Insurance

[Pinecone]

Originally Posted by wdc330i

Yes. We used to have Chubb for homeowners' insurance, but their auto insurance was always crazy high (through a third party, I think.) So we stuck with USAA for auto. We just recently dumped Chubb for homeowners' too, because of a big bump in premiums.

Why would you not use USAA for home also?

I remember when we bought our house, we went to closing with a telegram from USAA stating the house was insured.

When we arrived, the closing agent was talking to us, making sure we had everything we needed. And he got to an insurance policy, and I told him I had a telegram. He started into how they needed the policy, we could not close without it, etc, etc, etc. I said I have USAA, he smiled and said, "That's the one exception."

[rumatt]

Bump. My rates kept going up (despite never filing a claim) so I finally shopped around for insurance.

I was shocked at how much variation I saw in the prices. Amica wanted 2.6X (yes, almost three times) what I'm currently paying. I asked the guy if something was wrong and he said, "Well you're a single person who owns 4 cars. What do you expect?"

In the end, Geico destroyed everyone else. My home insurance is also Geico (outsourced to Liberty Mutual) so bundling dropped the home insurance bya full 20% and the auto by 3%.

So I signed on the line and switched both houses and all the cars (except the porsce) to Geico. The total savings was 26%

I am baffled by the people who say service matters more than price. It's clearly critical that the company is real and not a scam. But the odds are incredibly likely that you will be paying far more in your life than you ever ask for back. Optimizing for the (statistically) smaller number makes no sense. Also, googling any insurance company produces hundreds of people saying they are evil and refuse to pay, as well as reports of them being very positive experiences (including Geico). How valuable are these anecdotal stories?

[bren]

Last year my broker guy actually called me out of the blue to ask if I wanted to cut my bill by 1/3 and switch to a new company. Um, yes please.

[wdc330i]

I think you just want a solid rating. State Farm, GEICO, AIG, Chubb, USAA are all decently solid. And there are probably more.

We always go with a high deductible, because it makes no sense to file small claims. Also, a trail of claims will come up when you try to sell your house. Especially risky to claim are water issues, etc. Because then your next buyer may not be able to get a mortgage or their own insurance for fear of mold issues.

At any rate, bundling is usually the way to go. We recently unbundled our umbrella from our homeowners because my spouse got a better rate through her law firm. Our cars are with USAA because their rate is better than bundling with our homeowners. AIG is our homeowners because USAA caps out on maximum home value (to answer Pinecone's two-year-old question )

Congrats on saving 20%. That's huge (reasons to keep the Cayman are growing )

[rumatt]

Originally Posted by wdc330i

Congrats on saving 20%. That's huge (reasons to keep the Cayman are growing )

That was just the house savings. The total insurance bill drop was 26% The Cayman part of the bill dropped by 54%

I'm thinking of keeping it.

[JST]

Originally Posted by rumatt

Bump. My rates kept going up (despite never filing a claim) so I finally shopped around for insurance.

I was shocked at how much variation I saw in the prices. Amica wanted 2.6X (yes, almost three times) what I'm currently paying. I asked the guy if something was wrong and he said, "Well you're a single person who owns 4 cars. What do you expect?"

In the end, Geico destroyed everyone else. My home insurance is also Geico (outsourced to Liberty Mutual) so bundling dropped the home insurance bya full 20% and the auto by 3%.

So I signed on the line and switched both houses and all the cars (except the porsce) to Geico. The total savings was 26%

I am baffled by the people who say service matters more than price. It's clearly critical that the company is real and not a scam. But the odds are incredibly likely that you will be paying far more in your life than you ever ask for back. Optimizing for the (statistically) smaller number makes no sense. Also, googling any insurance company produces hundreds of people saying they are evil and refuse to pay, as well as reports of them being very positive experiences (including Geico). How valuable are these anecdotal stories?

Given the number of claims I've had to file, I'm actually not sure how the economics work out for me. But I've found that shopping around for insurance every few years is a good idea, especially on those occasions where your situation changes.

[Josh (PA)]

Originally Posted by wdc330i

We have USAA. I haven't always loved their decisions, but they've always eventually paid and covered OEM parts.

Us too. I doubt they're the cheapest, but they have taken care of every home and auto issue we've had with a low degree of hassle (especially for insurance). I recommend them to anyone that can use them.

Edit: I stopped reading when I saw WDC's post and didn't realize this thread was sooooo old and that I made basically the same post in 2015... Oh well.

[ff]

Originally Posted by rumatt

My rates kept going up (despite never filing a claim) so I finally shopped around for insurance.

Mine have gone through the roof. I'm paying in the neighborhood of 250% more than I was 10 years ago. Despite having a clean record and being claim free. Part of that is due to going from married to single (why should that matter?), and the other, bigger part is living in a state with lots of accidents, and an endless supply of auto accident-related lawsuits.

Originally Posted by rumatt

In the end, Geico destroyed everyone else.

I need to request a quote from them.

[wdc330i]

Of course, this thread caused me to look up what we pay for car insurance. It's about $3,000 a year for three high-value cars in a high-claims area.

$1,000 deductible for each.

$500,000 per person/per accident bodily injury;

$100,000 property damage liability.

These numbers are causing me to double check our new umbrella liability policy to make sure there is no scary gap. Because ATL has some very high value cars zooming around.

We have rental reimbursement on everything but the Boxster. And we have a 20% "car replacement assistance" rider on all three cars. This is added onto the 'actual cash value' of the car, should a "total loss" occur. That's about $100 a year for all three cars.

My 2 is the cheapest to insure, followed by the SUV (which is a year older), then the Porsche.

[ff]

Originally Posted by wdc330i

Of course, this thread caused me to look up what we pay for car insurance. It's about $3,000 a year for three high-value cars in a high-claims area.

That doesn't sound bad. I pay $1860 a year. For a Honda Accord.