In an effort to find more money in my budget, I decided to take another look at my car insurance yesterday.
I have a 97 Honda Civic with about 91k miles. It has a few mechanical/appearance problems which don't affect the safety, but does affect the appearance.
Blue book value is right around $3000. I own it outright, so the only insurance I'm required to have is liability.
I had a deductible of $1000 for both Comprehensive and Collision - so that would leave ~$2000 (if Geico actually gave me that) before my car would be considered "totaled".
I was paying $70/month / $411 six-month premium. After taking Comprehensive off, reducing liability to legal limits, declining other coverages (other than Roadside, only $1/month), my 6 - month premium lowered to $235. Almost $200.
I looked at the fact that *if* something were to happen to my car, it would not prevent me from getting to work. So . . I wouldn't be desperate for transportation. I also live in an area where I *could* take public transportation to get to the grocery store, etc if I had to. (Needless to say, I think I'm a pretty experienced bus rider now. 
)
I've been playing with this decision really ever since I finally had my car title free and clear. Now, it seems like it is finally an ideal time to take this step and go to just liability + road service.
Well . . . Wish me luck!
KIF,
Laura
Car Insurance
July 18th, 2006 at 12:53 am
July 18th, 2006 at 02:33 am 1153189997
http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19735&goto=newpost
what are you doing on liability?
July 18th, 2006 at 04:07 am 1153195663
Jacquelyn
July 18th, 2006 at 04:19 am 1153196397
lrj - What I'm doing with liability is the bare mininum required in Texas. 20/40/15. I am actually also keeping the uninsured driver portions as well - all total only about $30 of the premium.
Before I made my final decision to switch careers, I had bought an extended warranty on my car - it has 3 years to go on it. Part of it (if I remember right) is Road Side Service. So . . . I may be able to cut out Comprehensive Other than Collision which is required in order to have Road Side -- which would be another $46 off my premium.
Jacquelynn - Yay! I'm so excited to hear you got the car you wanted.
July 18th, 2006 at 08:00 pm 1153252811
If you live in California, the Insurance Commissioner's website contains information about each insurance company's premiums and complaint history. You can also go to AM Best's website to check on the insurance company's solvency. When I utilized these resources, I found that some of the lower cost insurers had a exceptionally high number of customer complaints or were nearly insolvent. It was very eye-opening.
January 16th, 2007 at 04:21 am 1168921319
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