Any good tips for lowering my car insurance? I’m going to look into one of those defensive driving courses, wanted to see if you guys had any other ideas.
You could lower the amount of coverage you have on yourself and your car. I think the law mandates that you have a certain amount of coverage for the other person in an accident. If you do that, pray that you dont have a car accident because you could be fucked.
[quote]Extremepain wrote:
You could lower the amount of coverage you have on yourself and your car. I think the law mandates that you have a certain amount of coverage for the other person in an accident. If you do that, pray that you dont have a car accident because you could be fucked.[/quote]
True. I’ve got collision, though, because thats exactly what happened about a year ago.
Raise your deductibles! I raised mine to $1000 a year ago. The difference was crazy. I then started setting aside the premium difference in a special fund. In case I ever get in an accident, the deductible funds are readily available. If I never get in an accident, even better. I’ll have kept the savings for myself instead giving it to the insurance company and I’m generating compounded interest as well.
[quote]JN7844 wrote:
Raise your deductibles! I raised mine to $1000 a year ago. The difference was crazy. I then started setting aside the premium difference in a special fund. In case I ever get in an accident, the deductible funds are readily available. If I never get in an accident, even better. I’ll have kept the savings for myself instead giving it to the insurance company and I’m generating compounded interest as well.[/quote]
Good idea! Thanks man
Get a DUI. That’ll lower your insurance costs for about a year or so.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Any good tips for lowering my car insurance? I’m going to look into one of those defensive driving courses, wanted to see if you guys had any other ideas.[/quote]
No fucking clue, you can ask your company though. They will tell you, the better driver they know you are, the less they need to cover your risk.
[quote]JN7844 wrote:
Raise your deductibles! I raised mine to $1000 a year ago. The difference was crazy. I then started setting aside the premium difference in a special fund. In case I ever get in an accident, the deductible funds are readily available. If I never get in an accident, even better. I’ll have kept the savings for myself instead giving it to the insurance company and I’m generating compounded interest as well.[/quote]
Raise your deductible is correct. My wife works for an insurance company and this is what she recommends.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Get a DUI. That’ll lower your insurance costs for about a year or so.[/quote]
Actually, my DWAI rate hike was offset by a defensive driver cost reduction. It only raised it something like $29 per month and my agent was cool about it. The max they can surcharge you is 39 months, from time of conviction. Mine was less than that since it took a while for them to catch on.
BG
[quote]bond james bond wrote:
[quote]JN7844 wrote:
Raise your deductibles! I raised mine to $1000 a year ago. The difference was crazy. I then started setting aside the premium difference in a special fund. In case I ever get in an accident, the deductible funds are readily available. If I never get in an accident, even better. I’ll have kept the savings for myself instead giving it to the insurance company and I’m generating compounded interest as well.[/quote]
Raise your deductible is correct. My wife works for an insurance company and this is what she recommends.
[/quote]
This has been the prevailing wisdom as long as I can remember, but when I asked about raising my deductible from $500 to $1000, the difference in the premium for me and the wife on two cars was only $4/month. Hopefully the OP will have better luck.
^ You are also correct. Sometimes it’s signifigant and sometimes not. My wife cringes whenever she see’s those gieco commercials.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Get a DUI. That’ll lower your insurance costs for about a year or so.[/quote]
QFTMFT
Besides changing your premiums there’s also changing cars, some are more expensive then other for whatever fucking reason. For example, 95 viper for me is 100 a month. 03 f150, 200 a month. But outside that, shop around for different insurance companies, and don’t get in wrecks. Plus there’s other stuff.
I get like 300 off per six months because I haven’t had a wreck or ticket in over 3 years, and then another 100 off for having a GPA over 3.0 in college currently.
Shop around. Other then raising your deductible and taking courses. That will get you the lower rates possible. It can be a pain in the ass to call like 45 companies, but do yourself a favor, take an afternoon, grab a phone book and call every single insurance agency in there.
When I bough my most recent truck, my insurance company wanted to raise my premiums from 94/mth for a 92 f150 (4x4, v8, extended cab) to 167/mth for an '04 F150 (4x4, v8, extended cab). I called around and got quoted anywheres from 330/mth to as low as 86/mth.
Be frugal man!
[quote]BobCat77 wrote:
Shop around. Other then raising your deductible and taking courses. That will get you the lower rates possible. It can be a pain in the ass to call like 45 companies, but do yourself a favor, take an afternoon, grab a phone book and call every single insurance agency in there.
When I bough my most recent truck, my insurance company wanted to raise my premiums from 94/mth for a 92 f150 (4x4, v8, extended cab) to 167/mth for an '04 F150 (4x4, v8, extended cab). I called around and got quoted anywheres from 330/mth to as low as 86/mth.
Be frugal man![/quote]
Thats a good idea. Though I need to call up my current insurance company and get a list of any tickets or anything against me.
Don’t live in MA. Our insurance rates/companies suck.
Insurance Agent here. What I would do is to only call a few of the biggest agents in your area. Actually where do you live? If you are in NY I reccomend you call me. But otherwise, call one or two of the biggest players, I currently have 12 companies who write auto insurance that I could place you with.
I’m not one of the bigger shops, they have 20 or 30. You don’t need to have information about your tickets or accidents, the companies pull that information directly from your state DMV and a service called clue. They also run your credit. To be honest, when you are young, the biggest difference is length of driving experience and credit rating.
Length of time driving is going to take care of itself, don’t get tickets and don’t get in accidents, practice defensive driving. Other people are stupid, in a hurry, careless, drunk, angry. They make bad decisions, After my first acciedent, I was so upset because I was coming out of a parking lot and a guy had waved me out.
Well he waved me out into oncoming traffic and he had a huge truck so I couldn’t see around him. Then he just drove away. Anyways, defensive driving is expecting other people to do dumb shit, look out for it, put yourself in a good position, don’t drive in someones blind spot, don’t tailgate etc…
Credit is run by just about every insurance company. One of the best ways to get your credit score up quickly is to get a credit card and use it to make some regular purchases and then pay the balance off every month. Put your gas on the credit card for example and then pay it off completely every month. Do not make late payments, pay on time it is very important to your financil health.
I got my credit to mid 700’s by the time I was 19, because of that I have been in progressives ultra preferred tier since 1999. My last car was a 2000 saturn and I paid $125 every six months for insurance on it. Two years ago I still had a DUI on my record, my insurance was 300 every six months.
Buy used vehicles. Never buy a brand new car. You can buy a 3 year old car fresh off a lease, the car will be in good condition because people know they will get butt raped if they mess thier car up on a lease. You will pay 1/2 the price or less than the car was worth when it was new.
Also this means your comp and collision will be rated off 1/2 the value. Put it this way, if you buy a 50,000 vehicle the insurance company looks at it like, well if it gets totaled, thats 50,000 we have to pay out. If it’s only worth 25,000 now, our total loss is only going to be 25,000.
Generally speaking if you stick with vehicles that cost YOU 10,000 or under you will have a reliable vehicle that is still in good condition and looks nice. You will be able to drive it for 5-8 years also your insurance is going to be 1/2 to 1/3 compared to people who lease or buy a new car worth 20K or more.
Again depending on some factors like your age, your driving record, your proximity to a major city and your credit score. You should be able to tailor a transportation package which will allow you to have a reliable and reasonably attractive vehicle that will only put you back $200-$300 per month. And thats car payment and insurance.
Ok well thats all my advice, Oh also if you are renting an apartment, get a tenants (renters) policy. they cost about $100 bucks, they cover all your stuff and if you get it with the same company you have your car insurance, you get a multi policy discount. It usually means you get the tenant policy for nothing, so you get all your stuff covered and protect yourself if someone gets hurt in your apartment, and it cost you very little to nothing at all.
V
Go to liability only or drop insurance all together if your state allows it. Then drive safely in a modest vehicle. My '98 f150 costs me $16 a month. The wifes '02 jetta is $18.
Some little lizard dude with a funny accent tried to sell me car insurance once.
I didn’t trust him… you know, him being a relative of snakes and shit.
[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
Some little lizard dude with a funny accent tried to sell me car insurance once.
I didn’t trust him… you know, him being a relative of snakes and shit. [/quote]
GEICO is bullshit. They don’t run your MVR or clue or credit, they also offer you the lowest policy limits that are legal in any given state unless you ask for specific limits. So they give you an artificially low price over the phone, then they run all your information after you commit to the policy. If you have a ticket, it goes up, if your credit is bad, it goes up, if you have accidents, it goes up. And unless you are a little saavy and know all the coverages you need and ask for them, you will get a shit policy to boot.
V