This is a serious thing for me. I have a number of vehicles but not one of them is some expensive thing. Renewals will be coming up and my broker will have 2 one on one sessions with me right before or after Christmas. So the timing is awful but they renew mid January every year. One for the homeowners policy and another for automobile policy. The past several years he will hit me up in November to go over my Waverunner. It doesn’t get used much because I didn’t buy it to use it here, instead it’s for my place in the mountains next to the lake. That’s gone up each year I’ve had it but minimal. Like $2-5 a month. The auto policy I finally got down to a manageable rate for a daily driver hatchback and compact truck. It was as high as $250 a month for both but got it down to $125 a month. No claims, nothing on my driving record, squeaky clean. I’m anticipating it’ll go up to $150 if not more a month, at renewal. The real sore spot for me right now is homeowners. I remember when I paid $70 a month, then $90, then $120, and right now it’s $250 a month. It’s ridiculous. Prices skyrocketed at renewal following the week long freeze we had in TX that made national news. I didn’t make a claim at all, and bam, my annual homeowners went up a full $1000 for the year. I posted a thread about that on here and people couldn’t believe it. And that’s with my broker scouring, going through all possible insurance companies. He will tag team the homeowners with my automobile policy so some years I pay higher homeowners to get cheaper auto policy and vice versa. I’m pretty nervous about renewal this year.

At some point does it make sense to only have the legally required insurance for vehicles if they're paid off? Driving old vehicles, liability only may make sense for some.

For homeowners, going with a high deductible that's much higher than typical may make sense as well.

quote:

Originally posted by bryan11:
At some point does it make sense to only have the legally required insurance for vehicles if they're paid off?

If you can afford to replace them or repair them out of pocket

quote:

Driving old vehicles, liability only may make sense for some.

Makes complete sense if damage would total it out and you can afford to be without them

It’s not just that repairs have gone up but every time someone gets in even a minor accident it is seen as a lottery win for the other driver.

Every time I read a thread here or anywhere else about a wreck it’s an automatic lawyer up response which drives costs up way faster that a minor fender bender.


I also believe that EV repairs are going to get subsidized by everyone weather you have an EV or not.

My vehicle insurance went under $600 for the year with no changes what so ever. I thought people were driving less and less because of so much working from home?

One of the unintended consequences to the push for electric cars. What would be an otherwise normal repair on a dino juice car, could potentially compromise the batteries on an electric car. Those batteries become a fire hazard, so they’re replaced. A 2k accident turns into a 15k accident real fast, and that is being subsidized by all of us and not just the electric cars. There would be no positive net gains for owning such vehicles if all the costs were not subsidized.

Just got hit with a 20% increase in our auto insurance from State Farm.

It had been pretty stable for years but I guess that’s over now like so many things. Boo

We are both good drivers and haven’t had a claim in years too.

Insurance companies have to cover the outlay for uninsured motorists. I believe one of the larger jurisdictions in MA. is going to stop prosecuting unlicensed, uninsured drivers. If you talk to a Lib, this will be resolved with 15 Minute cities and a robust mass transit system.

quote:

Originally posted by bryan11:
At some point does it make sense to only have the legally required insurance for vehicles if they're paid off? Driving old vehicles, liability only may make sense for some.

For homeowners, going with a high deductible that's much higher than typical may make sense as well.

My stuff is old, and I only carry liability and uninsured/uninsured coverage on my vehicles. I upped the liability coverage above the minimums, because the state minimum 25K/50K/25K isn't anywhere near enough to cover medical bills or repairs to modern vehicles. But carrying comprehensive or full coverage makes no sense, as I'd be paying the replacement cost of my vehicle in premiums every 5 years.

I've owned my 24 year-old truck for 13 years, my 21 year-old Suburban for 9 years, and 10 year-old car for 4 years, and hope to keep all of them a lot longer. The economics just don't make sense. Heck, the book value on any of my vehicles probably isn't much more than the deductible would be, but they're well maintained and perfectly serviceable. I'd jump in any of them and drive cross-country right now.

What pisses me off is that I'm getting dicked over on insurance premiums to cover everybody else's overly expensive brand new cars while I'm over here just trying to live within my means and make my stuff last.

In addition to the EV's and other reasons, blame the companies for how they handle the claims.

I am currently going through the process. Other driver 100% at fault. Accident 3.5 weeks ago. Work on my vehicle still has not started.

At the beginning, all I wanted was my vehicle repaired or totaled. And my other property (bicycles on a rack) covered.

They have drug their feet so much I am now submitting rental car expenses, for a car that will sit undriven. Medical expenses. Loss of wages expenses. Loss of value claim.

What could have been very easy and hassle free for them, they turned into a nightmare of a process and it will cost them extra money.

I was an independent agent for over 45 years in Texas and decided to retire just over an year ago. I sold my agency to another independent agent friend of mine.
Every time I see him he tells me that I got out of the business at the right time. He represents several companies and says that all of them have increased their rates 15-30% over the months and most of them are not accepting new business and some are looking for excuses to non-renew some customers.

quote:

Originally posted by holdem:
In addition to the EV's and other reasons, blame the companies for how they handle the claims. .

My insurance just went up almost 33% from my last 6 month renewal period. I drive a newer Camry so nothing special and it’s a 6 month older newer Camry from the last time I renewed so nothing has changed.

It pisses me off when you ask them why and they say “there’s an increased number of claims in your area.” I would understand this is they were quoting a new policy for a new customer and you have to assume the risk is standard in a certain area, but if I’ve been a customer for years and you know I haven’t made any claims and you know I don’t have any tickets why I am paying for their shit? Just raise their prices or drop high risk assholes.

Back to the reason I quoted Holdem. I worked at a police impound yard for years and saw the waste of money on the insurance end all the time. For a car/truck it’s $20/40 a day for storage at a tow yard typically. The insurance companies have body shops and insurance storage yards that they get extremely discounted rates from, but they will leave cars in the police yard for a month+ before they move it to one of their places.

When you get into big items (semis, large utility trucks, etc) some places would charge $200-300 a day. The 3rd party roadside companies the insurance use would call for a quote to move something and let’s say it was a semi, they might get quoted $500-600 to move it a couple miles but they only want to pay $200-300. So they would spend weeks worth of storage at $200+ a day because they wanted to find someone that would tow it out for nothing only to come back 2-3+ weeks later and take the original $500-600 quote. Really silly.

quote:

Originally posted by bryan11:

At some point does it make sense to only have the legally required insurance for vehicles if they're paid off? Driving old vehicles, liability only may make sense for some.

I just emailed my agent this morning and told him I want to drop everything except the bare minimum liability on my car which is an old 2012 Mazda5 with high miles and probably not worth much anyway. Should have done this a while ago but getting my rates jacked up 20% was the tipping point.

And I made a point to tell him I thought it sucked that we as people with good driving records and no claims in years have a 20% increase now as a reward.

Maybe after 29 years of being with State Farm it's time to go elsewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I just emailed my agent this morning and told him I want to drop everything except the bare minimum liability on my car which is an old 2012 Mazda5 with high miles and probably not worth much anyway.

Don't go with the lowest coverage on liability. It's usually only a few dollars more to get the higher coverage for medical/property/whatever... usually the 250k/500k coverage.

All of my policies went up at renewal for 2024. Main auto policy for a 2013 hatchback daily driver and 2019 compact pickup went up $360 for the year. My waverunner went up about $50 a year. My motorcycle policy I offset, to make it an even thing by upping my deductibles from $100 to $1000. So was going to be a big increase but I just offset the increases by increasing my deductible X10. Homeowners went up $1,116 for 2024. In 2023 it went up an even $1000.

Much as I hate to say this, given the level of governmental efficiency now, but the individual state agencies that oversee and control the insurance industry have to step in and put a stop to unregulated cost increases.
Havent heard a word about that here in the kingdom of Queen Gretchen.
Funny how the big insurance companies can afford glitzy national (Flo ) ad campaigns all while claiming they are losing money.

Our home and auto went up quite a bit this year with SF. The agent we had forever retired and we were assigned to a new agent. Everything was ok until I realized the full coverage was taken o0ff of our daughters car. I called and spoke to our agent and asked when it was taken off, she didn't know. I asked that it be put back on and she said she would and would confirm with an email or call. Two weeks go by and I called to verify it had been done, it hadn't, I was pretty pissed.

That pushed me to get quotes elsewhere that were a lot cheaper, the wife wasn't quite ready to dump them and she used the quotes to get SF to drop our rates significantly

That drop on the home insurance and the drop in property taxes after I won my appeal took a little over $200 off of my mortgage payment monthly and they sent me a nice check for overages on escrow

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Funny how the big insurance companies can afford glitzy national (Flo ) ad campaigns all while claiming they are losing money.

Hey Shaq and Patrick Mahomes need their money.

So State Farm just jacked up my homeowners 20% too after getting me in May for a 20% increase on my auto when I haven't filed a claim EVER for homeowners and in over 10 years for auto.

May finally be time to move on from them, so does anyone have Erie Insurance? Heard good things about them. Going through a broker is the best way to do this, right?

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
So State Farm just jacked up my homeowners 20% too after getting me in May for a 20% increase on my auto when I haven't filed a claim EVER for homeowners and in over 10 years for auto.

May finally be time to move on from them, so does anyone have Erie Insurance? Heard good things about them. Going through a broker is the best way to do this, right?

I tried to do that a few months ago, because I had a very similar experience with State Farm. I sat down with an independent guy, and he told me not not expect much because the market just sucks right now. He quote me 3 different companies...Erie, Farm Bureau, and one other that I can't remember. At the end of the day, all of them were pretty comparable. One was lower on homeowners, but higher on auto, or vice versa...subtle little things like that. None of them offered much over $100 total annual savings across the board, which was nowhere near enough to walk away from an almost 20 year relationship with State Farm.

Just got my homeowners bill this month. Went up another $150/year after a big increase last year. And my 16 year-old son got his license, so it looks like our cars are gonna about double, too, above the already inflated rate (still just PLPD with elevated coverages because I don't want to get caught short).

I hope all the folks with $80+k cars who live in places where their roof gets ripped off every year appreciate how I'm helping finance their life choices, because not a cent of these premiums has ever gone towards me .

Not only are EV's driving up premiums, so are all the electronic devices that are demanded by customers and governments.

New cars all come with cameras, front and rear, along with sensors in every part of the vehicle.

Dent a rear bumper and a couple of hundred dollar damage 15 years ago is now $4000. Cars cost more to repair, EV or ICE.

Best defense is to shop every year, online, agents etc. Some agencies will only write top level companies with Triple A+ rates, so you end up with higher premiums but better companies.

Others will write you with whomever will give the best premium and not be concerned with how the carrier performs under clams or if you have sufficient coverage.

HO policies are similar, it now costs twice as much to get the materials to rebuild your home, or replace a good portion. Also in some areas companies are mitigating risk by reducing covered locations or not writing new policies.

Ours went up just a few hundred dollars but we're happy they renewed, since the state has issues with hurricanes and insurers are sparse, but we'll shop it anyway.