Insurance just went up wtf?
Feb 12, 2014, 11:56 AM
#1
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Insurance just went up wtf?
Sooooooooo, checked my premium for the 03 Evo with USAA and it went up like 60 bucks for 6 months. So that equals out to about 8ish dollars a month more. I know its 8 bucks and im being cheap but i feel like im being punished for driving a sports car that's 11 years old. No accidents, no tickets in years....They said its because they assessed the vehicle and "raised the premium". Is it because its older? Or is it because there just flippin sweet cars that are becoming rare? Customer Service had zero answers... I dunno....
merica
merica
Feb 12, 2014, 12:00 PM
#2
Sooooooooo, checked my premium for the 03 Evo with USAA and it went up like 60 bucks for 6 months. So that equals out to about 8ish dollars a month more. I know its 8 bucks and im being cheap but i feel like im being punished for driving a sports car that's 11 years old. No accidents, no tickets in years....They said its because they assessed the vehicle and "raised the premium". Is it because its older? Or is it because there just flippin sweet cars that are becoming rare? Customer Service had zero answers... I dunno.... merica
mericaEvery other company quoted me around what I was paying on the G6, or less, for better coverage than I had with USAA. I have State Farm now.
When I asked why it was so much (when I called to drop them), the guy said it must be something messed up in the system. I checked back about 6 months later, still at over 300 a month. I think USAA just doesn't like Evo's
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Feb 12, 2014, 02:03 PM
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Tell them you've reassessed their customer service, and you're raising THEIR premium $60. Reassure them that this is an offer that's too good to refuse. When the agent sounds confused, demand to speak with a supervisor. Then state your case just as normal. Two reasons.
1. Maybe they'll actually lower it.
2. Even if they don't, you've implemented some sort of psychological warfare into their office. Agent sees supervisor at water cooler. "Hey, so what was that guy going on about with saying he raised our premium?" Supervisor says "Huh?" and begins to question whether that agent is actually qualified to talk with people or not...
There's pretty much an endless pool of mayhem here.
1. Maybe they'll actually lower it.
2. Even if they don't, you've implemented some sort of psychological warfare into their office. Agent sees supervisor at water cooler. "Hey, so what was that guy going on about with saying he raised our premium?" Supervisor says "Huh?" and begins to question whether that agent is actually qualified to talk with people or not...
There's pretty much an endless pool of mayhem here.
Feb 12, 2014, 03:08 PM
#9
$60 / 6 = $8?
They recalculate the premiums regularly. Sometimes it will go up due to age (availability of parts), sometimes due to theft statistics changing on a model, sometimes just because you borrowed too much money on your credit card and they didn't like that (yes, your insurance company checks your credit and can use it to evaluate your rates).
They recalculate the premiums regularly. Sometimes it will go up due to age (availability of parts), sometimes due to theft statistics changing on a model, sometimes just because you borrowed too much money on your credit card and they didn't like that (yes, your insurance company checks your credit and can use it to evaluate your rates).
Feb 12, 2014, 04:50 PM
#12
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Rates may change, and not necessarily because of you. It could be the statistics of your vehicle (meaning that they notice some trend of tickets and/or claims associated with it), your demographic or your location. Or maybe the insurance company lost a ton of money, which does happen from time to time, contrasting to the view of insurance companies making billions of dollars, which would certainly be the case if ZERO people made any insurance claims. But that definitely isn't the case. You figure that for your average car accident, an insurance company has to have maybe ten other clients who do not end up making a claim just to break even from that one client's incident.
If you call your agent to ask why your rate went up, I'd say 90% of the time, their answer is a canned response, unless they spoke directly with an underwriter. Just like how you see your next term premium and it gives no explanations for any changes in rates, your agent won't be able to see anything different explaining why YOUR rates went up. At best, they might have been given some newsletter from the company directly talking about rates going up or down for certain types of clients. But there isn't some screen they can access where it says specifically why customer ABC's rates went up by 10% (like it won't say that they are rating the car higher, or that county's rates went up).
If you complain to your company about rates going up and demand that they go down, it is ILLEGAL and actually impossible for them to magically make it cheaper just because of a complaint, since carriers are required to file their rates with the department of insurance, which have to apply to everyone, meaning everyone with the exact same characteristics as you would have the same rate. The only way for them to make the rate go down would be if they CHANGE something... reducing annual mileage is the most common thing that they do (and sometimes it's sugarcoated as some "low mileage reward" to make it sound special, when all they are doing is changing some numbers). Or sometimes they might lower some of your coverages, though usually that's done with your permission. So unless there are discounts that were hidden from you in the first place (i.e. education, occupation, membership with certain organizations that weren't applied before), then there isn't much new stuff that they can add on that would reduce your rate.
But at the same time, everything else goes up in price... gas gets more expensive, food gets more expensive, etc. While insurance is not a consumable, it pays out for things that do cost money, which may also have an effect on rates. Twenty years ago, a fender bender may have cost an insurance company a few hundred dollars. Nowdays, due to a variety of factors (inflation, higher car prices, more expensive parts, labor), that same accident might cost the company a couple grand.
If you call your agent to ask why your rate went up, I'd say 90% of the time, their answer is a canned response, unless they spoke directly with an underwriter. Just like how you see your next term premium and it gives no explanations for any changes in rates, your agent won't be able to see anything different explaining why YOUR rates went up. At best, they might have been given some newsletter from the company directly talking about rates going up or down for certain types of clients. But there isn't some screen they can access where it says specifically why customer ABC's rates went up by 10% (like it won't say that they are rating the car higher, or that county's rates went up).
If you complain to your company about rates going up and demand that they go down, it is ILLEGAL and actually impossible for them to magically make it cheaper just because of a complaint, since carriers are required to file their rates with the department of insurance, which have to apply to everyone, meaning everyone with the exact same characteristics as you would have the same rate. The only way for them to make the rate go down would be if they CHANGE something... reducing annual mileage is the most common thing that they do (and sometimes it's sugarcoated as some "low mileage reward" to make it sound special, when all they are doing is changing some numbers). Or sometimes they might lower some of your coverages, though usually that's done with your permission. So unless there are discounts that were hidden from you in the first place (i.e. education, occupation, membership with certain organizations that weren't applied before), then there isn't much new stuff that they can add on that would reduce your rate.
But at the same time, everything else goes up in price... gas gets more expensive, food gets more expensive, etc. While insurance is not a consumable, it pays out for things that do cost money, which may also have an effect on rates. Twenty years ago, a fender bender may have cost an insurance company a few hundred dollars. Nowdays, due to a variety of factors (inflation, higher car prices, more expensive parts, labor), that same accident might cost the company a couple grand.
Feb 12, 2014, 06:18 PM
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Tell them you've reassessed their customer service, and you're raising THEIR premium $60. Reassure them that this is an offer that's too good to refuse. When the agent sounds confused, demand to speak with a supervisor. Then state your case just as normal. Two reasons.
1. Maybe they'll actually lower it.
2. Even if they don't, you've implemented some sort of psychological warfare into their office. Agent sees supervisor at water cooler. "Hey, so what was that guy going on about with saying he raised our premium?" Supervisor says "Huh?" and begins to question whether that agent is actually qualified to talk with people or not...
There's pretty much an endless pool of mayhem here.
1. Maybe they'll actually lower it.
2. Even if they don't, you've implemented some sort of psychological warfare into their office. Agent sees supervisor at water cooler. "Hey, so what was that guy going on about with saying he raised our premium?" Supervisor says "Huh?" and begins to question whether that agent is actually qualified to talk with people or not...
There's pretty much an endless pool of mayhem here.
Feb 12, 2014, 06:21 PM
#14
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The dollar amount was the service lady told me, I was scratching my head too. All pretty good points, I'm just going to most likely find another company if I can. Frustrating...
Feb 12, 2014, 06:34 PM
#15
Sooooooooo, checked my premium for the 03 Evo with USAA and it went up like 60 bucks for 6 months. So that equals out to about 8ish dollars a month more. I know its 8 bucks and im being cheap but i feel like im being punished for driving a sports car that's 11 years old. No accidents, no tickets in years....They said its because they assessed the vehicle and "raised the premium". Is it because its older? Or is it because there just flippin sweet cars that are becoming rare? Customer Service had zero answers... I dunno.... merica
merica