I bought a 2010 Prius with a blown head gasket - intending to use it as a third car since my daily driver is a gas guzzler (an old BMW X5). I am fixing it up and hoping to get it running shortly. When I got a quote my insurer told me that 2010 Priuses are very expensive to insure because they have a high accident record - they want to charge me a whopping $250/6mo for liability. My BMW costs $145/6mo for the same coverage, and our "nice" car costs only $300/6mo for full coverage (2015 Mazda 6). My insurance agent actually argued with me about how dangerous these Priuses are - how often they get into accidents. Is this way out in left field? I could try insuring it from another insurer - but I do have my trailer and house bundled with these policies, so I don't know if it would be cheaper. I kind of just want to stick it to them though, so I would insure it elsewhere even if it was the same price. Insurance companies are price gouging like crazy the last few years and I'm pretty ticked about it already. What do you all think about that?
$250 total for 6 months is not bad. I suspect your other cars will go up to match when they renew. Liability does not fix your car. Its a measure of the odds you will be responsible for an accident and have to fix the other car or persons. Having more cars to insure and maintain is not a way to save money.
I am just renewing this month, and no, my other rates have not gone up more than a couple of bucks. The Prius is just much more expensive to insure than the other two cars. I was also surprised that the other two premiums will not drop when adding a third car to a household with only two drivers. Every time I've done this in the past (many times, we fluctuate between two and three cars frequently) the other two premiums drop slightly.
i'd love to see his accident record stats. i've never found the prius to be particularly more expensive than any other car we've owned
Our insurance (plus license) is a bit over $1100 CDN per year. One million liability, deductables of $500 for collision, and $300 for comprehensive. We get a 10% discount due to low usage, brings it down to just over a grand.
In the US you can get nearly worthless insurance that is cheap but rarely pays claims after massive delays or you can get good insurance that is exactly the opposite. Some states have no fault insurance, most states encourage he said she said and lawsuits. $1000 Canadian is $731 US but the op is talking about liability only on a Prius costing him $250 per 6 months or $500 a year. So a different company or complaining to the State Insurance regulatory agency might help. As opposed to moaning to us.
Yeah apples/oranges. I think we've got it good where I am. The main (and virtually only) insurer is a "crown corporation", almost part of the government, and has watchdogs.
I don't know where you live, but every state I lived in and owned cars, "liability" part of the insurance rate would not change based on what car I had. The liability does not cover the car the insured owns. It only covers personal and property damages the insured is deemed liable. If I bought just the state mandated level of the liability coverage on my cars, it would cost less than $20 for a year, but the state minimum coverage of 50/100/25 liability and uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage is basically worthless in case of a real accident since it pays so little. The liability part of the insurance rate is primarily determined by where you live and often drive, your age, gender, and past driving records.
Yep we've had USAA for years and, a few months ago, it was up for renewal and they jacked up the rates. I called them and they said it's because of the numerous hail storms we've had in Colorado this year. (Which didn't damage any of our vehicles.) I spent a few days price checking other companies and got full coverage from Progress for $387 for the 2021 Prius and $209 for the 2017 Prius which was more than a 50% savings over USAA. When I called USAA to cancel, they were also surprised I saved so much money by switching.
