I'm going to be doing a lot of extended travel this coming year, so I researched ways to cut car expenses (I'm keeping my car for now).
With my provider (State Farm), I can effectively pause my car insurance - keeping comprehensive only just in case of a tree falling, theft, etc.) It costs me about $15 per month for comp only, compared to ~$110/mo for full coverage (I'm young). So, every day it's paused, I save about $3 on insurance premiums.
The really nice thing is that it's just a quick phone call to pause or re-activate coverage. I was told they are willing to pause it even for 24 hours, but obviously that probably isn't worth the hassle. But looking at even a 1-week trip when you're not going to be using your car, it becomes worthwhile and gives you $20 to spend on public transit or other transport in your destination city.
Plus, this technically keeps your insurance "active", even when it's paused. If you cancel insurance and are left uninsured (even if you don't own a car) your future rates may be higher when you do decide to get coverage again. So if you were doing extended travel, this might make more sense than cancelling coverage all together.
Now keep in mind:
- The car probably needs to be parked off-street, as this pauses uninsured driver coverage
- You won't have liability insurance for yourself, so this doesn't make sense if you'll be renting a car on vacation
- I'm sure every insurer has different rules, and some might not offer this at all
I suppose this could also make sense to do for 2-car households, where the 2nd car is only used occasionally. My agent told me she has people that call in most Friday's to activate coverage on their trucks for weekend use, and have coverage permanently paused Monday-Friday.
Anyways, I'm sure it varies significantly from provider to provider, but might be worth looking into for you travelers out there!