i am a dumbass

[rainbabies]

well, it's partly dh's fault too...of course. do you know that we have been paying full coverage for our vehicles? cars that are 9 and 10 yrs old. it has cost us $1200/yr for insurance. i just dropped it to liability and will be getting a refund check. BUT, i shopped around...and i can get it for $400 LESS than what im paying w/the company we're with now. im going to make the switch this week.

[SuzySunshine]

Re: i am a dumbass

Its not dumb, its just not something we think about on a regular basis. If our cars were paid off I'd drop ours down too but no way am I doing that when we still owe on them b/c as soon as we dropped it we'd wreck it.

[Vanquisher]

Re: i am a dumbass

We pay 72 bucks a month for full coverage on our 2003 van and liability on our car, but we have a multiple policy discount because of our home owner's insurance through Allstate. Our home owner's is like $500 every 6 months. Does that sound right, or could I be getting a better deal?

[SuzySunshine]

Re: i am a dumbass

Heidi, I'm not sure how much we pay on our homeowners since its part of our monthly mortgage payment but we're paying ~$125/month on two 2004 cars full coverage. Laws and required coverages vary so much by state, its hard to say if that is a good deal or not IMO. We do get the multi coverage discount and will get another one when we add our life insurance in the next few months. We have American Family.

Isn't there a website out there where you can enter all of your coverage information and it will compare for you?

[rainbabies]

Re: i am a dumbass

thanks for the FYI, tara.

as for saving the $400..i read it wrong. i would save about $100/yr. is that worth switching for? :huh:

Re: i am a dumbass

Heidi, I think there is a lot of variability with geography. When we moved, our homeowner's went down by half or a little more for a house that was similarly priced and sized. I think that includes the increased liability coverage which we didn't have with the previous insurer. I'm guessing it is a lower crime rate and less severe storms (hail and snow)?

It was really worth it to call around and compare quotes for the car and home together. If I had stayed with State Farm we would be paying almost $50 more a month for our car insurance. I had thought that would be the best deal because we had the long-time customer discount or whatever that was.

Our insurance offers a discount because of our undergrad -- alumni assn or something? But we don't belong to the alumni organization and still get our rates discounted.

Re: i am a dumbass

Our insurance offers a discount because of our undergrad -- alumni assn or something? But we don't belong to the alumni organization and still get our rates discounted.

Our's too. We're with Liberty Mutual. And I have to say our recent (and first) claim went very, very smoothly.

Re: i am a dumbass

Same here! And ditto on the ease of a claim.

Have you ever had this happen? They sent someone out to do an inspection of our new house. I didn't give a second thought. Until they called me and said their underwriters want us to trim some trees near the roof. It's going to cost $600. I would certainly rather have the trees trimmed than have them crash through my bedroom during a storm.

Re: i am a dumbass

Same here! And ditto on the ease of a claim.

Have you ever had this happen? They sent someone out to do an inspection of our new house. I didn't give a second thought. Until they called me and said their underwriters want us to trim some trees near the roof. It's going to cost $600. I would certainly rather have the trees trimmed than have them crash through my bedroom during a storm.

Same thing happened to us -- maybe the 2nd week we were here. I was freaked out by the random person showing up and saying they're from Liberty Mutual and need to look around the house (outside only). One plus for suburbia -- no trees.

Re: i am a dumbass

I've had the inspection before but figured they just wanted to verify there was really a house here or sell me life insurance. That sort of thing.

Re: i am a dumbass

We pay 72 bucks a month for full coverage on our 2003 van and liability on our car, but we have a multiple policy discount because of our home owner's insurance through Allstate. Our home owner's is like $500 every 6 months. Does that sound right, or could I be getting a better deal?

Heidi I use to write auto and homeowner policies for 5 insurance companies (I worked at an ins brokerage), and that sounds very high to me. Are you scheduling a bunch of things under your policy? That means you are asking for special/extra coverage for lap tops, cameras, jewelry and such? Honestly it would take a huge list of extras added to your schedule to raise it that high. Knowing the city you are living in, with low COL this sounds quite wrong. Though I know people with military coverage US of A (I know that's wrong, someone tell me what it's called) that pay kinda high, but the claim coverage is sappose to be amazing since it's for military folks. The average home that I wrote policies for were $500-$600 a year, even with higher end insurance companies who wouldn't write a policy for a home under $300K. Are you paying extra for a flood policy? Check how much you are paying for personal property, and for medical payments (to cover if an accident happened on your property), and check the value of your home that it was written for. Your policy should reflect the value of your home and the value of your personal property. It should not reflect the property the home is built on as that would never be covered under claim. I know state to state it varies but this seems high, quite high to me. We are paying $56 a month for full coverage on one SUV, and liability for the other vechicle. Both cars are not new, one is 2000 and the other is 1996. For our home we are paying about $45 a month. If you have an umbrella policy over all of your policies that can add some extra money, but seeing as you are married to a resident I can't imagine you being told to get an umbrella policy (extra liability you pay for, in case you get sued, it covers all the plans you previously bought for extra coverage - so it umbrellas over all existing policies)

Check out progressive (they do have homeowners now), State Farm, All State (that is who we have), AAA as well for comparison quotes.

Hope that helps.

[Vanquisher]

Re: i am a dumbass

Maybe ours is $500 a year. I pay it in escrow with our mortgage...I'm going to have to look.

[madeintaiwan]

Re: i am a dumbass

Heidi, the 1000 might be right. The cost of homeowner's insurance is greatly dependent on which state you live in (crime, population, storms). SC is ranked 16th out of the 50 with an average premium of 768 per year. You might want to shop around for a lower rate though. Here in Kansas we are ranked 8 with an average premium of 833. We have USAA which I love despite the slightly higher cost. We pay only a little bit more than the state average but USAA has phenominal coverage and despite only providing coverage to military folks they outrank all the other companies out there. Both of our friends who moved from MO (23rd) to UT(50th!!) this year saw their premiums go down by more than half. Yet another reason for DH to pull us move to UT when we're done.

Here is the link for premiums by state: The stats came out this Feb based on info from 98-04

http://www.iii.org/media/facts/statsbyissue/homeowners/

[DCJenn]

Re: i am a dumbass

USAA-

We use it and right now we're paying $115/mo but that's for two new cars, homeowners, a personal property umbrella (my engagement ring, the computer, my diamond necklace), and fire coverage for the house in DC.

They're amazing. Every claim we have ever had (only on homeowner's and the time Petey puked in the car [and then Rick left the sunroof open to let it air out and then it rained but he wasn't home and then it was 100 degrees....]) was covered immediately. Our last adjuster came out on a Sunday. It was great.

Jenn

Re: i am a dumbass

Heidi, the 1000 might be right. The cost of homeowner's insurance is greatly dependent on which state you live in (crime, population, storms). SC is ranked 16th out of the 50 with an average premium of 768 per year. You might want to shop around for a lower rate though. Here in Kansas we are ranked 8 with an average premium of 833. We have USAA which I love despite the slightly higher cost. We pay only a little bit more than the state average but USAA has phenominal coverage and despite only providing coverage to military folks they outrank all the other companies out there. Both of our friends who moved from MO (23rd) to UT(50th!!) this year saw their premiums go down by more than half. Yet another reason for DH to pull us move to UT when we're done.

Here is the link for premiums by state: The stats came out this Feb based on info from 98-04

http://www.iii.org/media/facts/statsbyissue/homeowners/

While this is true, even with the 5 companies I wrote homeowner policies for, $500 was the average premium of a homes. These policies were all written for St. Louis - where crime has always been on the top of the rankings. Though I do know that since I got out working in insurance that many companies are now demanding a credit score to write a policy, and that may jack up the price as well. Also if you have a histroy of claims, that works against you as well. But all in all $1000 sounds very high.

eta: so this had me scratching my brain into stuff I haven't thought a whole lot of in quite a while. Another thing that can up the premium is an old home and a historic home. So in insurance it's all about odds of risk and replacement cost. So if you live in a scuzz apt in the East Village of New York - then the replacement of the materials in that area would be higher, and the risk of you living in NY say than Atlanta, Georgia - that would bring your policy $$ up. So that's another thing, if your home would be hard to fix i.e. that the replacement cost would be high for the ins co. , then you get hit with a $$ premium. That's why auto ins in Texas is soooooo high. What my MIL was paying for the family w/two teenagers driving was criminal, they live in San Antonio. Well the risk of them being hit by an uninursed motorist is so high - that they get suck with a high premium to cover that risk. Same thing with having a pool, it cost more to cover cause the risk is higher.

Anyway check your policy. You can always bring down your peronal property coverage a smidge (as long as you are still adequately covered) and medical costs can be brought down as well to bring down the premium some. Also make sure you have all credits on the policy when you check it, sometimes these get overlooked: home/auto discount, alarm discount, some auto companies will discount you for a good driving record as well.