So, I'm looking at my car insurance bill for the first time in several years (my father was paying my insurance for years and just never really stopped paying it, so I haven't seen a bill in many years and never really paid attention to how much it cost), and I can't believe how expensive it is to insure my car. When I got the policy, it was roughly $150 per month, but at the time, I had two recent tickets and was still under 25 years old, so it was expected to be high. Within a year, it went down to about $100 per month for full coverage (with high deductibles since I was leasing at the time). So, I thought it stayed in that same general area, maybe even a little cheaper now that I wasn't driving a big 8 cyl. truck. But I add it all up today, and it's back to over $150 per month. So, I go online and see the payment history, and my payments jumped $70 per month in October of 2001. I have no idea what caused this jump. I didn't receive any tickets during that time (my last ticket was in 1998), hadn' t had any accidents. Nothing to justify the big jump. And then calling them today, they confirm that there's no accidents or tickets or anything, that's just how much it costs now to be insured with these guys. So, I start checking with other companies, and EVERYBODY is considerably cheaper, and they're cheaper even with higher coverage (I don't have uninsured motorist coverage in my current policy. I included it for the quotes from others). The cheapest I found (GEICO) was about $85 per month, less than 60% what it costs me currently to get less coverage. So needless to say, I'm switching. But I have no idea what happened to make the payments jump so much in October, 2001 (I mean, other than the 9/11 thing, but surely that didn't affect my car coverage to such an extreme).
the scene is a movie theatre where several people are around Nomar:"mrpaige, I have some good news for you." mrpaige: "What's that, Nomar? You like my new movie?" Nomar: with incredulous look on his face"No, I don't like much of anything but I did save all kinds of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico!!"
Farmers. Interestingly, I got a check from them for about five hundred dollars at one point (I guess it was the summer of 2002), but I never knew what it was about. It just said "refund" or something like that on it. I didn't worry about it and just cashed the check.
I had been with State Farm for about 17 years. When I bought my '04 TL, they told me I'd be paying about $1000 every 6 months. I've only got one ticket on my record and that was back in something like 1990 or something. They said part of the reason is because I lived in one of the most expensive areas in the state to cover (either the whole Dallas area or Dallas county, can't remember which). I said "thanks, but I'm sure I could beat that". I went to GEICO and one other insurance company that I don't recall and they both wanted around $800-$900 or so, too. That's when I started doing some research and found out that Costco and American Express do auto insurance. I called them up and asked how much to insure the '04 TL for the same coverage I was getting with State Farm. They said around $630-$670. I said "are you sure??" They said, "yup". I needed a Costco card. I found 2 stackable coupons on the Internet for a Costco membership. I got the card for something like $10 or $20. I called up the Costco/Amex phone number on their site and I was insured for about $630. If you have a bad driving record or even anything wrong with your record in the past 5 years, you may not be able to get coverage, though, but it's worth it to try.
I'm with USAA. Absolutely awesome rates and at the end of every year, we get a nice $100-$300 check back, depeding on their premium/claim ratio. For my home owner's insurance, 2002 Pathfinder, 2004 Yukon, 2002 GMC truck and 99 Sunfire, I pay only $280 a month.
