fort lauderdale car insurance

August of 1992 hurricane Andrew hit South Florida with such force that it caused many people to leave the state of Florida forever. The interesting thing is that the center of the hurricane didn't even hit a city, it went through the everglades South of Miami and North of Homestead. The hurricane was so powerful that although it hit the Southern part of Miami Dade county even one county to the North, Broward county had significant damage. My home in Hollywood Florida had roof damage and a wooden fence that was destroyed. At that time I had Allstate Insurance for my two cars but some local insurance company for the homeowner's policy and windstorm policy. The insurance adjuster came to look at the damage and told me the fence may have been worth $2,000.00 new but it was old and could have been just kicked and it would have fallen over. Therefore with depreciation he wouldn't offer any more than $200.00 for the damage.

I decided to switch all homeowner's and windstorm to Allstate and see if I really would be in good hands as they say.

I had just purchased a brand new Dodge Caravan, I think it was January 1995. Six months later we went on a four day cruise and I didn't want to leave the new Caravan at the Port Everglades parking lot while we were away. I thought it would be safer at our home which is in a very nice, safe area. Upon our return I saw the Caravan was gone but a white van that looked like my sister's was parked at my house. I thought about that and realized that my sister never had a key to my vehicle. Then as I got closer I saw that it wasn't my sister's car.

I walked to the door of my house and saw a note from the Hollywood Police telling me to call them because my car had been stolen, involved in an accident and recovered. The police explained that on Saturday night after midnight they spotted six teenagers in my van speeding. When they put on the lights and siren the kids took off full speed on I-95 and while trying to outrun the Police they hit another car. The white van at my house was one the kids had stolen earlier that day and used it to burglarize homes. They knew the police would be looking for the white van so they dropped it at my house and stole my van and filled it with the items they had stolen from various homes.

Once it went to the body shop I was told that my $23,000.00 Caravan had $10,000.00 worth of damage plus open ended items. I asked the body shop what that means and was told that there could be a lot more damage but they won't know until they take apart the car to see all the damage. Since they hadn't been hired yet to do any repairs they wouldn't take it apart to look further.

Additionally I got a letter from the attorney of the owner of the car the teens ran into. I gave that information to Allstate Insurance and they took care of it and I never had to deal with it again.

Family and friends began to warn me that the theft of my new car was a minor crime compared with what the insurance company was about to do to me. Everyone told me my car would never be the same once it was repaired with that much damage. I brought up this concern with the Allstate claims adjuster and he told me that Allstate wanted me to be happy with the car and they would guarantee that it would be fine but if I was that concerned they'd pay to replace the car.

Upon telling my friends and family this great news they still weren't convinced and told me that the insurance company would offer a lot less because the car was six months old. However, I was able to buy a brand new Dodge Caravan with the insurance settlement from Allstate.

My daughter had her driver's license only five days and she would drive with me for practice each day. However on the fifth day my wife decided to let our daughter drive her Lexus RX 300 a car our daughter had never driven. This was also the first time my wife drove with our daughter so she had no idea what type of mistakes our daughter typically made with me. At a stop sign my daughter didn't see any traffic and instead of slowly creeping forward to see around a tree she entered the intersection. A car hit the front of the Lexus because my daughter failed to see beyond the tree and my wife didn't know to warn her to creep forward.

When I called Allstate to report the accident the claim adjuster told me that teenagers do make some very simple mistakes and that it was fortunate that nobody was hurt. She went on to tell me that she was sure that my daughter would be a lot more careful at stop signs in the future and that nothing like this would be likely to ever happen again. Then she told me that these things happen and Allstate will NOT be raising my insurance premiums for this accident.

This was the second time I got to see that being in good hands is more than just a slogan with Allstate Insurance.

We were returning from a holiday party hosted by our bank. It had rained since we left our home but we live in South Florida so seeing rain is nothing new. We were heading South on US-1 and it was still raining but there was no problem with the road. Traffic was almost stopped as we got to be about 2 miles from home so we turned East on Harding Street in Hollywood. US-1 is also 18th Avenue in Hollywood; we went four blocks East to 14th Avenue and everything changed. The road went from just being wet to very deep water. The 2006 Acura TL we were driving stalled and as big trucks drove by we realized that we were floating; the car rocked back and forth as if we were in a boat. The rain was still coming down hard so we waited in the car but soon it began to sink. When the water came in and rose to the point that it was about four inches above the seat we made a decision to leave the car and walk in the thunderstorm to our home 1.7 miles away.

There was very little traffic and plenty of cars stalled in the road. We were able to walk in the center of the road where the water was at its shallowest point. In the center of the road the water was up to my knees in the worst areas and in the best areas it was 6-10 inches deep.

Allstate towed the 2006 Acura TL to a location in Miami where they were collecting the worst cars to inspect them more quickly all at one location. A woman in the Allstate national disaster center was able to find some comparable 2006 Acura TL cars to arrive at a value. I thought the value seemed maybe about 10% low so the adjuster explained how they came up with this value. When I tried to find other cars to justify my belief of what the value should be I didn't find cars with the right equipment or mileage so it seemed that I couldn't prove the value. I asked the adjuster to send me a check and she told me that she didn't want to do that when it was clear that I wasn't happy with the value. She went on to tell me exactly what to look for to be certain that the car was comparable to mine and she stated that she would give this information to a third party independent appraiser that they use to come up with the value. The third party car appraisal company was able to adjust the value based upon the cars I found and I was very happy with the settlement amount and bought a replacement car.

This is the third time Allstate proved to me that I'm in good hands.

Others may claim to be cheap or have an easy to use website. The important thing to me is not to find a cheap & easy insurance company because when the unexpected happens it is nice to know that I'm in good hands with Allstate.

If you live in Miami Dade I highly recommend my Allstate Insurance agent Howard Ferster who can be reached at 305-895-2333. If you live in Broward County I highly recommend Patrick Brady 954-764-1944 for Fort Lauderdale Car Insurance or homeowner's insurance.

I am the owner of a full service advertising agency and Allstate has never been a client of mine, so this is an unsolicited statement of my experience with Allstate Insurance. I have been a client of theirs for more than 20 years. No lizards or cavemen for me!