Author Topic: Car and House Insurance  (Read 3766 times)

Mrs SimplestHappiness

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Car and House Insurance
« on: August 11, 2017, 09:53:40 AM »
Hi all - seeking some input to reduce our home and cars insurance costs which I believe are very high currently.
Some background:
2 cars: 2013 Subaru Crosstrek, 2015 Chevy Volt.
House: 1800 sq ft, valued at about $165000.
We live in Michigan. Husband and I in our 30s, no accident record or anything like that.

We currently have Liberty Mutual and we pay $1647 for the cars and $763 for our house so $2410/ year.

Questions:
Who do you use for insurance? we will be getting some quotes soon
how much would be reasonable to expect? I could give more details on what is covered if needed.

thanks so much in advance for your responses!!
« Last Edit: August 11, 2017, 09:55:16 AM by Mrs SimplestHappiness »

BrandNewPapa

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Re: Car and House Insurance
« Reply #1 on: August 11, 2017, 10:19:51 AM »
I am currently using USAA. Definitely check them out if you are eligible. You/spouse or your/spouse's parents/grandparents must have served in the US armed forces (any branch).

I'm currently shopping around for both as well. USAA has been very good. Not always the cheapest (usually second cheapest), but their service is great. I live in central Ohio in 1800 sq ft home valued at ~200k and drive 2014 volt, wife has an 08 Scion. So we are very similar.

We pay 1068/year for home and ~1100/year for auto. Definitely shop around, you can probably save a few hundred. I have noticed many insurance companies charge a premium for hybrid and plug in hybrid cars. Not sure why. When I got my volt my current company wanted to increase my rate over $600/year when moving from a similar gas vehicle. Crazy.

I just got a Geico quote for home and it was 690/year. Still need to check auto.

Mrs SimplestHappiness

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Re: Car and House Insurance
« Reply #2 on: August 11, 2017, 10:43:54 AM »
I am currently using USAA. Definitely check them out if you are eligible. You/spouse or your/spouse's parents/grandparents must have served in the US armed forces (any branch).

I'm currently shopping around for both as well. USAA has been very good. Not always the cheapest (usually second cheapest), but their service is great. I live in central Ohio in 1800 sq ft home valued at ~200k and drive 2014 volt, wife has an 08 Scion. So we are very similar.

We pay 1068/year for home and ~1100/year for auto. Definitely shop around, you can probably save a few hundred. I have noticed many insurance companies charge a premium for hybrid and plug in hybrid cars. Not sure why. When I got my volt my current company wanted to increase my rate over $600/year when moving from a similar gas vehicle. Crazy.

I just got a Geico quote for home and it was 690/year. Still need to check auto.

thanks for your input! yes, we just got the Volt last month and got rid of a Toyota Corolla 2002 and is seems like our insurance is now about $60 higher per month. Still love the Volt ($16k with 20000 miles, too bad we don't have the Colorado or CA incentives or we would have gotten a new one)  and how my husband charges it for free at work but we didn't think the increase would be this much higher. We will shop around and update here.

inline five

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Re: Car and House Insurance
« Reply #3 on: August 11, 2017, 10:54:50 AM »
It's al going to vary based on your level of coverages.

Best thing you can do is increase the deductibles to lower costs. Your cars are too new right now for liability only coverage unfortunately, that saves me around $240/yr on one of our cars. Second car will be liability only in the next few years as its value drops.

I went from a 50/100 policy to 300/500 plus a $1m umbrella with increase in salaries and net worth but back when we didn't have much my coverages were fairly low.

bortman

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Re: Car and House Insurance
« Reply #4 on: August 11, 2017, 08:55:37 PM »
I'm in Michigan and just yesterday switched from Allstate to Progressive for auto insurance. DW and I have been in Michigan since 2013. We've been with Allstate for at least 15 years and stuck with them until yesterday. Our rates for one car (2004 Subaru Forester) were getting out of control -- just over $1200/year. We're still shopping for new house insurance.

We bought a second car this week (2005 Toyota Matrix) and Allstate wanted to double our rates to $2400/year.

We've made no claims in the past 10 years, and both of us have clean driving records. Previous claims were very minor.

I asked my local Allstate office why our rates are so high and they just tell me that it's because Michigan is an expensive auto insurance state. That's true, but I feel Allstate was gouging us because we hadn't switched companies for a long time. As well, they could never give us more specific reasons for our rising rates, and gave vague answers to all our "what if" questions. Progressive's CSR's were comparatively competent.

So, we got a quote from Progressive for both the Subaru and Toyota. $583 $599 total for both cars, with the same coverages we had with Allstate. We have comprehensive and collision, which is probably dumb for cars this age.

Our deductibles with Progressive break down like this:

2004 Subaru Forester
Personal Protection Insurance (PIP) $300 deductibile
Comprehensive $100 deductible
Broad Form Collision $250 deductible
Comprehensive $250 deductible
Broad Form Collision $250 deductible


2005 Toyota Matrix
Personal Protection Insurance (PIP) $300 deductible
Comprehensive $500 deductible
Broad Form Collision $500 deductible
Comprehensive $250 deductible
Broad Form Collision $250 deductible

As I'm typing this I'm unclear on why deductibles are different for each car. DW got the quote and made the switch. I'll ask her about this and post back.


Edited to reflect DW making deductables the same for both cars 4 days after we first signed up with Progressive. Our rate with old deductables was $583. Now it's $599 for 6 months.

hth



« Last Edit: August 14, 2017, 05:23:11 PM by bortman »

cchrissyy

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Re: Car and House Insurance
« Reply #5 on: August 11, 2017, 10:57:05 PM »
wow, those sound very high to me.
maybe because your deductible is set so low.
anyway, I'm in CA and use Amica and pay much less than that for a house and car that are worth more.

Monkey Uncle

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Re: Car and House Insurance
« Reply #6 on: August 12, 2017, 04:26:39 AM »
Your homeowner's insurance sounds pretty reasonable.  As inlinefive noted, your cars are too new to go to liability-only coverage, which hampers your ability to reduce the auto insurance.  Do you drive one car less than the other?  If so, consider swapping it for an older car that's worth less than 10k so you can drop the collision/comprehensive on that one.  Why did you get rid of the Corolla?  That would have been the perfect old car to keep until it dies.

Beyond that, shop around.  Insurance companies (especially Liberty Mutual, in my experience) have a habit of bumping your premium up a little at every renewal until one day you wake up and say, "how the hell did my car insurance get so expensive?!"  I used to have Liberty Mutual insurance, and after several years of that kind of treatment, I called them up and asked why they kept raising my premiums when we had never had any tickets or accidents.  Their answer basically amounted to "because we can."  So I shopped around and got a quote that was about half what they were charging.  They would not meet it, so we switched.  The agent had the gall to act aggrieved when I told her I was cancelling the policy.  LOL.

bortman

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Re: Car and House Insurance
« Reply #7 on: August 12, 2017, 08:10:32 AM »
Regarding Michigan's high auto insurance rates ...

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/01/michigan_auto_insurance_third.html

Quote
The culprit, as some see it, is Michigan's no-fault auto insurance system, which provides for unlimited lifetime medical benefits for car crash victims. Michiganders pay a $160-per-vehicle fee to the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association, which then reimburses auto insurers for auto crash-related medical costs that exceed $545,000.

YttriumNitrate

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Re: Car and House Insurance
« Reply #8 on: August 12, 2017, 10:28:39 AM »
I'm in Michigan and just yesterday switched from Allstate to Progressive for auto insurance. DW and I have been in Michigan since 2013. We've been with Allstate for at least 15 years and stuck with them until yesterday. Our rates for one car (2004 Subaru Forester) were getting out of control -- just over $1200/year. We're still shopping for new house insurance.
Interestingly, I just switched to Allstate last month because State Farm's rates were getting out of control. My new home owner's insurance is less than half of State Farm with the same coverage. Of course, as others have pointed out these rates are pseudo-introductory rates and I'll need to switch again in a few years.

Is there any service that will automatically renegotiate/switch your insurance/internet/phone every year? Even it was $100 or $200 a year it would still save most people a ton of money.

T-Money$

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Re: Car and House Insurance
« Reply #9 on: August 12, 2017, 04:03:30 PM »
We had Geico for Auto and Amica for Home.

We switched to Erie Insurance for both.

BrandNewPapa

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Re: Car and House Insurance
« Reply #10 on: August 14, 2017, 10:50:04 AM »
Update, after more investigation, I've made the switch to Geico for both home and auto.

Saving $654/year for nearly the same coverage.

I made two changes, dropped rental car coverage (in-laws moved into town with 3 cars, we could borrow one for a few weeks in a pinch), and upped my deductible from 500 to 1000. Doing these two things would only save me a few bucks with USAA, so I'm still counting the full $654 savings.

runewell

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Re: Car and House Insurance
« Reply #11 on: August 14, 2017, 11:12:01 AM »
Esurance

patchyfacialhair

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Re: Car and House Insurance
« Reply #12 on: August 14, 2017, 11:20:04 AM »
FYI for everyone reading this thread: Auto insurance is, for the most part, very easy to get comparison quotes for apples-to-apples shopping. Line the numbers up, see what the resulting premiums are, then make a decision from there based on what's important to you (price and customer service, etc.)

Home insurance: Please understand that it's not just about the amounts of coverage, but how losses are settled that are extremely important to understand. For example, when we purchased our home 6 months ago, I received quotes as low as $700/yr up to $3500/yr. All the amounts of coverage "looked" similar, but the lowest quotes were for policies that settled on Actual Cash Value (ACV) basis, as opposed to the more robust Replacement Cost Coverage basis (RCC).

ACV takes into account depreciation, whereas RCC doesn't, since RCC pays whatever is needed to make you whole again at today's prices. Let's say a hailstorm comes and damages your roof. Let's say you have a 30 year roof that's 15 years old, and costs $10,000 to completely replace. With ACV, you'll be paid $5,000 for the loss, minus your deductible. With RCC, you'll be paid $10,000 minus your deductible.

I'm not advocating for RCC over ACV, but I'm advocating that you research and understand what you were quoted, so you're not surprised should a claim occur.

Source: used to be a licensed agent

Mrs SimplestHappiness

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Re: Car and House Insurance
« Reply #13 on: August 15, 2017, 09:51:56 AM »
thanks all for your responses! I got a quote from Progressive and it is about $500 less with slightly better coverage for auto (includes rentals which I don't think we currently have) and slightly higher coverage for the home insurance too. The savings might be even higher once we decide on which deductibles to increase. The other quotes I got are from Esurance and State Farm which are higher than what we currently have. My husband is getting a couple quotes also and then we switch. Definitely worth doing this for the savings!

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!