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Insurance is roughly divided into Property & Casualty and Life & Health. Auto insurance falls into the former category. I list them both because similar criteria can be applied to some degree for all insurance.

Insurance is a form of gambling, a vehicle for investor speculation that has morphed into a different meaning over time. The investor is gambling that if they accept some of your life risk in exchange for payment, the money received will exceed the money paid out in a large pool of policy holders. This concept uses the theory of large numbers in similar fashion to the casino industry. As with the casino industry, the insurance industry doesn't have to tilt the odds very far in its favor in order to become wealthy, a percentage point or two will work quite nicely. Insurance employees, specialists in mathematics called underwriters, exist to 'insure' that the 'aggregate' premiums stay in the favor of the insurance company. These underwriters make the kind of money that engineers and scientists make, except that they provide no real productive output to society. Their output is rated by how much money they can take from your checking account and put in the insurance company's checking account-little else. Given that insurance is a play on numbers, your number to tilting the odds back a bit in your favor (which translates financially as leaving money in your checking account and getting a good policy too) is '3'. Remember that number.

Theories on gambling, probability and the large numbers are topics all to themselves. Fortunately nudging the value proposition' of auto insurance more to your favor is fairly straight forward. First, determine how much life risk you wish to transfer to an insurance company. Second, use industry ratings to determine what insurance companies you will be pursuing for a quote, a Consumer Reports rating guide is a good investment here. Three companies are sufficient. Quote more if you want the education, but do quote at least three. Third, gather quotes at different levels of risk transfer to see how the pricing varies. Have each company give you three quotes at the same three levels of coverage. Finally, compare the agents. An agent may well be the difference between a low stress claim paid promptly versus seven levels of "press 1 if, press 2 if" and ending in an "all agents are currently busy serving other customers. Please leave a message at the beep." Remember, insurance is a form of 'investor speculation'. It is intended

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