My car insurance is fairly expensive. Now that my car is over 4 years old with 100K miles, should I cut back on my coverage? The car's paid for and worth maybe $11,000-$12,500 (2012 Plug-in Base) My policy is: Liability/Injury: 250/500 Uninsured Injury: 250/500 Uninsured Property damage $500 Comprehensive Deductible: $250 Collision Deductible: $500 (about 44% of the bill) Thoughts?
Wawanesa insurance will give you the best rates.....and possibly cutting back the liability coverage.....unless you need 250k coverage
I don't want to get into that... I know I can compare different companies, etc. I want to know what amount of coverage is right. The collision coverage, like I said, is about 44% of the total bill.
the problem with cutting collision is that it has nothing to do with the value of the car. what do you do if you need 6k in repairs? i pay about $800. for similar coverage.
There is no right answer. I think the amount of coverage we choose, and the reason, varies greatly by individual. In the past, I only had the lower amounts required. But now that everybody is sue crazy, I bumped up my coverage significantly. And yeah, the collision coverage takes up half the bill! I've been with AAA Auto Club for many years; never had any accidents or tickets or anything. And the collision coverage is pretty darn high on my Prius. It surprised me how high it is. (When my two Camry's got over six years old, I canceled the expensive collision coverage. I would just pay for any repairs myself, or get a new vehicle if the damage was severe enough.)
If you are 50 or over, The Hartford's AARP automobile rates can be good. I have not found their homeowners rates good, though.
Make sure you ask aaa for all the discounts you can qualify for. They have many, just have to meet their criteria. Collison coverage at aaa is quite high compared to companies like wawanesa usa insurance
I get the "low-mileage" driver discount. But I think you only save about 40 bucks off the annual bill. My biggest concern now, at 62 yrs old, is making sure I have enough coverage to cover the person that I may happen to hit (liability), and cover any property damage, and cover as much of their medical bills as possible. People will sue the crap out of you now days. I went for the max coverage… it's expensive, but it gives me a little more peace of mind.
Raising your collision deductible to 1k will lower your premium, but you'll have to cough up double the amount in the event of a claim. Lowering liability may not result in much of a decrease, and I agree that in today's sue-crazy world you want to buy as much liability insurance as you can afford. Not sure if it would be less money overall, but one option is to drop liability to 100/300/100 and get a 1m umbrella to cover, raising your total liability for usually not much more per month. Mine was $15/month for that extra peace of mind. One caveat: umbrellas require underlying liability limits of certain amounts, which can vary depending on the state or carrier. If you haven't had a review of your policies with your agent lately, it might be worth an hour of your time to sit down with him and go over everything. There could be discounts you're missing out on, or he may have suggestions to lower the premium without sacrificing too much coverage. Your agent will know more about your options than strangers on the internet Source: I work in the insurance industry
We have been calling around. We just added a teen driver. OUCH! I will tell you the Prius is our cheapest vehicle to insure at the moment. Even our Camry Hybrid cost more. I am not sure why. The original price of the Prius and Camry were very comparable. Our 2002 Sequoia is our most expensive to insure but that is because that is the vehicle assigned to our son.
I just ran their numbers to see. They are quoting $400 per month. We currently pay $290 and thought that was high. Sigh. We can't seem to get any cheaper with a new teen driver.
For my wife & I when we had 2 vehicles, the cost for a year was a little more than we were paying for 6 months with Nationwide.
I'm 62. No accidents. No tickets. Totally clean record for the past 40 years. My Camry was 10 years old when I traded it, and the insurance cost for that car with dirt cheap. But I am very surprised how much this Prius cost to insure. Are these cars really expensive to fix or something? Are the parts much more expensive than a non-hybrid vehicle? Do they fold up like an accordion when they get in an accident?
It's not difficult to total a Prius. The hood crumples easily and it takes very little damage to kill the inverter and other expensive components.
Thanks rebound. I went and took a second look on YouTube, at the frontal collision tests. Holy smoke!!
But, in fairness, that's a common modern design feature -- sacrifice the car to save the passengers by absorbing the impact.
