Among Friends

[Moonchilde]

The rates for companies who use agents are very often, if not nearly always, higher than dealing with an insurance company directly. I haven't used anything but online & mail companies for at least 35 years. I've had claims (the other guy's fault) over the years and none of the companies gave me any sort of hassle, or were not diligent on my behalf. And the rates are definitely lower.

[sunshine45]

i prefer to have an insurance broker and he goes above and beyond for us.

i have his office and personal number on my cell phone.

for many years we dealt directly with nationwide insurance.

our insurance broker checked out many different insurance options and got us the best deal with higher coverage and lower premiums. he also does not mind checking rates out yearly if i ask him. right now we are with ERIE insurance and bundled.....home, autos, umbrella policy.

[Boomerdotty]

Saved a bunch on car insurance by dropping agent and buying through AARP membership directly. Same exact coverage.  It's worth the hassle to shop around every few years.  Good luck!

[viva923]

car insurance is outrageous, but we have to have insurance to drive.

dh and i just increased our car insurance up. We had standard full coverage. We increased to much high payouts. We have full coverage on both cars and both cars are 14 yrs old and 6 yrs old.

reason is why we increased our insurance is. Our neighbor was involved in a car accident, she was stopped at red light, a lady plowed into her. She had whip lash and had to have surgery 2x's. well because the lady only had low standard insurance and i believe my neighbor said the lady driver only had comprehensive on her car. Now that lawyers have begun working on car accident to pay out bills. If i understood my neighbor lady her car insurance has is going after the lady for all the money that is still owed for bills for hospital,surg,and so forth.  The driver who hit my neighbor lady the car driver hitter car insurance she had was used up for surgeries my neighbor lady had and hospital stays (ICU 2x's) and so forth. So neighbor lady car insurance is going to sue the driver for the remaining money owed to pay the remainder of the bills owed.  

When I heard that dh and I talked about it and increased our coverage from just the standard to heavier coverage for both our cars.

our monthly payments increased some but nothing to drastic. We just feel better if something happens we are better covered.

[happycat]

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@Mom2Dogs wrote:

I recently had a conversation with our agent, he handles home, auto and our business.  I noticed that our homeowners jumped quite a bit this year and he said it is because the company does not like our $250 deductilble and are probably trying to get us to leave or up the deductible to $1000....but during the course of the conversation he told me since we had such a good credit score he could get our auto insurance lowered by $100.00!!  ..so long story short, when looking for another company see if that is a possibility for you.

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Well, we have good credit, have home and our 3 autos on it. Goes up every year. Nothing have ever been said about getting better rate due to good credit. I will be calling them.

[CelticCrafter]

You need to shop around.

We saved a lot of money by bundling the homeowners, umbrella and auto insurance with one company.

The reason direct writers are less expensive is because they aren't paying independent agents commissions.

[kitty60]

Went through the insurance exercise a few years ago after being with the same company 40 years.  We have all kinds of insurance, home, auto, umbrella, rental properties, special coverage etc.  It is so easy to get in the rut of staying with one company, espcially when you don't have any claims.  Just seems so much easier.  To the point of the high performance car, while most of DH vehicles are older collectibles, he added a high performance new vehicle last year.  Was ready to faint...came in the same price as our every day Nissan!  Go figure...

[Bird mama]

@Katcat1  I live in Michigan.  

Anyone else who lives in Michigan that reads my post will understand what that simple 4 word sentence above this one means.

I started out with Allstate with my first car.  I had to give my agent credit because he came out and said I was redlined - a Detroit resident.

I was told, when you get older the rates will drop.  When you move the rates will drop.

I've been with State Farm for awhile because I have my house insured by them and husband's car was always insured by them.  I finally added my car to State Farm after 20 + years with Allstate (just easier).

Homeowners isn't bad and I don't have a flimsy homeowners policy.

I am not a menace to society on the road and am 55 today, not living in Detroit for some time time and my Nissan Versa insurance is high to me (2010 model).  I have a '99 Camaro that I dropped to no-fault only because even though the car is in good shape, the age is such that they would total the car if there was an accident (told this by the agent).

I have coordination of benefits between my medical and auto insurance.  My agent told me when I hit 65 and go on Medicare insurance, rates will go up because Medicare insurance never coordinates with auto.

In summary - it's all a crock.  We never catch a break :-)

[patbz]

We are bundled with USAA, and have been for 37 years. In that time we have had two major home claims as well as a totalled fifth wheel (all 3 were flood claims).  Additionally, we have had multiple front car window and several fender bender plus one car hail damage.  As USAA  states in their tv ads, we are members for life.

[Group 5 minus 1]

What do you mean you dropped to "no fault"? I thought no fault was the law?