Safeco Car Insurance Claims
Safeco offers personal/casualty coverage, including auto, motorcycle, watercraft, homeowner, umbrella, rental property and fire insurance. In 2007, as an adjunct to its automobile policies, the company launched Teensurance, which covers young drivers under their parents’ policies with the installation of a GPS unit so that every aspect of their driving can be monitored. This option also provides 24-hour a day roadside assistance.
Safeco’s basic auto insurance policies are written to cover liability and permissive user (should you lend your vehicle to someone who causes an accident). Add-ons include physical damage protection (for repairs), personal injury and medical coverage (for you and/or your passengers), comprehensive (for damage caused other than in an accident) and uninsured and underinsured motorist (for claims against a hit and run driver or one who does not have enough insurance to cover your claims). Further optional extras include reimbursement for a rental vehicle while yours is being replaced or repaired and roadside assistance.
Credits and/or discounts are offered to lower the cost of premiums. These include the insurance of both home and vehicle, or multiple vehicles, under one policy; having a clean driving record; having an anti-theft device; taking a course in accident prevention; and payment of the premium in full without using the company’s payment options scheme. Deductibles also lower the cost of the policy, so the higher the deductible chosen (the amount which policy holders have to pay before insurance steps in), the lower the premium payment will be.
History of Safeco
Hawthorne K. Dent founded the General Insurance Company of America in 1923 in Seattle, Washington, with the object of selling casualty and property insurance through the combination of an investor-owned stock with a mutual/policy-owned company. The model was mocked by some but succeeded.
In 1953, in an effort to compete more effectively with direct insurance writers, General Insurance started the Selective Auto and Fire Insurance Company of America, or Safeco. To this day the company still uses the original company name for some of its products.
Safeco began selling life insurance policies in 1957. In 1968, company changed its name from the General Insurance Company of America to Safeco Corporation and began offering commercial credit and mutual funds. In order to expand it field of operation, in 1997 Safeco purchased both the American States Financial Corporation and the WM Life Insurance Company which was part of Washington Mutual. Expanding further, the company then purchased the London-based R. F. Bailey (Underwriting Agencies) Limited two years later.
The company reorganized in 2001, when it sold off its commercial credit operations and, in 2004, it divested itself of its life insurance and investments business. The same year, in another sale, Safeco also let go of its insurance brokerage division. The sale of the Safeco Trust Company followed closely, together with the closure of Safeco Asset Management.
In 2006, Safeco sold its University District headquarters for $130 million to the University of Washington. Liberty Mutual then purchased Safeco in April of 2008, at a price of $68.25 per share, a total valued at $6.2 billion.
Financial Status of Safeco
The Safeco Corporation trades on the NYSE under the symbol SAF. A M Best, the internationally renowned rating agency for the insurance industry awarded the company an A (excellent) rating for its financial strength.Financial reports for the year ending December 2009 show that the company had sales of $4,916 million with a one year growth of 109.5%.
The company has over 4.3 million policyholders and has more than 9,000 employees, brokers and independent agents.
