Good news/bad news: Mercury rates drop; State Farm, Allstate and Farmers increase
 Cha-ching! Mercury Insurance Group recently announced rate cuts for about 1.7 million of its automobile and homeowner insurance customers, mainly in Southern California. Most of the cuts will go to automobile policyholders and, perhaps, offset at least a little pain from weekly hikes in gasoline prices.
The owners of 1.5 million cars will see 3 percent come off their annual bills. That works out to about $30 per vehicle, according to the California Department of Insurance. The cuts will take effect in August.
And now the bad news... After dropping in recent years, the cost of insuring your home may be going up for State Farm, Allstate and Farmers policyholders. California's three biggest insurers, covering more than half of insured homes, have requests for rate hikes pending with Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. Third-ranked Allstate Corp. is seeking a rate increase of 9.3%. Industry leader State Farm General Insurance Co., and No. 2 Farmers Group Inc., are asking for 6.9% hikes.
If your homeowners insurance is with State Farm, Allstate or Farmers, give us a call at (818) 508-9925 or (661) 902-0360 to see how we can save you money with an insurance company that isn't asking for a rate hike.
Shepard Insurance Announces New Workers Compensation Program that Integrates Billing with Quickbooks© Payroll Software
 Managing workers' compensation premium payments presents a challenge for small and medium-sized businesses. Now, Shepard Insurance and The Hartford are pleased to provide customers a free service that makes it easy.
XactPAY Web™, a QuickBooks Silver Certified product, automates workers' compensation premium calculation and payment when businesses run payroll, helping to save you time and reduce costly mistakes. It alleviates the burden of manually monitoring cash flow issues associated with workers' compensation payments for policyholders of The Hartford. Using XactPAY Web:
- Eliminates hefty premium down payments.
- Improves cash flow by enabling as many payment installments as there are pay periods.
- Avoids finance, service and late fees through automated payment plan.
- Minimizes the potential for audit adjustments at the end of the policy term.
- Helps reduce costly mistakes that may result in fines for inaccurate workers' compensation computations.
Here's how it works. Once we issue The Hartford's workers' compensation policy, you receive a login and password so you can download and install the XactPAY Web utility on your computer. The XactPAY Web utility will automatically take the payroll information generated by your QuickBooks Payroll program and securely transmit the data to XactPAY Web. Based on that data, your workers' compensation premium is calculated and with prior approval, is automatically withdrawn from your bank account via electronic funds transfer.
The best part? There is no charge for any part of this service.
Business owners, CPAs, bookkeepers or payroll specialists who want to know more should call us at (818) 508-9925 or (661) 902-0360.
Automatic Coverage for a New Vehicle? Better to Ask than Assume
 Here's a question more people need to ask: When you pick up a new vehicle from an auto dealership, private party, friend, or auction to drive it home, will you have automatic insurance coverage? In other words, will you be covered even though you haven't called your insurance company to add the new vehicle to your policy?
The answer is not automatic. If you don't have comprehensive and collision on your current policy, you may not qualify for automatic coverage. Or, if you have an excluded vehicle on your auto insurance policy, you may not qualify. The only way to be sure is to call us at (818) 508-9925 or (661) 902-0360 so we can check your policy.
Don't take the risk and find out when it's too late. Your auto dealer, friend, or neighbor does not know the specifics of your auto insurance policy, so don't depend on them to give you an accurate answer. That's what we're here for!
New Rules for Traffic School
When nailed for speeding, how often can you attend "driver safety classes" to wipe the ticket off your record, and what offenses are eligible for such "masking"?
The California Vehicle Code permits drivers who receive minor moving violations, such as simple speeding tickets, to attend traffic school once every 18 months. Provided you successfully complete the class and pay all fees, the moving violation does not appear on your driving record maintained by the Department of Motor Vehicles—and insurers therefore cannot count the violation against your "good driver" status under Prop. 103.
As a result of legislation (AB 645) passed last year, which took effect Jan. 1, 2008, drivers who are charged with a two-point moving violation (such as reckless driving, hit-and-run, or DUI,) can't attend traffic school.
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