Summer Road Trip Safety and Gas Card Giveaway

I love summer road trips! Just pile the family in the car and get away from it all. summer road trips create wonderful family memories. With the middle of summer coming up, families are ready to have some fun. Whether it is a few hours away or thousands of miles away, summer road trips are the epitome of summer.

Auto.InsureUonline.org has some great timely and useful tips to offer summer travelers. They are also sponsoring this giveaway for a $50 Shell gift card. Even with high gas prices, eight out of 10 Americans say they are planning to take a vacation this summer and 38 percent of travelers say they won’t be changing plans because of high gas prices. But before you get on the road, National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) can help you make sure your car – and car insurance – is ready for the journey.

Do you know what your car insurance actually covers? According to an April 2011 NAIC survey, 40 percent of Americans incorrectly believe their car insurance will cover the replacement of personal items stolen from their vehicle and one-third of Americans believe their auto insurance automatically covers a rental car. To help you overcome these misconceptions, NAIC has five tips for a stress-free summer road trip. You’re probably an expert at planning travel games, packing snacks, organizing the driving route, and securing the perfect road trip music playlist, but don’t forget about the car. By following these recommendations, you’ll have time to focus on the more important things…like getting your kids to behave in the backseat.


1. Confirm your car insurance is active and premiums are up-to-date. Have a current copy of your insurance card in the car.

2. Check to see if your policy includes roadside assistance. You can be covered for towing, fuel delivery, lockout service, jump-starts and more.

3. If renting a car, check if your current policy includes coverage, and verify limitations with your agent. Some credit cards offer rental coverage, so check with your credit card company to determine if that is an option.

4. If rental car coverage is not included in your policy, consider adding an insurance rider for a small fee or purchasing coverage from the rental car company. Make sure you don’t duplicate benefits from your existing auto, health or home insurance policy.

5. Verify your homeowners or renters insurance covers the theft of personal items from a car, especially if you are planning to carry expensive items in your car such as golf clubs, video or digital cameras or laptops.


True personal experience: I have some friends whose family went on vacation to Yellowstone National Park several years ago. In Yellowstone, they were involved in multiple fender bender accident. Basically they hit the person in front of them who hit the person in front of then and so on. They thought that their car insurance covered the rental car. It did not fully cover the rental car. They settled with the rental car company for about $1,500 !! That can put a big huge dent in your vacation budget.

Insurance isn't fun to talk about or very glamorous. But when you are involved in a accident or theft, you will be very glad that you remembered to double check your auto insurance coverage. You can get more car insurance information at Auto.InsureUonline.org.

*Disclosure: I received a $50 Shell Gas Card for this my review but opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced in any way.


Giveaway Time: One winner will receive a $50 Shell gas gift card.

Mandatory entry: Tell me where you are going on vacation this summer or where you wish that you could go if you could afford it.

Extra Entries: You can do one or all of the following items. Please leave a comment for each item that you completed. If an item is worth more than 1 entry then leave more than one comment.

• Visit Auto.InsureUonline.org and then leave a comment telling me something that you learned.

• Follow my blog Smart Cents Mom(see the left sidebar to sign up). Already a Follower, that counts too.

• Follow Smart Cents Mom on Twitter (current followers count)

• Tweet about this giveaway and leave the link.

• Subscribe to Smart Cents Mom blog email or RSS feed(see left sidebar to sign up). Current subscribers count too.

• Blog about this giveaway and leave a link to your post.

Giveaway is open to United States residents only. The giveaway ends on Sunday July 10th at 11:59 CST. Winner will be chosen using a random number generator. Winner will be posted on this blog and notified by email. The winners will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be drawn. Please make sure that you leave your email address in your comment or in your profile so I can contact you if you win.