[OT] I'm paying $350 a MONTH in Car Insurance!!

[Tom Cashel]

I second that!

Check out Geico.

 

[KnowTheToe]

Switching companies with bad marks on your record will kill you. even with a single speeding ticket on my record rates at different companies were sometimes double what I was paying at State farm. Luckily, when I got maried, I could join under my wifes name with Country Companies and that saved me 40%. Shop around.

 

[Paul_Klein]

Shapermc - And I used to live in New Orleans (born and raised there). Ironic, huh?

And the whole "mysterious exploding car" happened on October 15 of 1999 - almost 2 1/2 years ago (I remember the date, becuase it was the opening night of Fight Club )

Anyway, I'm just going to drop the Collision coverage, as much as it pains me.

 

[jgbrowning]

Does anyone else think this is... suspicious?

Here's my stats:

I'm a single, 22 year old male.
I drive a 1990 740 Volvo
I have have full coverage

As for my record, I have never once been at fault in a car accident. I have been hit twice, both times totaling my car. I have also had a car mysteriously blow up on me, but I cannot recall wether or not the Insurance company gave us any money for it. I've also recieved 2 speeding tickets in my history driving, both resolved.

Does paying $4,200 a year sound right to any of you? State Farm kicked me out about 2 1/2 years ago, and now I go through Progressive.

I'm considering dropping Collision coverage, but I cringe to think about that. But I can no longer afford to drive at this much a month.

yes it sounds right to me. not meaning it sounds right (morally), but just that it sounds right according to insurance companies.

joe b.

 

[MadScientist]

Dude I would totally shop around. Insurance rates for can vary significantly from company to company. It doesn't hurt to collect a few quotes from a few different companies. Just have your current policy in front of you when you are on the phone so you can be sure that you are getting the same coverage and are comparing oranges to oranges.

My recent experience was with switching from Progressive to Geico, I actually got more coverage with Geico and am paying ~$500/year instead of ~$900/year. Now I don't have collision on my 91' Sentra, but thats still a savings of like 45% for basically the same coverage, same car, same location. If you could do that well that would save you around $1800/yeear, that would be significantly more affordable, also your car is like 12 years old... whats the book value on it? How much could you save by dropping collision? It may not make any sense to have collision on your car. Just save your money so you have enough for a down payment on a new one in case something bad happens.

 

[maddman75]

Auto Insurance is disgusting in the US. I strongly feel that if the government is going to mandate that you MUST have this insurance, they should put price controls in place. Many areas (like where I am) have little to no public transportation. If you cannot drive you cannot work. Having a car is NOT a luxury here.

And yes, they use an arcane formula that no one understands to figure what you have to pay. Essentially anything is an excuse to bump your rates up.

For the record - I'm 27, stable, single, never had an accident, never had a ticket. I pay about $1300 a year. It should be criminal.

 

[tarchon]

Does anyone else think this is... suspicious?

Here's my stats:

I'm a single, 22 year old male.
I drive a 1990 740 Volvo
I have have full coverage

Nope, that's just the way it is with young unmarried single guys with speeding tickets. I'm not sure what you mean by "resolved," but it if the insurance co. knows about the tickets, you're SOL.

Having several BIG losses even if they aren't your fault probably doesn't help either. 3 total losses in (I assume) 4 years or less is more than anyone would be willing to write down to coincidence. Like I've been driving 17 years (half of that in metro Phoenix and San Jose) and it's only happened to me once. They quite logically assume that you're accident prone even if it's not exactly "your fault." I mean, you yourself obviously think you're high risk for it, otherwise you wouldn't worry so much about dropping the collision insurance right? I'd say figure out what you're doing that makes your cars prone to blowing up and getting totalled, stop doing it, and drop your collision coverage for a couple years at least until your record looks better. At any rate, it sounds like you have no choice but to self-insure with the collision. If you lose this car, get used to long hikes and taking the bus.

My general feeling about collision coverage is that, as with all insurance, the best deal is not to get it unless you really can't tolerate the loss. Like if you can afford to replace your $2000 car in the usually unlikely event of a total loss, you shouldn't bother with collision coverage. The insurance company knows exactly what the mean rate of loss is and then they add on their overhead and their profit. If you self insure, you can expect to save yourself however much that is. The only way it makes financial sense is if you have high risk factors that the insurer doesn't know about, but in this case, they obviously know. I've never carried collision myself, since I always drive cars that are cheap enough that I can afford to replace them.

When I first got my own car (a $500 disposable Chevy Citation) at 21, it took me nearly a month to find somebody even willing to insure me and after some begging and pleading (literally) with an insurance agent they finally got me for $250 for two months (no tickets, no collision coverage, rural Kentucky back in 1990 or so). After I had those 2 months in, I got it down to less obscene levels, but it still hurt. In an area with higher rates and your record, the rate sounds not unlikely.
Shop some more, but don't expect much. If you find a much better deal, be suspicious. I once got a great deal with AzStar in Arizona, about 3 months before the state shut them down. Took me a year to recover the remainder of my premium, though unlike many people I was lucky enough to get it all back.

 

[WizarDru]

For the record - I'm 27, stable, single, never had an accident, never had a ticket. I pay about $1300 a year. It should be criminal.

What kind of car do you drive? That's a major part of the formula. People are far keener to steal a Ford Mustang than a Ford Tempo, and insurance rates reflect that. Just because the formulas are arcane, doesn't mean they have no basis in reality. Mind you, I'm not saying insurance companies aren't criminal...they most assuredly are. But you're not getting insurance just for you...you're getting it for me and my family, and every other driver on the road.

 

[Tyrant]

Two options. Get married or move to florida and get "no fault" insurance. lol. Sorry to hear you're in such dire straights. Moving into the city where you can use public transportation until you're 25 might not be a bad idea either. All depends on your situation I guess. For the record, this married man of 30 pays a scant $18.33 a month for his liability only insurance on a V8 Chevy pickup truck and $50 a month for full coverage on his new Hyuandai Elantra. Of course, I havent had a speeding ticket in over a decade and Ive never had my car blow up under mysterious circumstances...

 

[tarchon]

Many states have laws that require you to have a certain level of car insurance. Unfortunately I have see very few if any states that have laws regulating how much companies can charge for car insurance.

You do the math.

Here's the math. State sets price cap in accordance with unrealistic consumer demands. Insurers can't afford to insure people for less than the price cap. Insurers, not wanting to lose money, stop doing business and leave state. (See also "California Energy Crisis") State has to set up insurance program. Government programs are typically horribly inefficent. Taxes get hiked. People end up paying more than they would have if insurers were allowed to set their own prices. (See also "why centrally planned economies seldom work well.")

Price controls are usually only useful with state mandated monopolies (utilities are a common example). Price controls applied to competitive markets usually have results that range from ineffective to catastrophic, even if the demand for the industry derives from a state mandate. And in fact most states do regulate insurance companies in some respects. They're fairly commonly required to be able to prove their solvency, for example, and I have personal experience with one case where the state of Arizona put an insurer into receivership after it was found to be incapable of meeting its likely financial obligations.

We pay ridiculous insurance rates primarily because of stupid reckless drivers (and fraud), not because of insurance companies.