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You are probably aware of the GEICO commercial where they say 15 minutes could save you 15% on your auto insurance. Well, recently our auto insurance came up for renewal. I have made it a habit to email over my policy to a couple of places to see who has the best deal for the coverage we look for. I like to shop around because it’s so easy to do. Especially now that I’ve got a few different people to have giving me their best quotes.
About a year ago, we were able to save a good deal by splitting up our homeowners and auto insurance policy by going with a endorsed local provider of Dave Ramsey. He ended up insuring our auto policy with a company called Grange insurance. We were happy to save the money and paid our policy in full for a year long term. Of course this made our homeowners policy go up, but the net policy change was still a good amount of savings for us.
After working through the below things, we settled on going back to our Illinois Farmers agent, Corey Divietro. We ended up saving about $350 over another year by bundling the policy and grabbing some great policy discounts.
Things To Look At When Shopping For A New Policy
Check price differences by how often you pay.
Whether you pay monthly, quarterly, bi-annually, or yearly can affect your premiums. Make sure to go over these with your agent or broker before signing up. Most of the time, when you pay monthly, you will be paying the most.
For us, we ended up going with the bi-annual term since it was actually cheaper than the annual premium. When I asked about this, I was told that it’s because of the duration that your policy is locked in for. I’m betting that we won’t be getting into an accident in order to lock in the savings over the next year.
Email multiple agents and brokers to get their best price.
We got quotes from three different places.
Geico was cheap, but couldn’t insure us for some of the terms we got with others on the auto policy. Their maximums for property damage was only $100,000. We currently have it set at $250,000. This quote was also with a deductible of $500, the same as we had.
Grange Insurance was more expensive, but came in at around $521 for 6 months.
Farmers ended up coming in at $532.90, but also saved us $350/year for our homeowner’s insurance. On top of that, we were able to drop our deductible from $500 down to $100 and get all the same terms as we had previously!
Check to see if upping your deductible is actually worth it.
This was kind of interesting for us. I was thinking about going from a $500 deductible to $1000, but it was only going to save me $30 over 6 months. And that was actually going down to the $100 comp deductible! Upping our deductible didn’t make sense since spending $30 every 6 months to save $900 if we had a problem made more financial sense.
It’s definitely worth it to ask to see how big the savings are. But do the math and see how long you’d have to go without an accident. Plug it in like this:
Increased Deductible / savings over one year = time without an incident
For us, this means 900/60 = 15 years. This is not very probable. I do think we are good drivers but you never know who else is out there.
Look for discounts
There are lots of discounts that are available with different insurance companies. Make sure that you are qualifying for them since they can add up to some big savings! Some savings that we were able to take advantage of were: Safe Driver Discount, Multi-Car Discount, Homeowner, EPolicy Discount, Auto/Home Discount, Paid In Full Discount and Good Payer Discount.
Definitely ask your agent if there are any new discounts that you can qualify for when shopping for a new policy.
When is it worth dropping full coverage?
We opted to keep full coverage even though the value on our older car is only $2000 since it was only going to save us about $300/year. It’s nice to have the peace of mind and we’d have to go 7 years with no incident for this to actually pay off… To come up with that 7 year number we had to go through another simple equation:
value to replace/savings per year= number of years to break even
For us, the equation was: $2000 value of car / $300 a year savings = 6.67 years
For us, almost going 7 years without being in an accident and having our car fixed would be too long. And with only having a $100 deductible, we were willing to transfer that risk.
Is it time you checked your policy?
If your auto or home policy is coming up soon, you may want to shop around. You may be leaving money on the table! All you have to do is grab your policy documents from your current policy and then send them to agents of the big companies and see what they can come up with or just find a broker that can shop around for you.
What has been your experience? Do you have any stories where you’ve saved more? I’d love to hear your experience in the comments!
Steven Goodwin
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Steve, great reminder to all of us to not just “settle” for our insurance needs! I, too, saved significant $$ by shopping our insurance two years ago. There’s no doubt that this is one of the best investments of time we can make, especially if you haven’t shopped your insurance to this point. I also wrote an article about it, and encourage folks to take the time for this one simple, and potentially significant, money saving effort.
Fritz @ The Retirement Manifesto recently posted…The Serenity Prayer Of Personal Finance
Thanks for the comment! I agree, it’s so important to shop your insurance regularly as they will raise your rates every chance they get. If you don’t, you’re definitely leaving money on the table!
These are great tips, especially for first-time buyers. I’ll be sharing it with a family member who recently made a purchase and may be looking for insurance.
Thanks! We’ve found them helpful as we’ve been homeowners for about 7 years now!
This past year we saved over $1k by shopping around both auto and home insurance. I looked at a dozen different places online, and made a spreadsheet comparing all possible options. We ended up going with Amica (highly recommended insurer by Clark Howard and others). It was not the rock bottom price but it was close, and being highly rated with a competitive price made all the difference. You do need to shop every year though, otherwise you’ll phase out of discounts they give only to new customers.
My old insurer was apparently mad that I hadn’t called them to try and knock down the price. My feeling is that if you don’t already give your best price to renewing customers, then you must not want my business. I’m not playing games of calling you every renewal to try to get you to bring down my price.
Liz@ChiefMomOfficer recently posted…Year in Review – A Chief Mom Officers Annual Report
Good points! I shop around every time my policies come up for renewal. At my last renewal, I saved $300 on auto and homeowner’s insurance. It’s definitely worth a few minutes of your time to potentially save hundreds of dollars.
Absolutely! Glad you had a similar experience Gary! I just read your 2016 wrap up and saw that! Do you use an agent or a broker?
I went online and got some estimates myself, plus asked my current agent if they would meet the lower costs I found. But if you’re limited on time, a broker who deals with different insurers is another good way to go.
Gary @ Super Saving Tips recently posted…The Best and the Worst of Being Financially Successful
Saved as a favorite, I love your web site!
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Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! Have a great day Juliann!
I am a fan of full coverage too. For instance, just last month we got hit wit an ice and hail storm. There were a few very minor ice dents in my 2004 car with 200k Miles on it. Because it was weather related, my insuance paid for the loss and it didn’t affect my premium! I couldnt believe they gave me a check on the spot for 2k+ for a car that’s barely worth that! I learned that full coverage is definitely with it at times.