How We Saved 32% on Our Homeowners and Auto Insurance!
WE SHOPPED AROUND! Nothing too complicated. A better question might be why did it take us so long to do this. Unfortunately, I was under the impression that once you were with a carrier, and had a clean history of limited claims, you would not get better rates by comparing. Boy was I wrong.
IN FACT, WHEN MY WIFE SUGGESTED THAT WE SHOP, I TOLD HER IT WAS BASICALLY A WASTE OF TIME. Turns out, I should have done it a long time ago. What I found is that rates can vary dramatically from carrier to carrier.
MY PROCESS WAS STRAIGHTFORWARD. I reached out to six different firms and could have reached out to many more. They are all household names that advertise on TV, internet, and other media sources. Farmers, American Family, Liberty Mutual, Travellers and AAA (through an independent agent). I imaged copies of all of our policies with Allstate and sent them to each office. I told them to just match the coverage and provide a quote.
I ALSO TRIED PROGRESSIVE. Initially I was impressed with the quote on the auto coverage and the process as well. However, it became a bit cumbersome to get multiple quotes and discounts. Maybe that was just my experience. While I eventually gave up, I would encourage you to give them a try.
WE ENDED UP GOING WITH LIBERTY MUTUAL. I was pleased with the responsive of the representative and their rates were definitely the best for our situation. Also, they have a program where we will likely see a reduction in our auto rates after our driving habits are monitored for 90 days. (I am a pretty cautious driver).
WE INCREASED THE DEDUCTIBLE ON OUR HOME TO $10,000. We decided to treat our home insurance as coverage for a catastrophic event. This reduced our premium a lot. Our risk is that our house or roof will suffer severe damage in a storm or weather event.
WE DID THE ENTIRE EVALUATION THROUGH EMAIL – WE NEVER MET OR TALKED WITH AN AGENT. All of the offices that we dealt with were very responsive. I was upfront with them about what we were doing. I let each know of our final decision and they were very respectful and courteous.
GIVE IT A SHOT! YOU MIGHT END UP SAVING QUITE A BIT. One recommendation I would make is to be sure and share your drivers license information with the carriers before you get the quote. Turns out that my wife has some tickets that are not off of her record yet. This impacted our rates. However, none of them asked about this prior to their first quote. I had to go back to all of them to requote after Liberty Mutual raised this as I was signing up for the policies.
HAVE YOU SHOPPED YOUR COVERAGES RECENTLY? HOW DID IT GO?
