Auto insurance are we getting hosed?

Ok. I believe you. Thanks.

There is no such thing as “local” insurance. North Star is the only local game in town I know of. I would never use an agent again for auto. Straight to the teet when it comes to that. Any major company will send someone to you and file a claim without an agent involved anyways. Homeowners is a different story. I don’t know if it makes a difference when filing a claim but it makes me feel better. The difference between my Progressive direct, and a local agent was that I have to pay every 6 months for direct, and I could pay yearly with an agent and pay an extra 24$ a year.

Since I’m off all week I am going to be working on researching this more but I’m confident I’m grossly overpaying. I was doing this all from my phone so it was hard to read. I will get a quote for all vehicles maybe those won’t be much cheaper. The one car we aren’t even driving now

CaptainMusky wrote:

How do you explain the specific example I got with Progressive where my son went to the website and I went through my agent and quoted me something significantly higher for exact same coverage? The ONLY difference is one was through an agent.

I’d have to see both quotes to tell. My guess is something was different in the coverages or one picked up something different on the rated drivers than the other. Also some agents give the quote #’s before what’s called validating the policy and other only give the quote after that’s done. Its during the validating process that MVR’s and other research is done. Often the validating picks up something that raises the rates that was not on the original quote. I always push the quote thru the validation process prior to quoting a price. Also progressive is a lot different in that sometimes you can purchase direct thru the company without going thru a agent. Not sure if the premium is different direct or with a agent or not.

Two of the hailed-out roofs on our house occurred in catastrophic hailstorms that hit the neighborhood. Over 90% of the roofs in a fairly wide swath were replaced after the last storm. Well unless you had SF. I did not need a contractor on the roof with the adjuster on that one. The contractors that I spoke to all mentioned the same insurance company as difficult to work with.

No tickets, no accidents on anyone’s record and the premiums are quite large. I just looked at my renewal (end of month) and it went down 8%.

I carry the Minnesota maximum on liability (well it was the upper limit, not positive it still is). It certainly costs more especially when you have a son on your policy. I often think it would be cheaper to sell him the car and let him have his own policy. Right now, he only pays the base part of the plan and I pay the added premium for the higher liability.

I also carry the high side on both the uninsured and underinsured riders but often question if insurance companies actually pay off on those riders (and I hope that I NEVER find out). I find it difficult to have to pay for those who don’t in insurance too.

I just bought a 2025 Ram limited. My insurance is $920 per year. I had a 2020 Ram Laramie eco diesel. The new truck premium went up $40 per year. I go through a small insurance agency. He checks new insurance companies every year to keep our rates low. We have been with the same insurance company for the last 8 years.

fishthumper wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Brittman wrote:</div>
State Farm (auto ins.) is great to work with when their customer is at fault. I will share that homes in our area with State Farm are the least likely to have roof replacements due to hail.

If you want to find out what insurance companies fight people the hardest on home claims, Just ask several home contractors. The contractors I know all give me the same 2-3 companies who they have the most issues with.

If there is an actual loss, take them to Appraisal. You will win 99.9 percent of the time.
BTW – Insurance companies do not want you to know that.

jeff becker wrote:

I just bought a 2025 Ram limited. My insurance is $920 per year. I had a 2020 Ram Laramie eco diesel. The new truck premium went up $40 per year. I go through a small insurance agency. He checks new insurance companies every year to keep our rates low. We have been with the same insurance company for the last 8 years.

That’s a pretty impressive I’d say.

I can’t address all the info here at once, but I’ll try and touch on a few key points. First, Captain there is no way there were the same inputs on those two quotes. If they were identical inputs, there wouldn’t be an agent selling progressive as everyone would go online for 66% discount. If I were to guess the online one was not underwritten (credit/driving record check), Prog is notorious for this bait and switch rating and is one of the reason they lose 50% of their clients per year.

In general Auto insurance is similar across the industry, just make sure you have sufficient liability coverages and know your deductibles. The online companies (Prof, Geico etc) advertise low or state min liability coverage often and it should not even be legal imo. Like FT said not too many vehicles less than 10k out there these days, so they are setup to not cover a total loss.

Insurance operates as a margin business, previously SF (where I worked for 12 years) operated like this, for every $1 in premium they got paid, they would pay out $1.02 in claims and pay their bills with the .03-.08 investment return they cleared that year (5%-10% return on your $1 premium). They are also a Mutual company so they don’t payout stockholders and their CEO has relatively modest pay for the industry and their business size. For the last few years that model has been blown up for insurance companies with 2023 being the worst with $1.43 paid out on $1 of premium. This is due to frequency and cost of claim increasing. On average a roof used to be 20k or less, now it’s north of 40k. A windshield used to be $500 and no calibration needed, now it’s $1500+ with most needing calibration (increase in labor and equipment costs). These are two of the most common examples, but the supply chain (remember vehicle chip cost/availability?!?) and inflation issues post-Covid are impacting all areas of insurance claims.

Fwiw I now work in commercial insurance, and still have my personal with SF. And there’s a few companies I would never switch to, and I’d be happy to share via PM if anyone wants to know my personal opinion. And also don’t believe everything you read on the internet.

Bigwerm thanks for the info. It did request SSN when I was doing the quote but didn’t require it so I didn’t put it in. So perhaps my rate changes after that but everything else I entered was the same and in the example I gave for my son’s results and mine the same.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

If there is an actual loss, take them to Appraisal. You will win 99.9 percent of the time.
BTW – Insurance companies do not want you to know that.

I don’t mind them knowing that. If fact if a customer thinks the adjusters findings were wrong I often tell them to. You are correct id there is a actual loss they will win. The key is a actual verifiable loss. Many contractors believe there is a loss when there is not.

fishthumper wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Eelpoutguy wrote:</div>
If there is an actual loss, take them to Appraisal. You will win 99.9 percent of the time.
BTW – Insurance companies do not want you to know that.

I don’t mind them knowing that. If fact if a customer thinks the adjusters findings were wrong I often tell them to. You are correct id there is a actual loss they will win. The key is a actual verifiable loss. Many contractors believe there is a loss when there is not.

Oh, I agree and the Homeowner would have skin in the game at that moment.
The bad thing in MN is that the Insurance companies have very strong lobbiest’s and as a contractor I am unable to speak with the Adjuster.

CaptainMusky wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>fishthumper wrote:</div>
I can tell you that a Agent has no control over premiums or their commission rates at all. Sure wish they did. A agent doesn’t like it when rates go up any more than you do. As far as commissions goes, most agents commissions have gone down in the last 5 or so years.

FT I believe you and I appreciate you commenting since you are in the field and was hoping you would reply.
How do you explain the specific example I got with Progressive where my son went to the website and I went through my agent and quoted me something significantly higher for exact same coverage? The ONLY difference is one was through an agent.

I can tell you that Progressive Direct (website or phone call to Progressive) charges less to the customer than going through an independent agent. Why do you think that is? No commission paid out to an independent agent. I can also tell you that your likelihood of having poor coverage and claims service is much greater going through Porgressive Direct than through and independent agent.