cost of coverage for 2010. The price of motor vehicle insurance has risen 4.2 percent so far this year, according to the BLS.
• Some policyholders in California now have another method of applying for discounts after the state commissioner approved the first-ever pay-as-you-drive programs in the state. The first companies that will implement the programs, in which insurers record the number of miles a policyholder actually drives, are State Farm and the Automobile Club of Southern California.
• The heated debate over accident response fees — or "crash taxes" — has begun in Salem, N.J., and New York, N.Y. Public officials in both cities announced this month that they will soon be passing the cost of city-provided emergency response services on to drivers who cause car accidents within their borders.
• The governor of Michigan signed into law a bill that places greater restrictions on when and how beginning motorists — an extremely high-risk group — can drive.
• Insurance companies rolled out new services to better serve policyholders. GEICO and 21st Century expanded the availability of their smart phone apps, Progressive introduced the Snapshot program to three new states and Allstate launched three statewide claim satisfaction guarantee test programs.

To read these and other auto insurance news articles, readers can visit http://news.onlineautoinsurance.com/ where they will find news articles posted daily.

News.OnlineAutoInsurance.com is the only site on the Web devoted to publishing nothing but the latest developments in the car coverage industry. All articles can be republished for free as long as the republication guidelines, which can be found on the site, are followed.  

SOURCE Online Auto Insurance, LLC