To date I have never made an insurance claim. I have had a couple cars bump into mine but it has never been anything serious. All the money I have paid for insurance premiums has been pure profit for the insurance company. I own my car and have the lowest amount of coverage possible. In the event of an accident all the lives of the humans involved in both vehicles would be covered and the other car. My car would not be covered and I would pay any repair costs out of pocket. At that point I was paying about $67 a month for my policy.
My first attempt at getting my premium lowered failed. My credit score had improved quite a bit last year so I called up the insurance company and asked for a lower rate based on this fact. The agent was very shrewd. He told me that he couldn't offer me a lower rate but if I signed up for renters insurance I could get a discount on my auto insurance. He transferred me over to the renters insurance department. Not one of my possessions is worth insuring but I decided to let him give me a quote. For the combing policy it was going to be about $85 a month. I declined and hung up the phone. Of course this quote dogged me for a few months since they must have told their sales department I was a hot lead. I was not.
I decided I would have to take a different tact. A few months had elapsed so I thought I would try again. This time I got online an looked up some quotes from other companies. My quote from Allstate came in at about $90 a month. Nope. Then I got a quote from Esurance for $55 a month. That was appealing and I saved this quote on my computer. Then I called Geico and asked if they were willing to price match a competitor. At first the agent was resistant. She said that I was as low as possible. I informed her that I would like to stay with Geico but Esurance had come in at $55 a month. Magically she found a way to match their price. How strange.
The first thing she did was switch my auto pay from going through my debit card to being directly withdrawn from my checking account. Even though this money was still coming out of the same account they were charging me a $4 a month processing fee. Then she lowered my coverage in some area down to the minimum. I had been paying this processing fee for years and no one thought to mention it.
I told my story of triumph to a friend of mine recently and his reaction was, "why bother?" Mostly because I think its funny and also because there is no reason to spend more and not get more. Most companies are not focused on trying to maximize the value they deliver to you as a consumer. They are trying to maximize their profits. If they can find a way to extract extra money from you they will do it. They prey on the fact that most people will not shop around. Many times people just accept whatever price they are given because it takes time to look for a better deal. If you take a little time to compare rates and arm yourself with some information you can cut through all the hidden fees to get to a reasonable price. I now do this with all my bills and the sweet savings add up each month. Each dollar I save is a dollar I do not have to earn by working.
How much would you pay to insure this sweet ride?