Car Insurance

You have to pay close attention to replacement parts wording. Cheaper insurances often push after market replacement parts. More expensive insurances often default to replace with original manufacturer parts.

There's probably a ton of other reasons... but in my experiences, I've found this to often be the case.

 

Dont know where you live but check out https://www.freewayinsurance.com/ , they try to fine the cheapest insurance possible for your situation. The girl in north Houston helped me out, she nice girl, forget her name. Think they have a few offices all around Houston metro area.

 

Question, I had 2 weird accidents in the past 3 years and my car insurance (Allstate) almost doubled after the second one (minor damage), when you shop insurance do they ask you about previous accidents or how do they know if you abuse your insurance or not

 

I found that going through an insurance agency was cheaper than going directly to the insurer for some reason.

My wife and I are insured with Progressive for 2 cars (2006 Mazda 3, 2013 Ford Escape), full coverage, $500 deductible for $1416 per year if paid all at once. We have good driving record.

I used Suzanne Brown Insurance Agency.

 

Depending on where you are in your life, your income level, whether you own a home or have some savings: you may want to have more than the minimally required liability. Not just for the other person's car, but for bodily injury. Basically makes sure you don't go bankrupt if you are sued. Additional liability is usually the least expensive part to add.

Depending on the value of your car, you'll want to look at:

• Collision...is my own care covered
• Deductible
• Gap insurance...do I owe more than the car is worth...so if it was totaled, I could pay off the bank
• Uninsured motorist...if you live in Texas, there's lots of uninsured motorists driving around
• Comprehensive...covers non auto stuff...if you run into a tree or a pole and have to replace it
• Sometimes they tack on roadside assistance, that you may not need or may be covered through something else you have (credit card, warranty, etc.)

All of these can change the price of your premium.

 

So my policy's are coming up for renewal and getting quoted for 25-30% increases from last year for both my home and auto.

Tried looking through Costco just to get a base price, but they actually quoted for me even more. Is an agency the best way in not getting screwed outside of getting an STD for a payout?

Seriously frustrating to just be told it's "inflation".

 

I also use an agent. With my wife's small business and our own family situation, I buy a ****-ton of insurance so it makes a lot of sense for me to have an agent. But its useful because they can give me insight on what's the right amount of insurance to buy, what's the going rate, and what to look out for -- but it also means I don't have advice for this thread (except maybe to get an agent).

Insurance is a boil-the-frog business, it seems: they give you a good rate as a new customer, and then try to extract fatter margins on renewals. So every year on every policy, I ask my agent to shop it. I won't switch for a minor benefit because of the hassles of changing my autopay and things like that. But they'll usually find a cheaper policy, and sometimes a much cheaper one.

 

Definitely agreed on the boiling frog.

I actually had to change insurance agency and insurer this year. Sage Sure and Progressive was going to raise my HOI and car insurance by about 30% this year even though I had no claims. I ended up going with All-State found though a different insurance agency which brought the prices down to even lower than what they were last year.

I also have to vent about how bad some agents are at their job. My old insurance agent left when the agency got bought out by a bigger agency. The new agent who took over my account never contacted me with their contact info. That should've been the first sign that this person is not going to be on top of things.

I asked the agent to review my policy due to the price increase. A week goes by, nothing. Then I emailed her twice over a span of 5 days, no replies at all. Not even a reply saying that she received my email and is working on it. I got fed up after 2 weeks of radio silence and found a new agency who gave my options within 36 hours. When I emailed my old agent back saying that I don't need her to review anymore, she contacted me within 15 minutes asking me if I had already bound.

Maybe she was overloaded with other work, but an email reply saying that she needed more time would've been sufficient.

 

Lol.

I was with a small agency once and the principal decided to get our of that business and become a realtor instead. So she just dropped me. Which is fine, but when I got a new agent, we had to change a bunch of policies to make them my new agent of record. I needed to get some kind of release from the old agent, but she'd never respond to emails or voicemails. We managed to do some other forms to eventually get the new agent installed. But, I was surprised it was such a bureaucratic chore to switch agents. It's a effed up industry.

 

and we had our agent retire--our various insurance policies (almost all for vehicles, campers, etc) were split among four different new agents in the area. Talk about a pain in the ass. I think we've finally gotten them consolidated in one office again, but annoying. This is with State Farm.

 

Go talk to insurance brokers that deal with multiple insurance companies instead of just one. Save yourself the headache.