For the past few years, DW and I had car insurance with Allstate. We have two cars, a no-longer-new hybrid and an old 200,000-mile beater that used to be my parents' daily commuting car, that they gave us when they retired to use as a backup vehicle.
For comprehensive on the main car and liability-only on the beater, we've been paying $300+ a month. I know, I know, facepunches are in order. That amount nagged at me every time I saw it on the bill, I knew it was a lot, I just never got around to doing the research for a replacement. I told myself that the one or two times we actually needed them, Allstate was very helpful.
Then I got an e-mail about an alumni discount program with Liberty Mutual. That was the kick in the rear I needed, so I got an online quote and it turned out we could get the same coverage for $175 a month. Almost half the price!
I told my Allstate agent about my competing offer and gave them the chance to match it. They couldn't, although they offered to slash their price - but in a way, that just ticked me off more. They could have been charging me less this whole time, but they would've happily let me go on paying top dollar forever if I hadn't taken action. Loyalty doesn't pay in this business, clearly.
I just switched, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing the new, lower monthly payment. The only part I'm not sure about is that Liberty is offering further discounts if we let them send us a hardware dongle and plug it into our dashboard so it can send back information on how safely we drive.
My Mustachian side likes the idea of saving money, but my civil-libertarian side thinks this is a creepy reach into our privacy. Anyone done one of these programs with their insurer? Would you suggest we try it?