Best Auto Insurance?

[Woolen Horde]

One of the downsides of getting a new car is that my insurance went up, which got me thinking why am I paying so much when I could get a better deal elsewhere? (For the record, I'm with a small insurer that's connected with Ameriprise, aka American Express.) I'm getting quotes from various sites, but does anyone have a company that they recommend?

[JPR]

Progressive came in significantly cheaper for me every time I've checked. I have been happy with them in all respects (plus, they insure motorcycles, boats, etc, which a lot of other carriers do not).

That said, when I got an insurance quote through AAA, it came in significantly cheaper than Progressive. You can get AAA, if you don't already have it, for way under $100/year, and my insurance savings was many times that.

[nixon66]

Sad as it is to say, I just saved a bunch of money by switching to Geico (from State Farm). Actually I tried to give State Farm a ton of chances to quote me a better rate, as they've been good to me, but Geico was going to save me $80 a month, and provide the same if not better coverage levels.

[Aleck]

My wife and I went through a broker about 10 years ago to find an insurance company. We ended up with CNA, which has since become Encompass. They are way cheap, compared to what I was quoted with the online sites (Geico, Progressive, etc.) and way way way cheap compared to what I had been paying State Farm.

Now that I'm an old fuddy duddy I'm paying less for auto insurance on 3 cars and two drivers than I was 11 years ago for just one car for me. Scary stuff.

[CheesyPoof]

Where do you live?

Outside of that I'd suggest simply to get a few web quotes.

[Major Icehole]

Compared to North Carolina, Colorado's insurance rates are very, very high. I've had the best luck with the Gecko.

[CastOutDevil]

Wawanesa.

[Athryn]

I am personally pretty fond of AAA, but that's just me. I've been in a couple of accidents, and they're very fair about dealing with people, both from the fault and no fault perspective.

[DavidKaye]

Another vote for Progressive. Very good rates and they were a pleasure to deal with when I had an accident.

[Jojo]

I've been with Mercury for 7 years now, and haven't been able to beat their price with any other company. They have been perfectly good when I got involved in a couple of accidents (although neither were my fault). The only downside is that they want you to take your car to their offices for photos when you open coverage with them. Annoying, but a minor inconvenience for the price saving.

[Rimbo]

USAA. If you are military or family of military, there is no other worth considering; they consistently have among the lowest rates, they are a co-operative that refunds a portion of your premiums (once you've been a member for 5 years), they're very easy to deal with, and best of all... they pay.

[Jon Rowe]

Geico, thats what I got, best rate I could find.

[quatoria]

Progressive came in significantly cheaper for me every time I've checked. I have been happy with them in all respects (plus, they insure motorcycles, boats, etc, which a lot of other carriers do not).

That said, when I got an insurance quote through AAA, it came in significantly cheaper than Progressive. You can get AAA, if you don't already have it, for way under $100/year, and my insurance savings was many times that.

My wife and I have been Progressive customers ever since a Progressive customer hit my wife's car. I've dealt with a lot of insurance companies over the years, and almost universally, they've been assholes. Progressive treated my wife incredibly well - they were polite and courteous, immediately dispensed a rental car, sent someone out to give her a ride when she dropped off her car at the repair shop, and were, in general, a joy to deal with. So, we ditched Geico when our policy was up and switched to Progressive. We've had great service since then, and we're paying much lower rates for much better coverage. I'd recommend them to anyone without reservation.

[quatoria]

USAA. If you are military or family of military, there is no other worth considering; they consistently have among the lowest rates, they are a co-operative that refunds a portion of your premiums (once you've been a member for 5 years), they're very easy to deal with, and best of all... they pay.

Hahaha, easy to deal with? Oh man, you have got to be kidding me. I was a USAA customer for almost a decade, and they were the most unpleasant, difficult to deal with sons of bitches under the sun. Horrible, horrible people. Horrible experiences. Great rates, though.

[JPR]

My wife and I have been Progressive customers ever since a Progressive customer hit my wife's car. I've dealt with a lot of insurance companies over the years, and almost universally, they've been assholes. Progressive treated my wife incredibly well - they were polite and courteous, immediately dispensed a rental car, sent someone out to give her a ride when she dropped off her car at the repair shop, and were, in general, a joy to deal with. So, we ditched Geico when our policy was up and switched to Progressive. We've had great service since then, and we're paying much lower rates for much better coverage. I'd recommend them to anyone without reservation.

Yeah, I have been involved in a couple of accidents with uninsured motorists here, and Progressive has been very helpful at every step. Another possible plus (for several people here anyway) is that the founder of the company is an outspoken advocate of legalizing drugs and describes himself as a functioning pothead. According to a forum poster on the Free Republic, he also donated $10 million to "Planned Murderhood", so caveat emptor.

[Machfive]

Damn. Now that's a company I can get behind.

[Venture]

When you purchase, make sure you're comparing apples to apples- for example, in Pennsylvania, many carriers will try to push you to buy "limited tort" coverage which really should be called "limited right to sue." Most people I run into who have limited tort coverage don't even know what they've bought.

Some companies act differently from state to state, but for what it is worth here is my personal experience as a lawyer in PA dealing with a couple of companies. Please note that these are just my opinions. Your mileage may differ.

- Nationwide: In PA, your own auto insurer pays your medical bills from an accident. If your insurance company wants to cut off your treatment (i.e. stop paying), they can hire an "independent" company to review your medical records, and determine if your treatment is reasonable and necessary. These review companies overwhelmingly find in favor of the insurance companies (if they didn't, they'd probably stop getting business). My data is a few years old, but the last statistics I saw had Nationwide using this review process dramatically more than any other carrier to try to cut off treatment. I'd have to dig out the numbers, but I remember being shocked by how much more Nationwide did this to its own policyholders than any other carrier. Remember, though, this is a Pennsylvania thing, and perhaps the numbers have changed in the last couple of years.


- State Farm: avoid at all costs. State Farm is the Evil Empire. In addition to personal experience on behalf of my clients, and the well-publicized way they tried to get out of paying Katrina claims, there was also a story on cnn.com a while back studying thousands of SF claims (and claims of one other carrier I believe). The story concluded that SF had developed a corporate policy to lowball many types of liability claims - especially smaller ones where it wasn't feasible for people to spend thousands of dollars to fight them. The study discussed that even though it cost SF more money short term to litigate people to death, they ended up making money hand over fist in the long term as it dissuaded people from bringing liability claims. Any trial lawyer has known this for the last few years. If I have a client come in who is injured by a SF driver and trying to recoup his losses, I tell him that the chance of reaching a fair resolution out of court is dramatically lower, unless he wants to settle for 50 cents on the dollar. SF has denied all this, of course.

[Lunch of Kong]

Hahaha, easy to deal with? Oh man, you have got to be kidding me. I was a USAA customer for almost a decade, and they were the most unpleasant, difficult to deal with sons of bitches under the sun. Horrible, horrible people. Horrible experiences. Great rates, though.

I realize your experience differs, but my experience with USAA in Texas pretty much matches Rimbo's.

After a collision where I was at fault, the adjuster looked at my just slightly over one-year old car and said: "For cars that are over one year old, we're supposed to estimate using refurbished part costs, but your car looks so great otherwise, I'm going to go ahead and allow you to repair using new parts."

[walTer]

Just a couple of things from someone that works for a law firm that handles motorcycle accidents and thus deals with insurance day in and day out.

1- You really do get what you pay for.
2- Get new quotes (most give them no line with no obligation) every year.
3- You don't need a broker.
4- ASK what your coverage is- don't let someone sell you full coverage with out a list of what your coverages are-

Liability- be sure to insure yourself to you worth or close- if you own a home, a 15K liability policy will NOT protect you.

Comp/Collision- if you want your car fixed- get it even if your car is old. Trust me, even an 10 year old car is your transportation- get hit by an uninsured driver and you end up with no more car.

Uninsured Motorist- get it...don't argue, just get it and maximize it. ESP if you ride a bike. Especially in California, there are lots and lots of uninsured drivers.

Med pay- you need it if you don't have health insurance-if you do, skip it.

5- READ your policy-
6-Gap insurance- if your 2 year old car is totaled, you will NOT get a new car-you will get the current market value and that might be less than your outstanding loan if you got a bad deal- thus you might end up with no car and still have to make car payment- try explaining that to a client- Gap will pay that difference between the ACV and the loan amount- it IS worth it.

In the end, it can be expensive to drive or ride- I have 100/300 Liability and UM and comp/collision on my bike thru Geico. I pay 540 a year and I highly recommend Geico for both cars and bikes.

I have Wawanesa on my cars- good rates and good service.

In the end, get plenty of coverage- you will be much happier if you ever have to use it.

Just my .02

[Phil_Stein]

Currently, my wife and I have auto/home/umbrella with State Farm. I want to at least get a new quote from somebody else, to see how another insurer might compare. I'd like to quote all 3 types of policies from the same insurer. It's been a long time since I seriously shopped for insurance.

Should I contact an insurer directly? (GEICO or perhaps AIGDirect.com...)

If I call an independent agent, will pretty much any independent agent be able to get the same rates from the same companies? If there is a difference among independent agents, how would I choose a good one? I *think* my current agent only does State Farm. I don't have a brother-in-law/neighbor/whoever who is an agent. I could obviously ask other folks (neighbors, my accountant...) who they recommend, but perhaps there's a better way?

[RickH]

USAA. If you are military or family of military, there is no other worth considering; they consistently have among the lowest rates, they are a co-operative that refunds a portion of your premiums (once you've been a member for 5 years), they're very easy to deal with, and best of all... they pay.

Yup. Shake that family tree and see if your mom or dad was an officer in the service or guard.

[wildpokerman]

I am personally pretty fond of AAA, but that's just me. I've been in a couple of accidents, and they're very fair about dealing with people, both from the fault and no fault perspective.

This is the important part. Too many people overestimate the value of the service when they're taking premiums. You hire an insurance company to come to your aid after the accident not before.

Service before the wreck may be an indication of service after however this isn't always the case. Too many companies treat the sales side as the business and the claim paying as an inconvenience rather than as a cost of doing the business.

[Vincent_GC]

I agree with Rimbo. Been with USAA ever since 2002. Every time I had to deal with them, they have been kind, honest and upfront with everything. Price isn't too bad either, and I have used them in 3 different states.

All of my houses and vehicles are insured through them. Seems to go hand in hand with Navy Federal.

[Rywill]

I had USAA on my condo and motorcycles for years. I had always just sort of assumed their rates were lowest since as I understood it they're basically a not-for-profit enterprise. But a couple of years ago I did some checking and discovered that Progressive was actually cheaper for the motorcycle by a pretty significant margin, even though USAA was giving me a long-time-customer discount and some sort of super-elite driving discount (no accidents or tickets in 10 years) and Progressive's quote was for a brand-new customer. So I switched.

When I called USAA to cancel, they made me talk to a supervisor, who was sort of an asshole. She sort of snappishly said "Why do you want to cancel your policy?", and I said "Because I found someone cheaper." She goes "What, $650 a year isn't cheap enough for you?" "Not if I can get it cheaper through someone else, obviously. Cancel my policy." "Fine." It was all sort of surprisingly unpleasant and unprofessional. I never had a claim with them on either policy (home or auto), so I can't speak for their claims department, but my one experience with customer service was negative, fwiw.

[Gendal]

Huh. I just went with progressive because they were the cheapest. Glad to hear I might not be running around in a near uninsured state in my POS car.

[Venture]

I'm currently insured on my vehicles and home with USAA, but I will say that with my last house, I ended up going with another carrier because USAA wasn't even in the ballpark to the point of insanity - we're talking double the price. It was kind of a unique house, though, and I think they had their own way of underwriting it. They were much more in line with others on my current home, which is a "normal" home.

[WarrenM]

We use Geico for both auto and home insurance.

[Skipper]

Another vote for Progressive. I switched off of them last year, tying my car to the same as my home insurance with Erie Auto Insurance. Bad, bad move. I saved a few bucks at the price of double deductible cost and a pain in the ass whenever I need something done.

Plus Progressive was easy to set up auto payments to, they drop me an email to let me know when my payment will be deducted, and their web site is fantastic compared to many of the others.