So as my dad and Derek always says, get quotes from at least a few auto insurance companies every time your auto insurance is up for renewal. I just got renewal package from Safeco and I’m not happy. Last time, they decided to raise my insurance by $3. I thought they were still pretty cheap, so I didn’t bother getting quotes elsewhere. However, this time they decided to raise my premium by $40 to $460 for no particular reason. I was also expecting it to drop since I’m turning 25 in a week, and you know when you turn 25, you get a decrease in your auto insurance.
Anyway, I was pissed. I decided to see what Progressive would offer me since they were my insurance company before Safeco and they had the 2nd cheapest policy the last time I checked. All the other insurance companies have always quoted me $800+ for some reason. Entering my information at Progressive which matched my current Safeco policy, I was shocked to find out that the premium was only $326… Do note these prices are semi-annual (6 months) and not annual. Of course I was super happy. I did another quote at Geico just to check to see how they fared and they quoted me a premium of $600.
I decided to give Safeco a call to see if they’d beat Progressive, but apparently they aren’t open 24/7 (at least not the policy service center). So in the end, I decided to give up on them.
I had a few questions regarding my Progressive application and guess what? They have phone and online chat customer support 24/7. I inputted my phone number and told them to call me. When I picked up, there was immediately someone else on the other end. No wait time, no automated answering machine, no elevator music, nothing! The few questions I had was in regards to the fact they only gave me about 20 characters of space for my street address. Even with my abbreviations, it didn’t have enough space for “Way”. The customer support rep gave me an abbreviation that he said would work. I then asked about the policy start date as I didn’t see where to set that. He gave me some quick and simple instructions and I guess I must’ve missed it earlier. The final question I had was in regards to the fact I’m turning 25, but wasn’t 25 yet and if I would get the discount. He says that the premium does decrease when I turn 25 and that the application process takes that into account 30 days before my birthday, so my premium should reflect that. I thanked him for his time and couldn’t be happier with his support.
There was a report a few days ago posted on Consumerist: Complaint Ratios For Top 10 Auto Insurers. I was shocked to find that Progressive was ranked #7 in lowest complaint ratios, while Safeco was ranked in the bottom 10. However do take this report with a grain of salt since it is only complaints filed in New York. What exactly is a complaint ratio? According to the report, Insurers are ranked based on a complaint ratio. This ratio is determined by the number of complaints upheld against companies as a percentage of their total private passenger auto insurance business. The complaint ratio is calculated using an average of two years’ premium data. This compensates for the fact that some complaints closed in any given year are begun in the previous year.
Also, it appears my annual mileage, gas guzzling, distance traveled analysis is due. I’m just too lazy to aggregate all the data for now. Hopefully I’ll do it soon. Here’s a preview:
Total Distance Traveled: 7268.2 mi
Total Gas Used: 253.714 gal
Total Cost of Gas: $745.40
Average Cost/Gallon: $2.94
Average Mileage: 28.6 MPG
Average Distance/Dollar: 9.8 mi
Average Cost/Day: $2.04
Average Distance/Day: 19.9 mi