QOTD: How Are You Saving On Car Insurance?

After great rates with USAA for about 30 years, my bill climbed $1,000 a year for three years in a row. No accidents ever, no claims of any sort. I thought my loyalty might be worth something. I have Progressive for my motorcycles, so I switched the cars to Progressive in 2021 and went back down to about $2K a year. It has since gone up to over $3K a year, but it is still much lower than where I ended up with USAA. It might be time to shop around again.

How am I saving? I'm not. I learned something last year about auto insurance, you know the itemized invoice they send you on renewal with a price per vehicle? Its completely bogus! There is a minimum floor they have calculated which you will never drop below despite whatever per unit cost you are shown.

Case in point, had newish Corolla and GP at I think $1,400ish with full tort, the Corolla was listed something to the effect of $869 and the GP the remainder. I sold the GP and dropped it, guess what? The new invoice wasn't for $869, nope was $1100ish. I call and say WTH and the broker explained additional cars are added as a discount after the first, hence it dropping $3 bills, but their itemized lists aren't accurate. So instead of listing the truth with Car 1 at X and Car 2 discounted at Y, you're displayed imaginary per unit figures for reasons I cannot comprehend other than to be deceitful.

My insurance through Nationwide had been steadily increasing over time, so I’d usually b!tch to my agent about it (she is a real crackerjack, as you’ll read), but it was usually the result of the Harvey or Irma premium, or something like that!

This last renewal, the premium went through the roof, and I was going to call my agent, but just got busy at work! Lo and behold, the increase was flagged in her system, and she essentially rewrote and requoted the policy with a different Nationwide arm, and not only saved me $200 per year on the exact same auto coverage as the previous policy, but $100 on my condo insurance! I was literally going to open the Nationwide app and schedule the payment for the end of the month (about three weeks from that day), but opened my Email program first, and there was the message from my Nationwide agent with the new figures!

Had been with State Farm since 1981. Stayed with them as I moved around the country as part of the career. Then in 2017, the car, home owners, and umbrella jumped like crazy. Since I live in a litigatious state (Louisiana) where homeowners and auto are sky high, GEICO accepted me on the condition they got the whole package (auto, umbrella, home owners) with a 20% savings. Then, again, GEICO hit me hard with the home owners and auto in 2022 (Hurricane Ida). After spending several days on the phone, got an Allstate agent to take me provided he got all three policies with some savings.

For auto, the condition was I carry their app on my phone which monitors my driving habits. As an example, instead of driving directly home one evening, I zigged zagged thru my neighborhood looking for my lost cat. No sooner had I walked thru my door, I got a text requesting that I confirm the path I took with a corresponding map of my route. Same thing happen while I was on a trip in France. I put the phone in airplane mode to avoid overseas charges while using WhatsApp to communicate with the folks back home. As I stood in line at Customs in Houston, I got a text message informing me I had been off line for several days…please confirm.