Car insurance "My Rate"

[Bird]

24 years with Farmer's (who refuses to insure a farm )

That is nearly unbelievable, isn't it? In 1995, I insured my Kubota with Farmers through a local independent insurance agent, and in 1996 I got a notice that they would not be renewing the policy. My agent was in a very very small town in a area of farms and ranches. Most of his business was with farmers, and he was in a tough position finding new insurance for most of his customers when Farmer's Insurance got out of the business of insuring farms.

 

[LBrown59]

I just changed car insurance to try and save some money. I went with Progressive. When figuring online there was an option called "My Rate". I checked the box on it because it was the cheapest rate. I did not read the fine print. Yesterday we got a small box in the mail. It had three little boxes in it. I am supposed to plug each little box into the OBD II port on each vehicle. It says it keep track of when, where, how fast and how safe I drive. I can opt out of this at any time. Does anyone have this type of coverage? It seems wrong somehow to me. JC

It's a bad thing from a lousy Co.

 

[ultrarunner]

I started with Fireman's Fund 26 years ago and last month they non-renewed my last policy with them... never a claim.

The agent has lost a ton of business since Fireman's has gone to 500k minimum to write a policy and no more stand alone Fire Policies.

Farmers came through for me when others couldn't or wouldn't and CSAA has been very good too.

 

[mjarrels]

My car and truck are so old that I could not use these black boxes!

mark

 

[MarkV]

I have never heard of the black box thing before. I would suspect that it has less to do with monitoring your normal driving habits and more to do with documenting an accident in a way to show they will not pay.

MarkV

 

[kthompson]

Most people are not aware of what their state departments of insurance offer. Would think all have amount of complaints filed against an insurance company on the web and how may proved to be valid or not. They may point out the percentage of business a company has in that state if not realize a company may have 10 complaints but have worse record than one with say 50 due to size difference.

No idea on AAA but AARP is the best known Insurance Agency there is. Did you now that? Some very smart people wanted a better way to market insurance so, AARP was born. Great idea. The most honest insurance company ad I have seen in regard to AARP is United Health Care where they say in small print they pay AARP for the right to use their name. I have not seen their prices or product to normally be better than in the normal market but once in while they are, as with most companies.

It has become the norm here you must have your auto with your homeowners company or get canceled. I think Farmers ran higher losses then expected or they lost their reinsurance company. Most people do not realize how reinsurance works or how few companies there are that re-insure now. In some lines there is like 5 now and when they set the rules they will accept risk by it affects their customer which is the insurance company you may know. ALL INSURANCE COMPANIES DO NOT USE REINSURANCE and can set their standards as they choose.

As to Hartford is so well known and such, not sure today who Hartford is and not throwing anything off at them. Understand they took major hit in Stock Market fall and that has really affected their stability but some many of the old names have been bought or sold off part of their business and the name for that line has with some gone with it.

 

[dmccarty]

... After 24 years with Farmer's (who refuses to insure a farm ) can anyone comment on the service they've received from FB or Country?

At one point we had everything insured with AAA. I think we called NC FB to compare HO policy's. Long story short we now have auto, tractor and HO policies with NC FB. They were cheaper and local. I drive by the FB office at least twice a day. Nice pleasant people and LOCAL.

The wife just bagged an eight point buck with the Honda. We have towing insurance on the policy. We called the tow company we use and he took the car to the mechanic. FB called the car rental company and setup our rental for us. We are waiting for appraiser to get to the shop but he was out sick at the start of the week. So far they have done a great job with the claim. Hope it continues. There is not obvious damage to the car. The wife was able to slow down before she hit the deer. But we do have damage to the AC condensor and maybe the radiator. Since she ran over the deer there might some damage we can see...

We are going to call up the FB over the next few weeks and check their land mortage rates. It might be worth while to redo our loan with them.

Later,
Dan

 

[EddieWalker]

I started out with Allstate because that's what my parents had and I just used the same agent. He retired and a new guy took over, which was fine until I had a problem. He never got around to doing anything, just kept putting me off. A friend of a friends parents owned a State Farm office, so I talked to them and got a better rate with good discounts every year for being a safe driver with no tickets. About a year or so after moving to Texas and going to a local agent, I received my bill and the rates had doubled on me. No accidents, no tickets, and no notice of the rate increase. My agent wasn't any help either, she just said that I had to pay that amount to keep my coverage.

I searched the net and asked around who to switch to, and heard good things about Geico. I was hesitant about them because I hate their commercials and always think that if a company has to resort to silly gimmicks and massive advertising, then there is a problem. I called them up and my yearly rate from before the big jump in price from State Farm for full coverage well above the minimums went from almost a grand a year, to $650 a year. Just over a $300 a year savings with Geico compared to State Farm for the same coverage before the big rate hike.

I bought Steph a new car a few months ago and put her on my account for the same rate. She has several tickets, but no accidents. Her car is new and worth allot more then my 98 F250, so I expected hers to be more, but it wasn't.

Eddie

 

[SnowRidge]

If I could get a black box put on my 3 vehicles and save $300 every 6 months, I would jump at it. I feel like I am a safe enough driver that I don't care who knows it and besides, if the black box tells them that I am not driving safely enough, the worst they can do is not renew my insurance and then I can go with a company without a black box and pay more. But at least I will save money all the time I have the black box.

I had Geico for 25 years until I moved 3 miles down the road and they raised my rates $700 a year saying that I was moving into a location that had more claims. Then I switched to Allstate because their rates were the lowest and also had 10% more off both policies if I had my homeowners with them. After Katrina they dropped my wind and storm part of the policy and notified us that if we drop our auto insurance with them that they are going to drop the rest of our homeowners policy. Since no other company is writing homeowners poicies in our area, I have to stick with them or else.

AARP (Hartford) will write policies in our area without wind and storm insurance but they quoted me $400 more than Allstate.

A lady ran into my car 3 years ago and she had Allstate insurance also. The police found her at fault and gave her a ticket. Since Allstate insured both motorists, they said the lady was 90% at fault and I was 10% at fault so that they only had to pay 90% of my claim. Also, this kept me from dropping my Allstate insurance for many years because since I have an "at fault" accident on my record, no other company will insure me with the lowest premiums, so I will have to pay much more if I get a different insurer.

Allstate
Geico
AARP
Progressive

With those experiences, I am surprised that you would let an insurance company install a monitoring device in any of your vehicles.

This stuff is insidious corporate big brotherism. There are cameras everywhere we go, including red light cameras and speeding cameras which pay their owners a cut of the fines. We can't shop without a plastic ID card that logs all our purchases, unless we are willing to pay exorbitant jacked up prices. The government is monitoring our phone calls without warrants and wants to track all our Internet activity. Now insurance companies want to install data loggers in our cars and trucks.

We are fast losing our freedoms. Please, don't sign up to be monitored to "save" a buck. You are selling not only your and your family's rights, but in the end, the rights of all of us.

 

[LBrown59]

I have never heard of the black box thing before. I would suspect that it has less to do with monitoring your normal driving habits and more to do with documenting an accident in a way to show they will not pay.

MarkV

Rite ON.
They like to make it look like they are doing you a faver with a lower rate but that's not their motive.