Car Insurance

Keys for cheap car insurance:
1) Don't be under 25, or it you are, be married
2) Don't have a shitty driving record
3) Don't live in the ghetto or near the heart of a large city

Honestly, theres no easy answer for cheap car insurance. I guarantee that you could search 100 companies today, go with the cheapest, and they won't be the cheapest a year from today. Every companies rates change constantly. If someone wanted to, they could probably change insurance every single year and find someone cheaper every single time.

Had Progressive, wife and I both totaled out our cars within 6 months of each other. Rates sky rocketed. Switched to GMAC insurance for a year. Went back to Progressive, because their rates were still the cheapest, and easiest to work with.

Also, here in Phoenix AZ Progressive are one of the easiest people to work with according to the body shops I've spoken with.

I have Allstate. Also for my motorcycle and home owner's insurance. Get hefty discounts for all the policies at one place. My wife had a car insurance claim once a few years ago, premiums didn't go up. We pay 1400$ per year for a car, mini van, and motorcycle, so just under 117$ per month for three vehicles.

Neither of us has ever had a single speeding ticket, and between the two of us we have one accident (we were not at fault) total for our entire time driving.

Also your credit has a lot to do with it, if your credit blows you are going to pay a ton for insurance. And not just homeowners, most major companies use credit for autos now too.

People with bad credit tend to file more claims and get in more at fault accidents.

Or are more likely to file fraudulent/questionable claims because they don't have the money to fix minor issues themselves. There's also a lot of issues with lawsuits and liability for people who constantly let their insurance cancel for non payment, and have gaps in coverage(which people with bad credit often do, they aren't real good at paying bills reliably)

You wouldnt believe the amount of people who let their insurance run out, but then call us up the night before a forecasted snow storm, or call us the day after a huge hail storm just came through town and now they're in a real big hurry to get coverage again. Insurance companies hate those types of customers, they're more trouble than they are worth, so they charge them accordingly.

Actuaries have found that credit scores are the most predictive indicatiors of future claims. The idea is that folks who typicaly do not pay thier bills on time are less responsible when meeting thier financial obligations. In many juristictions (in canada at least) they can not penalize someone for a low score but they provide a discount for those with good scores, since insurance works in a pool, not geting a credit is basicly a surcharge =D.

Sucks if you lose your job and tank your score, but i guess they figure your level of care is less if you dont/cant pay your bills. I would imagine that can be a slippery slope for some very vulnerable people. The poor pay more and the rich pay less. Stats are Stats and insurance companies dont make these calls becouse it "feels right"



Back to the actual Car insurance question, make sure you get some pricing on increaseing your Liability limits. It can often be pretty inexpensive to add more liability and buying the state mins does not protect your finanical future. I wish people would realize car insurance is not "something i need to drive my car without a ticket" but rather "something i need to protect my family from catastoprhic financial loss" Hit some kids while you check your phone, they could very well own your house and your kids college fund.

This thread got me to shop around, got a quote first from progressive where I'd save about 200/year, then with esurance to save even more.

Been a geico customer for 8 years (active duty military/federal employee, assumed it would always be the cheapest rate because it used to be), But I'm basically paying the same amount now as I was when I was 25 (although I carry a lot more coverage, 250k/500k with 500 deductibles on comp/collision paying 550/6 month before discounts 31 single male, 2009 bmw 3 series.

Man, if you are military go with USAA. I don't know anyone in the military that doesn't use USAA, their rates are usually amazing.

The Edge_sl said:

Who's the cheapest? Mine just got raised to $200/mo when it was $130 just 2 years ago. Fuck that.

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You aren't going to find that answer on any forum or website. This is something you need to do because every insurance will have different rates in different cities. There's a lot of factors at play, so the only want to find out is for YOU to call each one and find out what rate they will give YOU. Also, you should shop around about once a year.

Never pay your insurance monthly. Always do twice a year or one lump sum. For me it basically saves me 1 month of insurance cost so it's like I'm only paying 11 months.

I know most people here are probably doing this but everyone talks about how much they pay monthly which made me wonder.

My company charges an extra $1 a month service fee to pay monthly(waived if its auto-withdrawal), with no discount for paying 6 or 12 months. So worst case scenario, if we have to manually mail you a bill every month, it costs you $12 a year.

I have heard of some companies charging as much as $5 extra per month to pay monthly though, fuck that, that's ridiculous.

The problem with progressive/geico/state farm is they love to use aftermarket parts. I use progressive cause it's the cheapest but I also do body work so I'm not worried about a proper repair on my car.

I used to work for a shop in AZ that had progressive concierge service(you drop off at their location and they handle the rest) and that was one of the worst things I've seen. They constantly had us doing improper repairs because they wouldn't pay for a new bumper or they would break a part and then blame it on prior damage, all while refusing to pay decent rates for the repairs.

Tl :dr you get what you pay for with insurance.

Soygen_sl said:

You don't have to take your car to a progressive concierge. I had work done by my mechanic and then progressive cut us the check.

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I know you don't but a lot of people are clueless about how auto body repair process works. It all depends on your adjuster too, our shop is known for quality so when our progressive guy comes in he won't argue with us refusing to use aftermarket/used parts but when I worked at a Saturn/nissan body shop(with concierge)about half the cars we did had used and aftermarket crap on it and since it goes through progressive, we never could contact the customer to get them to bitch so we could use oem parts.