Best cheap auto insurance?

James Rogers53 said:well, it’s about that much anyway 🤷

If everything was actually above board, the rates shouldn't have differed that much between households, unless someone was under 30.

Maybe you two weren't in the same age bracket or living in the same part of the country. Based on how these things usually work, insurance companies can tack on different regional surcharges—maybe 10%, 13.5%, or 15% depending on the area. Rates vary wildly from state to state.

And obviously, accident history isn't a fixed number.

Any other discrepancies basically point toward some shady business. But, just guessing here, you really should compare the actual policy fine print.

wiredtrucker32 said:State Farm, auto insurance, 75-85HP, currently $567, with a 50% no-claims discount
I'm taking it!

For my own car—around 55kw—with a 40% discount, they ran the numbers on my dad's car, who’s 57, and it came out to $576

So, some people have been trying to tell me that what this guy is pulling is totally illegal.
But honestly, they’re offering me an almost $167 dirt-cheap insurance policy, and I don't think I'm going to spend much time overthinking whether or not to grab it.

Olivia Turner49 said:So, some people have been trying to tell me that what this guy is pulling is totally illegal.
But honestly, they’re offering me an almost $167 dirt-cheap insurance policy, and I don't think I'm going to spend much time overthinking whether or not to grab it.

Competition breeds resentment. Based on all the complaints I've heard from their representatives about how they can't handle competitors who are constantly cutting corners, it seems like they might actually be among the most honest players in the market—if not the absolute most honest.

In any case, this is completely legitimate. It's probably the only legal price drop since the founding of the United States; everyone else has been doing this under the table and still has the nerve to spin it.🙄

It makes sense if you use a little logic: if you're paying off people under the table, you don't blast it on every billboard or put it in a public price list.😵

That price list was approved by the regulatory agency. Other companies have them too, or they're hiding them away, just waiting to see what happens so they can pivot and screw the first mover over.

So, they aren't just the most honest; they're also the bravest for being the first to move in a market that's still pretty much the Wild West.

Can you tell us which company sold you that spin?😁

Of course it isn't illegal—ever since we joined the European Union, there hasn't been any real regulation regarding premium pricing.

There’s a premium calculator online, and based on those terms—say, a mid-sized sedan, 75-85 horsepower, with a 50% discount—it comes out to about $250 or so.
So, yeah, like I said, I don't really see a difference here.

James Rogers53 said:Of course it isn't illegal—ever since we joined the European Union, there hasn't been any real regulation regarding premium pricing.

There’s a premium calculator online, and based on those terms—say, a mid-sized sedan, 75-85 horsepower, with a 50% discount—it comes out to about $250 or so.
So, yeah, like I said, I don't really see a difference here.

The base rate is identical; the variation just comes from the extra discounts they've layered on.

I won't bore you by digging up exact figures again, but things change if you're over 30, or if you're over 60, or if you've had more than two years of claims history.

Does the calculator account for that, and do you actually fall into any of those categories?

Nah, from what I can tell, they haven't built a calculator for the new rate sheet yet:

It’s a good thing they aren't actually prepared to get the job done... Their lines are completely jammed up... I'll write out a more detailed account later...

Best regards,
James Nelson8

I gave General Motors a call, and for both my car and me as a driver, it turns out they're almost $200 (about 20%) cheaper than State Farm or Allianz. And that's without any of those extra add-ons.

The discounts come from a few things: the standard bonus, being over 31, having a clean record for the last two years, and paying upfront in cash.

So yeah, it’s definitely worth it—I guess we'll just have to see how the competition reacts.

Anyway, better days are coming 😉

Just one quick heads-up—for some reason, General Motors doesn't want to send over any written quotes via email, they're insisting on doing everything over the phone.

So, just watch your backs so you don't get ripped off—I mean, at the end of the day, they are still insurance companies after all. 🤣

Everyone here seems to be whining about auto insurance—complaining about how they get cheated or whatever. Honestly, I’ve just used my collision coverage twice and it worked perfectly. The first time was for $2000 (getting some bodywork and paint done, and the adjuster actually let me bundle everything under a single claim), and the second time was $4000 for fixing up some damage from a fight. Both times, I took the car straight to a certified dealership service center.

Jack Peterson7 said:Just one quick heads-up—for some reason, General Motors doesn't want to send over any written quotes via email, they're insisting on doing everything over the phone.

So, just watch your backs so you don't get ripped off—I mean, at the end of the day, they are still insurance companies after all. 🤣

Interesting.

I wonder if they just haven't found their rhythm yet, or—more likely—if they’re dodging providing written estimates that could be handed off to other contractors. Given how quickly some of them started quoting lower prices under the table, my money is on the latter.

I'm not sure how they'd even go about translating this. 😁 Legally speaking, the highest price you can charge is just whatever the cheapest option happens to be elsewhere. Since the base rate is set by that old minimum, there’s no real obligation to offer discounts—you aren't forced to. That said, once those big public ad campaigns roll out, it’s hard to play dumb about it, and agents generally want to land the client anyway. Still, if an agent actually has a conscience, they might skip the discounts for someone with a massive claim history or someone sitting in a high-risk category. That’s why age matters, though even that isn't always a perfect metric.

ironmoose6 said:Everyone here seems to be whining about auto insurance—complaining about how they get cheated or whatever. Honestly, I’ve just used my collision coverage twice and it worked perfectly. The first time was for $2000 (getting some bodywork and paint done, and the adjuster actually let me bundle everything under a single claim), and the second time was $4000 for fixing up some damage from a fight. Both times, I took the car straight to a certified dealership service center.

Look, I’ve spent decades working in insurance. In all that time, I’ve never personally run into any shady dealings, even after dealing with my own accidents and various claims. And it wasn't like I was working at some small local agency where they'd cut me a break just because we were buddies. That said, I have seen plenty of clients trying to pull a fast one. It happens more often than you'd think. Because of that, I’m pretty skeptical of anyone claiming insurance companies are inherently evil or acting like clients are just naive victims. Unless we're talking about Chase, of course. Then all bets are off. 😁

I honestly thought they were just trying to lowball you and wouldn't honor that policy rate—now you’ve gotta prove that the guy on the phone actually quoted you that specific number.

That’s exactly why I prefer getting quotes sent via email. If the guy is just messing around, I can just pull up the digital paperwork and show him what he said. Besides, even if he does screw up, he usually ends up giving a discount since it was his mistake in the first place.😛

Jack Peterson7 said:I honestly thought they were just trying to lowball you and wouldn't honor that policy rate—now you’ve gotta prove that the guy on the phone actually quoted you that specific number.

That’s exactly why I prefer getting quotes sent via email. If the guy is just messing around, I can just pull up the digital paperwork and show him what he said. Besides, even if he does screw up, he usually ends up giving a discount since it was his mistake in the first place.😛

Look, nobody is obligated to give you a discount. Unless it's a formal, binding quote sent by email, you're basically at their mercy.🙂

Besides, you don't even need their specific math. You can just take the standard rate everyone uses—which is probably still sitting on some General Motors calculator somewhere—and use that as your baseline. We all know what the typical discounts look like because it's been explained a dozen times already, so you can do the math yourself. It won't be perfect because discounts aren't cumulative (which is why they say the max savings is 23%, even though it's technically 25%), but it's enough to get a decent ballpark figure.

I’m putting together a policy for the first time—well, over 30 years later—and looking at the site, I’m seeing
The base premium for liability coverage
$668...which means that’s an old rate—now, how much less is that actually going to be compared to today's prices?😍

How much is the premium (assuming I'm under 😁)?

How many years have passed without a claim? If I'm reading this right and this is my first policy, then I don't have those two claim-free years needed for that discount yet.

Are you paying cash?

wiredtrucker32 said:State Farm, auto insurance, 75-85HP, currently $567, with a 50% no-claims discount
I'm taking it!

Well, State Farm offers the exact same policy for $485, so even if General Motors was the first to roll out those new rates, they aren't actually the cheapest option on the market anymore.

I have to vent about my experience with GEICO. To put it bluntly: they are an absolute disaster and incredibly overpriced.
I reached out about a week and a half ago to request a quote. A woman promised to send one over, but after hearing nothing for days, I followed up. This time, a second representative gave me a verbal breakdown: $3,304.51 for my collision coverage and $1169. I thanked her and told her I'd wait for the formal paperwork. Then, the first woman—the one who failed to follow through initially—calls me back and tells me she’ll just draft the policy if I send over my current documents. I sent them right away, but then silence for a whole week. When I finally tracked her down again, she sent me a quote where the collision was even more expensive than before, along with an even higher price for $333 and $667. When I asked how the numbers could be so wildly different from what I was told on the phone, she tried to claim it wasn't her fault, but it was obvious she was just confused and mixing up the collision and liability rates. She clearly had no idea what she was talking about.
Basically, GEICO ended up being $733 more expensive than State Farm, which is a massive amount of money. Even if I were in that "under 30" demographic, it seems like I'd still be paying more even with their supposed discounts—which is hard to swallow considering how much they blast their ads on TV.
I honestly don't know what's going on with them. You have to practically chase them down just to get a response, and once you do, the information is completely contradictory. If their customer service is this messy, I can only imagine how bad their claims process is. I wouldn't trust them with a dime, even if they were cheaper. With companies like Progressive or Allstate, at least you know they'll actually pay out a claim without making your life miserable.

Jack Peterson7 said:Just one quick heads-up—for some reason, General Motors doesn't want to send over any written quotes via email, they're insisting on doing everything over the phone.

So, just watch your backs so you don't get ripped off—I mean, at the end of the day, they are still insurance companies after all. 🤣

Well, I actually got mine sent over after I had to bug them several times after a week and a half, and there was a huge difference $1000 between what they told me over the phone and the actual quote they finally emailed me.

Look, quotes and premiums are always at the mercy of how much info you actually dump on them upfront. You think you're getting a sweet deal, then it turns out someone hid a claim or lied about having a 50% safe driver discount when the background check shows it's really only 35%.