Budget Freak

After I recovered from the shell shock after getting my renewal bill from the Auto Club, I decided it was time to shop around for new insurance. So this past weekend, I shopped around for new auto insurance.

To get a fair quote from each company, I decided on the best coverage for myself, and stuck with throughout the process. For the record, I’m 25, male, single, live in greater Los Angeles, and have no at-fault accidents (2 non at-fault which shouldn’t hurt my premiums) and no tickets or arrests. I’m insuring one car, a 2005 Nissan Frontier, and I drive around 15,000 miles per year. I decided on the following coverage:

Bodily Injury Liability: $50,000/100,000
Property Damabe: $50,000
Medical Expense: $5000
Uninsured Motorist (Bodily Injury) $25,000/$50,000
$500 Comprehensive Deductible
$1,000 Collision Deductible
$20/day Rental Car

I visited each companies website, typed in all my information, and here’s the results:

• Auto Club - $1,920
• Mercury - $1,880
• Progressive Direct - $2,426
• Geico - $2,108
• State Farm - $1,948
• AllState - $2,194
• Esurance - $1,736
• Liberty Mutual - $1,587

These are obviously very personal, customized quotes, specific to my background, driving record, and driving habits. Your mileage will certainly vary.

That said, in my case, Liberty Mutual was by far the least expensive. Better yet, a few days after I filled out the online form, an agent sent me a new quote, with a new price of $1,493, for the same coverage. Almost another $100 off! My roommate has Liberty Mutual, and in his price shopping, they were also the cheapest. I talked it over with my dad, and Liberty Mutual was his first auto insurance company. I would definitely feel comfortable going with them.

I still have 3 weeks before my old insurance expires, but it looks like after that, I’ll be making a switch. The only question now, is do I go with the lowest premiums, or is there another company that’s worth the extra cost? Could their customer service or handling of claims be better? If so, is that worth a couple hundred dollars a year?

My car insurance is coming due next month. I’ve been with the Auto Club for a few years now, and they’ve been pretty good to me. However, last week, they sent me a quote for the upcoming year, and it was just over$2,500!

Let me go back for a second. Last year, I was living at home, in a much nicer part of LA, and I had about a 5 minutes commute to work. My premiums were $1,500 for the year. When I moved to my apartment in September, to a much less desirable neighborhood only 30 minutes away, they sent me a bill for $300. (It’s not a bad or dangerous neighborhood, but just not as nice) The $300, by the way, was only for the 4 months or so remaining on my policy. If you break that out to a yearly figure, they charged me $800 for moving 30 miles. I couldn’t believe it.

Anyways, my premiums are now up to $2,500 because, in addition to the move, I’m now also driving more miles per year. So that dangerous combination led to a $1,000 increase. That figure was absolutely absurd, so I called up AAA to see if I could lower my premiums.

They guy I talked to was really nice, and he was actually shocked my premiums were so high. He couldn’t really explain the jump in price, other than the move was actually that expensive. He worked with me over the phone for awhile, and the only way to lower the premuims was to lower the coverage. My coverage was almost maxed out with pretty low deductibles, which is probably much more than I needed (could I realy cause $300,000 worth of damage in one accident???), so I figured it was in my best interest to lower them.

After playing around with the coverage and deductibles for awhile, I found a set of numbers I was comfortable with. The new premiums are going to be just under $1,900. While it is over $600 less than before, I still think it’s a bit high. So, I’m now going to be shopping around for a new auto insurance company.

So, my question now, is what’s the best way to go about it? I’m planning on getting quotes from various company’s websites, but does anybody have any better ideas? Any tips for getting the best price and discounts? Do insurance companies match prices? Any help is much appreciated!