Edward Kay

Hello All,

I need to move off of Geico (aka ripoff) on to a more reasonable insurance company. I am a 31 year old single male with flawless driving record (no tickets or accidents) and excellent credit.

I need to insure my Porsche 911 Cab and 1997 BMW 528i. I do not want to put homeowner's or anything else with the company.

Any ideas? Anyone with a remotely similar profile? What are you paying? I need to get a company with a good AM Best/S&P rating that will actually pay claims if needed. My best quote to date is AMICA at $1487 a year. 100/300 Standard Coverage with dual $500 deductibles.

Thank you,
Edward
Rennlist Member

Ray Calvo

There are other things to consider besides moola, like how good will they support you in an "incident". I presently have State Farm; I got a Geico ad in the mail and provided my particulars. They said they couldn't help me.

State Farm has stood by me the past 28 years since I left college and went out on my own. I have been able to get cars fixed at the shop fo my choice when I had an "incident", and I have not had rates revised due to "discussions/paper transfers" with local or state police.

What I'm paying in PA won't help you in La-La Land. Call local companies and get their rates and particulars concerning where you live, how far you drive, what car(s) you want covered, etc. - don't ask us to do your legwork.

hn

Mercury or Wawanessa based in San Diego. We just happen to shop for new insurance companies and these 2 provide the cheapest rate. I also had a claim with Mercury last year when my other car was hit and run in a parking lot, no problem. Mercury sent my nephew a note saying his 2001 Audi A4 is getting older and gave him an updated lower rate. That's rare for an insurance company to do such thing.

Also, many companies use agents to sell their policies. Your rate is depended on how much money the agen want to make. So with the same company, you may be just getting a better rate by switching agent.

adsc4s

I will second Wawanessa. I have been with them for the last 9 years. They are very reasonable (1/2 what 20th Century was charging me) and they pay. I have had one claim with them and they sent the check directly to the shop of my choice.

PeanutinCA

Take a look at <a href="http://www.badfaithinsurance.org/index.html" target="_blank">Bad Faith Insurance Rankings</a> before you decide on an Insurance Company. There is also many websites dedicated to the despicable behaviour of some of the bigger Insurance companies and I know first hand. Look around the web before you pick one because it's the cheapest or that someone has been with them for many years. Twenty years with a company doesn't mean squat when you go to make a claim and they deny it!

Dylan.

Anir

Edward,

Like Ray, I've had wonderful service, and reasonable rates, with State Farm. I agree that you sometimes get what you pay for. They have never raised my rates, despite me totaling my Ducati and having to write off my Infiniti Q45 due to flood damage. They have assured me that DE's are covered under my policy. I pay $90 / month, with a $1,000 deductible.

Greg D.

I don't know who are the good guys in that business, but progressive saved me $500 per 6 month period on the 993 + my wife's land rover compared to AllState (and according to thier comparison website compared to State farm as well). It's really hard to compare depending on state specific issues, deductibles, types of coverage etc...

RT7

I had Mercury and switching to Wawanesa starting this month (renewal). I'd saving $600/year by switching from Mercury to Wawanesa.

Carrera GT

Get an insurance broker that specialises in Porsches and the like. I have a terrible, terrible driving record (and only a few years living here contributing to "the other road tax" in California) but I have worked out good deals on everything except an '01 Range Rover with AllState. While most insurers are growing tired of home insurance, it's important to tie everything into the home policy.
I've destroyed two cars and my wife has more speeding tickets than, well, more than me even!
I think you'll find companies like Geico are best for crappy driving records. I found AllState to be great when we had a clean slate, but as we variously made things worse, we managed to negotiate a better deal by using a broker instead of going to a direct sales office.
As mentioned in this thread, it's a bad start to first look for cheapest. I've had very good luck doing business with AllState (despite their #3 ranking in the "bad faith" rankings, but more on that in a later post) and I had good luck with State Farm (the insurer for someone that backed into my Tahoe in a shopping centre parking lot) but terrible trouble with State when they just literally stopped talking and just said "sorry, our policy in situations like this is to not pay the claim" (situations like what? situations like when someone makes a claim?!)

Carrera GT

What's the idea and motivation behind this bad faith site:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by PeanutinCA:
<strong>Take a look at <a href="http://www.badfaithinsurance.org/index.html" target="_blank">Bad Faith Insurance Rankings</a> before you decide on an Insurance Company. There is also many websites dedicated to the despicable behaviour of some of the bigger Insurance companies and I know first hand. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">This site doesn't appear to have any methodology or business practices and they do not state their affiliations. I don't even see how they validate reports.
I'd consider a site like this to be little more than infotainment and I certainly wouldn't make a decision based on anything I might see there.
I wish <a href="http://www.consumerreports.org" target="_blank">www.consumerreports.org</a> had something more recent than 10/02, but that's good enough for the periodic re-check we should all do on recurring major costs like insurance.
CR used a fictitious "average" profile in three zip codes across the US and, with <a href="http://www.insweb.com" target="_blank">www.insweb.com</a> (the largest independent brokerage on the Web) they tested four major insurers plus the largest, statefarm.com because they don't use brokers.
The CR study is quite comprehensive (sorry, cheap pun) and covers things like how helpful or misleading the insurer and their Web site tend to be as well as discrepancies in premiums on like vehicles (comparing seemingly identical competitors in the popular car classes showed differences of 10% or more presumably do to actuarial fluctuations) and mention issues such as crappy credit rating and late-pay events on the credit report being linked to the frequency of claims (!) so it's worth buying a year of subscription at CR just to read all their advice.

Cheers,

Rohan Nath

I'll cast another vote for State Farm. I've been with them the last 10 years and have always received excellent service and (as best I can tell) competitive rates.

PeanutinCA

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by Carrera GT:
<strong>What's the idea and motivation behind this bad faith site:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by PeanutinCA:
<strong>Take a look at <a href="http://www.badfaithinsurance.org/index.html" target="_blank">Bad Faith Insurance Rankings</a> before you decide on an Insurance Company. There is also many websites dedicated to the despicable behaviour of some of the bigger Insurance companies and I know first hand. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">This site doesn't appear to have any methodology or business practices and they do not state their affiliations. I don't even see how they validate reports.
I'd consider a site like this to be little more than infotainment and I certainly wouldn't make a decision based on anything I might see there.
I wish <a href="http://www.consumerreports.org" target="_blank">www.consumerreports.org</a> had something more recent than 10/02, but that's good enough for the periodic re-check we should all do on recurring major costs like insurance.
CR used a fictitious "average" profile in three zip codes across the US and, with <a href="http://www.insweb.com" target="_blank">www.insweb.com</a> (the largest independent brokerage on the Web) they tested four major insurers plus the largest, statefarm.com because they don't use brokers.
The CR study is quite comprehensive (sorry, cheap pun) and covers things like how helpful or misleading the insurer and their Web site tend to be as well as discrepancies in premiums on like vehicles (comparing seemingly identical competitors in the popular car classes showed differences of 10% or more presumably do to actuarial fluctuations) and mention issues such as crappy credit rating and late-pay events on the credit report being linked to the frequency of claims (!) so it's worth buying a year of subscription at CR just to read all their advice.

Cheers,</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Did CR do a study on manking a claim? I'm guessing not because that would be considered fraudulent, even if it was for research purposes. Telling Edward were to get the best or cheapest rates is only telling him half the story. No offense people but I think most are giving advice as Non-Victims. See what happens when you Insurance company denies paying a claim if you injur somebody? That somebody then sues YOU and it goes on YOUR credit record if you lose in court. Now, let me clarify, I'm not a lawyer so this is based on the information provided to me, but this is why I gave an example of information that can be found on the web if you look for it? It's not the paying for the insurance that's the hard part, it's making a claim (in some instances). There's issues like, keeping a record of your claims history for 3 years (maybe longer), for the purpose that OTHER Insurance companies would use to deny you insurance in the future. Insurance Companies not informing their policy holders of their fill coverage of rights e.g. Agent not having access to parts of the system that would allow them to inform you if you had an umbrella policy that would cover you further than you basic vehicle policy or, your right to insist they pay a claim if they are trying to deny it as two examples.

Insurance is a big part of the American life and you better hope it's there for you when you need it. A little research like the example I gave could help in the future. It was just an example though and yes, one that could have flaws. But, you could also try examples like <a href="http://www.screwedbyinsurance.com" target="_blank">www.screwedbyinsurance.com</a> and <a href="http://http://www.sfagentswhocare.org" target="_blank">http://www.sfagentswhocare.org</a>, go to their discussion forums and see real life stories, discussions and questions.

Just a heads up from someone that had THREE OTHER legit Insurance policies/companies that didn't kick in to help out either, when the other parties (guilty party for accident) Insurance company didn't step up and still haven't after more than 6 years.

TomF

I've insured various Porsches with State Farm, with outstanding service. I just moved my homeowner's to them and managed to save even more. In addition, I was able to get an additional $3 million liability policy for around $90/year which wasn't available or was prohibitively expensive with other companies. BTW, I was with Safeco before...oh how I hated that company!!!

milrad

I have a very similar profile: Age 31 (married), a 98 C2S and a 98 528ia, and a clean record.

On these two cars I pay $1598/yr with $1000 deductibles in the Ogden, Utah area for 300/100 coverage from USAA. Their industry ratings are excellent.

I also have a third car, motorcycle, personal articles floater, and house with them, but the last two don't help my premium any.

I have always received great service with them but have suspected their prices are creeping upwards the last couple of years. Maybe I need to look elsewhere, too. I hate do do that after 12 years of good service, but I am starting to worry about their "no DE" stance others have encountered. This language is not in my policy (as far as I can see) but I'm afraid to ask for fear of being black-balled.

Jason

okindao

another vote for State Farm, I pay about $ 450 per half in Ohio ( granted not the left coast)found them to be reasonmable to work with and like Anir have been assured by multiple representatives that my drivers ed's are covered