We Tried to Shop Our Way to Cheaper Car Insurance. It Didnt Work.
We were bound to fail.We just didn’t know it when we started our quest.When our latest car insurance premium notices landed, we were shocked: Tara’s premiums had risen more than 62 percent to $2,315 since late 2020.
Ron, with a car that is three years younger than Tara’s and has a plug-in hybrid battery that would be expensive to replace, was experiencing sky-high costs of $3,396 per year.If you own a car, it’s no secret that auto insurance prices have soared.Motor-vehicle insurance premiums have increased 51 percent in just three years, according to the latest data from the Consumer Price Index.
A confluence of factors is to blame.Cars are more expensive to repair and replace, accidents are on the rise (phone fiddling is an ever-present risk) and weather-related claims are also increasing.Could we shop our way out of this mess? We were all for trying, but it wasn’t going to be easy.
We would also have to contend with the fact that we both live in Brooklyn.It’s densely populated, which insurance companies don’t like.
Theft rates are high, and catalytic converters are catnip for bad actors.People in other states have to grapple with their own idiosyncrasies, like the golf-ball-size hail in Minnesota, where premiums are projected to rise 61 percent in 2024, according to Insurify, an insurance shopping and comparison website.Still, we liked our odds.With no teenage drivers or scofflaw spouses — plus spotless credit and solid records on the road — we hunkered down on Tara’s back porch this week, laptops and phones at the ready.The Incumbent Carriers to BeatWe started with our current insurance companies and began by making sure we understood our existing coverage.
This wasn’t easy; Ron made a spreadsheet with 24 lines on it, representing all the features of the USAA policy for his 2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we ve...