Opinions on car insurance

[Underdog 1,593]

Personally, I would avoid Liberty Mutual. My wife forgot to pay the premium until the last minute. The day before it was due, they would not accept payment over the phone either via credit card/check. Even though, it seems to me that they would accept payment for certain policies/states via that method. I went to their local office to make payment and they refused payment as well. They told me that it had to be sent to their office in New England. Again, they could take payment, but not for my policy, as I purchased it online and not through their office. So, basically, the car insurance lapsed and we could not drive for the week that it took them to reinstate it, and because it had lapsed we could not go out immediately and get some other insurance because they would have deemed that as a break in coverage. So, rented a car and used the rental insurance for a week and dropped them as soon as it was reinstated and went with GEICO and have not had any problems, rate increases, etc. since getting them. And, GEICO is very easy to make payments automatically, etc. My biggest problem is getting the cards put in the cars every six months when they come in.

[Babyface Finster 45]

Thanks for all the input. I will have to make sure my company is a member of the NJBIA so I can get a quote from NJM. I'll try a few of the others as well. Had a bad experience making a claim against Allstate (other driver at fault - his policy) and I'm holding a grudge against them.

[Krdshrk 3,877]

I had a horrible experience with Allstate as well - My previous car, they wanted $1400/6 months for insurance coverage. $2800/year... Switched to travelers - $1200/year.

[rdsmith3 19]

Another positive vote for NJ Manufacturers. I have not comparison shopped in a few years, but the last time I did they were significantly cheaper than the nearest competitor.

[Urban Grunt 44]

Most people are happy with there insuarnce company until you have a claim, then you will see how good/bad yours is.

Example.

Unless you have "original equipment manufacturer" in your policy they can use second hand/salvage parts.

Body panels can be filled and not replaced.

 

My truck was 6 months old and someone backed into the side of it, the others person's insurance wanted to use body filler (over 1/2 thick sprayed over) second option was to use salavge parts.

I used my own insurance for the repair and then they sued the other

[Pew Pew Plates 358]

I use all state. I have never had a claim, though. I am 22 (just about 23), single, drive a 2011 V8 camaro and have one accident (tree) and one ticket on record. I pay $900 per 6 months. Nobody else came close to that! I am happy

[mikelets456 78]

im currently with allstate, prior to that with geico for about 6 years.. never made a claim with geico, but about 4 months into my term with allstate i made a claim , had a check in my hand nearly 3 hours later.

 

drove to my local claim center, they checked it out, wrote me a check and i dropped it off at the body shop. very good service.

 

as far as costs, subjectical... this is NJ after all... Car insurance rates are astronimcal IM0

 

I have checked all of them and they are within $300-400 per year difference which (for me) ain't worth changing. We have Liberty Mutual and four drivers on our policy: Me, my wife, 20 year old and 17 year old. We pay $7200 and that is with Liability only on two cars and full on for me and the wife. Believe it or not they are the least expensive and we have NO record of accidents or tickets!!!

 

Checked with PA and the same policy is $3,200.... yet another reason for us to move out of this state. Between Health insurace, property taxes and car insurance I am $25,000 in the hole before the year gets started. Throw in private school, 6% income tax and federal tax and I am SCREWED!

[MikeK77 8]

NJM here, best I have ever had.

[lunker 274]

USAA

 

They are wonderful to deal with and never a problem.

 

If you're eligible switch to them.

 

+1

[Babyface Finster 45]

Thought I would let you guys know what I ended up with.

 

I tried Geico, Progressive, Travelers, Allstate and Liberty Mutual. I am not eleigible for NJM.

 

I ended up going with Liberty Mutual. They were not the abolute rock-bottom cheapest, but the coverage was the most straightforward and their service was the best.

 

On car insurance alone, I saved $1,200/year. I decided to run my homeowners policy by them and they quoted HALF the price of State Farm who I have had since I bought the house. In fact, Liberty Mutual is a little cheaper than State farm was 7 years ago when I first got the policy. I just hadn't noticed the near $100/year increases since the homeowners policy is paid through the escrow account.

 

All together, I saved $1,800/year by making the switch. It seems pretty clear to me that i have to keep an eye on these policies and plan to go through the exercise every 2-3 years to combat rate creep.

 

Al in all, well worth the effort. I also changed today from Cablevision/Optimum to Verizon Fios. Saved about $70 a month and gained extras. Now I'm on a jihad to find other areas we can trim the fat.

 

Thanks again for the input.

[this_is_nascar 162]

Sounds like you came up with some much needed ammo money .

[Buckshot195 8]

+1 for NJM they also can bundle your vehicle and homeowners insurance and you get a deeper discount

[hd2000fxdl 422]

 

All together, I saved $1,800/year by making the switch.

 

 

Tha'ts a lot of ammo....

[Babyface Finster 45]

Another update. Just got a letter from Liberty Mutual. I am on the automatic debit program and they informed me that the monthly payment is going down almost $11 a month. I didn't ask for this, it just showed up.

 

So far, so good...

[Melgamatic 66]

USAA

 

They are wonderful to deal with and never a problem.

 

If you're eligible switch to them.

 

I think everyone is eligible for USAA now, no longer veterans and their families. I've had it for a long time because my wife's dad is a veteran.

 

However, I don't think USAA has the best prices anymore. They have great service, are always very nice, seem to look out for you, etc. They're just not the cheapest like they used to be.

[JrzyGuy30 0]

 

1) Who do you use? I have CURE and wife has GEICO

 

2) Are you happy with them overall? YES - full coverage and paying less than $800 a year (it is a 1k deductible) Wife has Geico and no complaints - $900 a year with 100/300/11 coverage and $500 deduct on a BMW.. not bad I think

 

3) Have you comparison shopped their pricing against other insurers? YES.. We shopped everyone and these were the best for us.

 

4) Have you made any claims in the last few years and how were you treated? No Claims ever- hope to never have to

 

I Suggest shopping the heck out of insurance carriers- they will compete for you as a customer.

 

[Kasanova 2]

1) Who do you use? Progressive

 

2) Are you happy with them overall? Very happy

 

3) Have you comparison shopped their pricing against other insurers? I have in the past, they still come out cheaper

 

4) Have you made any claims in the last few years and how were you treated? One claim, guy bumped into my car while he was reversing. He called the cops and everthing, made a police report. His insurance company tried to go after my insurance to pay for $3,000 worth of damage. When my agent told me this i started laughing. Lucky for me I was infront of a tire shop I go to alot, and they have cameras, everyone. I sent them a video what actually happened, now they are trying to go after his insurance company for fraud. I love progressive.

 

Any other relevant info you wish to share would be greatly appreciated. Ever since I have been with them(6 years) My premium has always gone down. It started with 580/month 1 car just liability... Six years later 2 cars full coverage, 147.00/month....

[lunker 274]

I am not a fan of the owner of Progressive insurance. To me it's a bit like handing my money over to George Soros.

[JrzyGuy30 0]

I am not a fan of the owner of Progressive insurance. To me it's a bit like handing my money over to George Soros.

+1

[Njgunowner 2]

NJM

 

I have had 3 claims in 10 years, all was excellent.

 

I've had 3 tickets in 10 years, no biggie there either.

 

I price shopped this year before renewing, they were the best price or equal.

[leahcim 680]

1 and 2:

I insure with Amica also. Service is decent, but dealing with the PIP doctors (IME) can be difficult--especially if you believe the treatment is helping and they claim you have reached "maximum medical improvement" and wish to cut you off. I had to go to arbitration with them on this once--they lost and had to cover the treatment plus my attorney fees. But the adjusters and claims people are always nice and always professional.

 

3) Have you comparison shopped their pricing against other insurers?

I usually run a comparison every year and they are close enough. I also have an umbrella ($1E6 excess liability) and HO policies with them. I do not have the price breakdown, but my auto policy is about $1100--zero-threshold, Comp/Collision ($500 or $1000 deductible), $500,000 liability, Uninsured/Underinsured motorist, $2500 PIP deductible. The umbrella policy is about $150. I will probably drop my comp/collision soon as my car is almost four years old now.

 

4) Have you made any claims in the last few years and how were you treated? Any other relevant info you wish to share would be greatly appreciated.

I had two claims against the PIP (both were for accidents in which the other party was at-fault.) PIP claims were fine until we got through the first couple of treatment plans. At that point they try to cut you off--send you to their doctors and slow-roll everything. You have to continue treatment and (in one case) maybe go through PIP arbitration. In my case we had an orthapaedic doctor who would evaluate every month and document objective improvement with the PT--range of motion, pain, etc. I got an attorney who speciailizes in PIP arb cases (pro-bono, so if he accepts the case it has pretty good odds of prevailing) and the insurance had to pay for all of the treatments plus the attorney fees (law in NJ for PIP cases).

 

I was rear-ended once and the at-fault party was insured by Allstate. I know they are representing thier client, not trying to help me--but after dealing with those idiots, I would never buy anything from Allstate. They were very unprofessional and nasty in my dealings with them.

 

Second incident, I was on my bike and was hit by a truck--I was on a street with no stop, he was turning onto same street from a side street with a stop-sign. Apparently did not see me. Very minor injuries, but it destroyed my carbon fiber bike. He was insured by Liberty Mutual, and they were a pleasure to deal with--especially compared with Allstate. Did not try to fight me on replacing the bike (the only visible damage was to the fork, but with Carbon Fiber you can have small fractures that will fail catastrophically later PLUS it voids the warranty). They covered the bike, some after-market products, my clothing and paid me for my time off of work.

 

Also, I had the verbal threshold back then and I switched to zero threshold after that--it added about $400-$500 to my bill (per year) but it is worth it. With verbal, you could have ongoing chronic pain or other issues that have real economic impact, yet be unable to sue if it does not pierce the threshold.

 

I also carry very high deductibles and drop comp/collision after 3-5 years--I rarely get into at-fault accidents (actually never had one involving another person), and I can handle a few thousand dollars if I do. But having to pony up for a five or six figure loss would be unsat. This is one of my problems with the state minimum policy--I think it is called the "basic" policy. The liability limits are just pathetically low--$0.00 bodily injury liability, and $5000.00 property damage? and the "standard" policy is not much better. If you have any assets to protect, go with at least $500,000.00 combined liability limit.

[TK421 2]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but didn't want to start a new one.

 

Does anyone that uses Progressive have their SnapShot device installed? I was completely against it but figured I'm out of work and not driving so if I can save a little more it would be worth it. I was with Liberty Mutual for over 26 years and year by year my policy kept creeping higher to the point where my renewal this year was over $3k a year for an '07 Tahoe and an '07 Cobalt. I wound up dropping them for Progressive for $2600 a year saving over $400.

 

The SnapShot thing has me a little PO'd though. I installed it today and made three trips, out for a haircut, to the super market and back home. I hit several lights on Fischer and Rt 37 but no big deal, no panic stops. I got home and checked on the SnapShot website to see how it works and learned that the device flagged me for 4 of what they call "hard braking" events which is defined as a reduction of speed of 7 or more miles and hour over one second. I drive fast but hard braking? Really? I have an '07 Cobalt with 155,000 miles on it and it still has the original front rotors, I replaced one set of pads at 85,000 miles, I'm hardly rough on my brakes. Then I did the math... The average amber light around here is about 6 seconds. The speed limits on most of the major roads are between 40 and 50 miles per hour. That means even doing the speed limit, every time I'm driving up to a light that turns amber I can either brake and get tagged for a "hard braking" event or run the light and avoid the event. Seriously, WTF? Anyone else dealing with this insane crap? I'm about to send the stupid shitting things back calling them out on their BS.

[Zell959 40]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but didn't want to start a new one.

 

Does anyone that uses Progressive have their SnapShot device installed? I was completely against it but figured I'm out of work and not driving so if I can save a little more it would be worth it. I was with Liberty Mutual for over 26 years and year by year my policy kept creeping higher to the point where my renewal this year was over $3k a year for an '07 Tahoe and an '07 Cobalt. I wound up dropping them for Progressive for $2600 a year saving over $400.

 

The SnapShot thing has me a little PO'd though. I installed it today and made three trips, out for a haircut, to the super market and back home. I hit several lights on Fischer and Rt 37 but no big deal, no panic stops. I got home and checked on the SnapShot website to see how it works and learned that the device flagged me for 4 of what they call "hard braking" events which is defined as a reduction of speed of 7 or more miles and hour over one second. I drive fast but hard braking? Really? I have an '07 Cobalt with 155,000 miles on it and it still has the original front rotors, I replaced one set of pads at 85,000 miles, I'm hardly rough on my brakes. Then I did the math... The average amber light around here is about 6 seconds. The speed limits on most of the major roads are between 40 and 50 miles per hour. That means even doing the speed limit, every time I'm driving up to a light that turns amber I can either brake and get tagged for a "hard braking" event or run the light and avoid the event. Seriously, WTF? Anyone else dealing with this insane crap? I'm about to send the stupid shitting things back calling them out on their BS.

 

I haven't had any experience with that, but I'm not surprised. It sounded like something that probably does cost them some change to implement and maintain, which is probably only worth doing if a decent percentage of users end up providing them with info that allows them to gain a rate increase.

[this_is_nascar 162]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but didn't want to start a new one.

 

Does anyone that uses Progressive have their SnapShot device installed? I was completely against it but figured I'm out of work and not driving so if I can save a little more it would be worth it. I was with Liberty Mutual for over 26 years and year by year my policy kept creeping higher to the point where my renewal this year was over $3k a year for an '07 Tahoe and an '07 Cobalt. I wound up dropping them for Progressive for $2600 a year saving over $400.

 

The SnapShot thing has me a little PO'd though. I installed it today and made three trips, out for a haircut, to the super market and back home. I hit several lights on Fischer and Rt 37 but no big deal, no panic stops. I got home and checked on the SnapShot website to see how it works and learned that the device flagged me for 4 of what they call "hard braking" events which is defined as a reduction of speed of 7 or more miles and hour over one second. I drive fast but hard braking? Really? I have an '07 Cobalt with 155,000 miles on it and it still has the original front rotors, I replaced one set of pads at 85,000 miles, I'm hardly rough on my brakes. Then I did the math... The average amber light around here is about 6 seconds. The speed limits on most of the major roads are between 40 and 50 miles per hour. That means even doing the speed limit, every time I'm driving up to a light that turns amber I can either brake and get tagged for a "hard braking" event or run the light and avoid the event. Seriously, WTF? Anyone else dealing with this insane crap? I'm about to send the stupid shitting things back calling them out on their BS.

 

 

Not to be a smart-ass, but what did you expect it to do? It's going to log and report on all that type of stuff, like hard breaking, fast acceleration, hard cornering, speeding, etc. If you have a stick, I wouldn't be suprised if it logs hard/fast shifting either.

[Malsua 1,422]

 

 

The SnapShot thing has me a little PO'd though.

 

You do realize that installing the tracking device gives Progressive all they need to deny claims? That's it's real intent. The bait they offer is a reduced rate. Did you think that somehow their pool of drivers got better because they offered this device? Their aggregate number of accidents won't change a bit but they can offer you a discount. They pay for the discount they offer you by reducing the number of claims they pay. They offer you a penny so they can save a buck on you later when they deny your claim.

[TK421 2]

That is all well and good but I went from driving about 45,000 miles a year to less than 1500 in the last 6 months so if the car sits in the driveway all week long and says here I am who cares. for the one or two trips a week I make around town I found the hard braking BS a little rediculous given it is flagging me for stopping at red lights and seemingly trying to encourage me to run them. It seems to turn common sense on its head. Proof of the fact that I am not hard on my brakes is 155,000 miles on an original OEM set of GM rotors, I've heard people bitching about as little as 20,000 miles before having to replace them. I didn't ask for outside opinions about the system; I asked if anyone that has it installed or has had it in the past has had to deal with similar BS.

[lunker 274]

Add the fact that the owner of Progressive is a huge donor to causes that seek to strip gun owners of their rights and turn them into criminals, and you have.a company I would never consider doing business with.

[TK421 2]

Add the fact that the owner of Progressive is a huge donor to causes that seek to strip gun owners of their rights and turn them into criminals, and you have.a company I would never consider doing business with.

 

Who is the owner?

[lunker 274]

Who is the owner?

 

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/peterlewis.asp

[JayWilling 33]

They all continually creep your rates up. That's why every 2-3 years you have to shop around and switch carriers. They come in cheap for new business then stick it to you, so you have to switch often.