Finance & Insurance

COVID-19 may have severely curbed car-shopper demand, but for those in need of a new car, the “buy now” signals are glaring. The incentive du jour is 0 percent for 84 months, which the market hasn’t ever really seen in high volume. For lenders, interest-free financing is attractive: Lending money …

Volkswagen Credit Inc. will waive up to six months of payments, up to $ 750 per month, for qualified customers who purchase a new vehicle and lose their job because of the coronavirus outbreak. “This global pandemic and the economic uncertainty that came with it has many of us facing …

Aggressive incentives didn’t prevent new-vehicle demand from falling by double digits in March, but J.D. Power believes they allowed the Detroit 3 to take their largest slice of new-vehicle sales since 2006. Since launching a wave of incentives that includes 0 percent interest rates on seven-year loans, the Detroit 3 …

JM&A Group, one of the largest independent providers of finance and insurance products, is sharing findings from a multiyear pilot of virtual F&I sales to dealerships looking to adopt the best strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program, which launched in September 2018, aimed to capture F&I sales from customers …

Legions of representatives, trainers and specialists travel to dealerships across the country every year, visiting personnel and conducting training sessions. Adjusting to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic has been difficult for many of these companies that, just as many of the dealership clients they serve, have pivoted entirely online …

A few months ago, virtual finance and insurance presentations were little more than rumors in the auto retail world. Select dealerships were piloting digital presentations and a handful of F&I product companies and dealer service programs were conducting tests in limited markets. But the spread of COVID-19 shocked the U.S. …

EFG Cos., the finance-and-insurance product provider that backed the Hyundai Assurance Program during the Great Recession, is relaunching its program that covers the negative equity of a vehicle returned because of an unexpected job loss. The move is among many strategies auto finance companies are employing to generate dealership traffic …

During the coronavirus, remote vehicle deliveries are essential. But as dealerships become accustomed to remote e-signing tools and customers stay away for fear of endangering themselves or their families, will contact-free car sales become more normalized? Among the software companies offering free or reduced-price services during the COVID-19 closures, finance-and-insurance …

U.S. insurer Allstate Corp. said on Monday that it would return more than $ 600 million in auto insurance premiums to customers as many Americans stay home and drive less due to “shelter-in-place” orders to curb the coronavirus outbreak. Most customers will receive a “payback” of 15 percent of their monthly …