Car Insurance

I finally made the choice of who to use for car insurance once ours expires at the end of the month.

The winner is Progressive at $623.53.

Not only did we get better coverage than Geico, plus "gap" insurance (even though they don't call it that) which Geico does not offer, we were able to do so for far less.

Geico wanted over $850 to renew. I changed our two deductibles from $500 to $1000 for collision and comprehensive and got rid of car rental reimbursement. New total? $770. I called and spoke with the lady over the phone to try and figure out why I could get better coverage elsewhere for more than a hundred dollars difference. She couldn't find any other discounts but did give me a huge schpiel about how in 2010 we'll automatically get accident forgiveness and how wonderful this is.

Blah blah blah. I get it. I am not a person who believes that "that kind of stuff never happens to people like me," or that I am such a great driver I would never cause an accident. Nope. I know that it takes the blink of an eye for something to happen. Where we live we have lots of older folk we call "Sunday Drivers", intermittent rainstorms throughout the year, and many other things that could easily turn into a fender bender or worse, no matter how good of a driver you are.

I personally think that saving $300 a year is a much better deal. If we do get into an accident we will simply deal with the increase or find a company that won't hold it against us. I could purchase that from Allstate straight off, for example, without a five-year wait. Geico lady couldn't tell me how much an increase might be. She said it didn't really matter how bad the accident was, it was more a matter of circumstance and how many and yadda yadda. In other words she was very vague. I'd lose my $50 good driver discount for sure and I may see a rate increase of $100-$200. Well geeze, it seems to me that I would end up paying about what they're asking me to pay now, don't you think?

*sighs*