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Every year, millions of Americans spend a lot of time, effort, and money on their holiday shopping excursions, and often stop at multiple locations with trunks and back seats packed with gifts. This, unfortunately, can provide criminals a serious opportunity to steal a lot of valuable items from them in short order, and often provides a hard lesson in terms of what auto insurance does and doesn't cover. For this reason, insurance agents may want to talk to consumers about these realities before such an incident happens to them, so that they don't compound the distress theft victims already feel.

The sad fact is that for the vast majority of those people who are victimized by this sort of crime, their auto insurance policies won't cover those losses necessarily, according to a report from Consumer Reports. Often, if that kind of loss is covered at all, it would still typically fall under an insurance plan's deductible, and as such, unless the value of the stolen goods exceeds whatever that amount is, victims are probably not going to get any of that money back, more or less regardless of other circumstances.

Other instances
However, there may be ways for consumers to insulate themselves from such losses outside of their auto insurance plans, the report said. For instance, most credit card companies will cover items purchased using those accounts for a certain period of time - usually about 90 days - so that even if they are stolen, or damaged, the value can be recovered with relative ease (though certain limits will typically apply). However, as with auto insurance, consumers will have to consult their individual accounts to see how these issues will work.

The more insurance agents can do to help drivers understand all aspects of their auto insurance policies, and what these plans will actually cover in just about any common claims event, the better off both they and their clients are likely to be. That's because it will help people understand the kind of coverage add-ons they might need given the issues for which they might feel they are at particular risk. Moreover, agents who can develop strong ongoing relationships with their clients, as well as help find them the occasional discount when necessary, will often be the ones who also have the highest customer satisfaction and retention rates.

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