I need car insurance advice..

Maybe check with SafeCo? We had Nationwide for several years and it was just too expensive, on top of living in an expensive to insure state. I have a '12 Nissan Leaf & DH has a '12 PIP & SafeCo saved us almost $100/mo

 

I will say that I love GEICO, and that if you talk to one of their agents in an actual office, they should be able to figure out a way to get your coverage down a bit. I wouldn't go without uninsured motorist coverage. I needed to use it when a cyclist hit my previous car, damaged the hood and destroyed the windshield. It cut my deductible in 1/2 which was nice considering the cost of the repairs. There is no way I would not carry that. Now, medical payments for you, I don't see any problem in not having that coverage and I don't think it is required by any state. The only problem you may run into is your health insurance figuring out where you did get injured and wanting your insurance to share the costs. It can be a bit tricky and they can refuse coverage/reimbursement.

Talk to the GEICO agent and just get their take on things. They know people have budgets and they make money regardless of what policy they sell you. You can always add coverage back later.

Definitely not going to lecture you about how important the coverage is, but even with it being the law to have insurance in so many states, there still are a lot of underinsured or uninsured drivers and since that coverage makes up for both, don't go without it.

 

If you are in an accident and it happens to be your fault, your health insurance isn't going to cover any passengers nor people in the other vehicle.

Not sure about your state, but in my state and surrounding states, to be legal, you are required to have medical payments.

As for Uninsured Motorist. What if you are in stop and go traffic, some moron comes crashing into your rear end with no insurance? Without uninsured motorist, you have a car that you, yourself has to pay to get fixed.

Also, if your car is financed, most lenders require you carry uninsured motorist.
Yes, you would save $109 but is that monthly, 6 months, or 12 months? If it is monthly or 6 months I would be shopping for different insurance. If it is annually, are you really that hard up for money that you would risk losing everything you have just to save $9 a month over all?

 

Don't play with car insurance. It's the other guy that will cause a crash not you.
Friend of mine his wife hit some black ice and killed another driver. No ticket was given. But he had to pay $75.000 to the family ( 25 years ago. ). His insurance only covered 50K. He had to pay the rest.
I was with my father inlaw and a four year old playing chicken in the road ran in front of his pick up. She only got a broken jaw. No ticket was given. His insurance paid $50k to the parents. Thats all they covered had coveage for.
He was lucky that the parents accepted it. Good Luck.

SCH-I535 ? 2

 

One more story...When I was in the army I was stopped at a redlight. To fellow army people were racing to work and came over a hill and there I sat. One of them plowed into my brand new 1975 Chevy Vega. He had no insurance.
Later on he called me and was mad because I had to go to the doctor for my back. My insurance company sued him to get there money back. It was nice to have the insurance when you need it.

SCH-I535 ? 2

 

Always have Uninsured Motorist coverage, things just happen.

I got hit hard by some kid with no insurance and no money. Paid my $500 deductible and went on my merry way. Insurance company tried to get their money back from the kid, but he didn't have any. Defensive driving wouldn't have made a difference, I was around a corner waiting at a traffic light, he pretty much came from nowhere after sliding on some ice, bounced off the car in front of me at the light and nailed mine pretty good. His 20 something year old pick up with bald tires should have never been on the road in the severe icy weather, not to mention he should have never been on the road with no insurance.

 

^^^
I normally get it but haven't shopped for insurance lately nor thought of ditching certain coverages.

Yeah, that is a problem that there are too many uninsured drivers on the road. Sometimes they are uninsured or underinsured because their rates would be too high, sometimes due to a bad driving record (even worse that they're driving at all and doing so illegally) or bad credit history.

I will add my +1 to Safeco. That's my insurance company for a long time now. They were cheaper than State Farm. Also, every time I tried plugging in my info Insurance Quotes Online: Auto, Home, Health, Term Life, Renters, every quote was more than what I was paying thru Safeco. You also get a lot of insurance junk mail and phone calls after that...

 

since you say your in the military, I'd suggest you get a quote from USAA

USAA gave me a way way much better deal (like almost $100 lower) than my quotes from geico, progressive, and local insurance

 

A cyclist "hit" your car and damaged the hood and windshield?... Please elaborate... Is this a nice way of saying you ran over a guy on a bike?

 

If the accident wasn't your fault you shouldn't have paid the deductible.... but since he didn't have insurance, I guess that makes sense.

 

They tried to go after him, but is there such a thing as bicycle insurance? He didn't have a drivers license because you don't need one to ride a bike, and didn't have homeowners or renters insurance. I felt horrible for the guy to not only lose control of the bike and use my car as a landing spot, but also because they went after him to recover costs when it was clear that he didn't have the money for it. He wasn't some guy that was riding a bike because he wanted to, it was because that is what he could afford. Luckily he just got a small scrape. The police report was hysterical though...and the police and Fire Dept. had a good laugh. It was a slow day in Acworth...

Oops I didn't see your other post. I was on my way out of my neighborhood to drive to the gym and saw a cyclist approaching on the sidewalk coming down the hill towards my neighborhood so I stayed back and was a few feet from the stop sign just waiting for him to pass in front of me. Somehow, he lost control of his bike, ran his tire into the front of my car, flew over the handlebars and like a good hollywood stunt, rolled onto the hood of my car and landed in my windshield. I will attach a picture in a second.

 

I'm sure the cops were like... RIGHT... he hit you, sir...

 

The guy fully admitted it and felt horrible. A year later, that car was totaled. Very bad luck. They had their suspicions at first, but there was a witness and my car was too far from the stop sign and the way he landed on the car (the marks it made), there was no way. They luckily calmed me down a bit because I just wanted to go to the gym and run, but I didn't even get out of my neighborhood. A fireman asked me if I drink, and I said No, because I don't and he said that I should start after that day. It was a really bad day for this girl, but if I made the first responders laugh a bit, so maybe it wasn't the worst. I am certain they still talk about that. Here are the pics: .

Looking back, the funniest part about that was how the police officer told me I could drive my car, that he wouldn't recommend it if it rained, but that it was okay. My windshield was caved in on the drivers side, and I could drive it all over town? Yeah...I turned around, parked it in the driveway, and GEICO sent a tow truck. The guy thought I hit a deer. But anyway, getting back to the topic, I never saw the value of uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage until this happened.

 

Right, there is no deductible when the other driver's insurance is covering everything. When you have to file a claim on your own insurance, even when you weren't at fault, you have to pay your own deductible...well usually, it varies by insurance company and what premiums you are paying for. So basically, it cost me $500 (plus aggravation, and a couple thousand lost in resale value) because someone else hit me. It would have been a lot worse had I not been covered though, I would have had to shell out around $4k to repair my own fairly new car.

 

Advice Follows:

USAA.
Max out the deductibles. Mine are $1,000. I won't even THINK about filing a claim that's not several thou.
Keep the Uninsured Motorists.
Keep the Med in case you have pax that aren't covered by Uncle Sugar. It's cheap.

If you're < 30 GET THE ^$%#@ and STAY the %^$#@ OUT OF DEBT and start aggressively saving for retirement. If you're punching out of Big Green without a retirement, consider doing the Reserves thing. It's the last best defined benefits retirement plan in the US. You always pay the boys and girls that you trained to fight for you first.

You're going to be an old wrinkly TOMORROW.
Start planning TODAY.

 

CK by all means don't be penny wise and pound foolish . Leave that for the Amateurs.
I have GEICO and they are good. Maintain your full insurance coverage. In some cases if you are a member of a Professional Organization EMT you may get additional discounts from Geico. Just call them up or go online for details. Ask them for suggestions. They can help.

I raised my deductible from $250 to $500 and that saved me $

 

Check the limits of your Army insurance and make sure they are at least $300k mutiple and $150 individual. You may get by with the Army insurance for medical but probably not the uninsured motorist. Thats a big problem nowday so you may need to have that separate. Which of the two coverages you look to delete are the most - I suspect its Med payments - and its worth it. No matter how many defensive driving courses you take there is alwaysthe accident that cannot be avoided I teach both defensive (AARP) and offensive (racing) courses and assure you you are better off than the dope texting but not out of danger. There are so many signs of the errant driver that recognizing all of them is difficult. A lot here is laid on undocumented drivers so you can see the uninsured insurance.