I had State Farm for about 2 years. Every 6 months when the bill came it was higher. Now I have Erie.

 

USAA raised rates on just about everyone because they decided there was too many claims. Insurance companies also give breaks for a new car and that break disappears in a couple years. So while your car is 3 years older and worth a lot less, the price goes up.

With Allstate my rates went up every year, with zero claims. They eventually priced themselves out of a customer.

 

USAA just raised my '08 Z rate from $299 to $335, while other two car rates stayed the same. I'm calling them tomorrow.

 

When we got our Vette we rated it under 7500 miles pleasure only because that's what we expected. The first year we went over that because we ended up taking a very long road trip.

Not too long thereafter I received a questionnaire from State Farm in the mail requesting the mileage on the car. I reported it honestly along with a note explaining that we had put more miles on the car than expected due to an unplanned but very enjoyable road trip through the southwestern U.S.

To my surprise we never heard anything back and our rates have remained the same (actually gone down a bit).

Maybe honesty is the best policy.

 

Some insurance companies require you send in a mileage statement each year so they can see how many miles you are driving. I have an elderly aunt who drove about 10,000 miles last year and has driven close to 17,000 miles this year and her rate went up more than $100.

 

I have had SF for about 10 years now and have been very happy with them. So far no increases in my rate.

 

Everyone's situation is different but you're right...getting comparison quotes is good practice. There can be a considerable difference in rates between carriers. Of the four comparison quotes I got somewhat recently State Farm and Allstate were the highest.

 

Did they (USAA) tell you this or do you have another source? In my case, they claimed that uninsured motorist is killing them in some regions and other criteria like miles driven has less bearing on claims than previously thought. Reading between the lines, they want to get more out of the people who claim 5000 miles a year (like with me and my 3 cars to spread it around on). I did not tell them that my work recently moved a few miles farther down the road because I'm sure they would still charge me more even despite the explanation. Gonna sell the one car that costs too much this winter.

Other things they aren't talking about is the heavy advertising they are engaged in to increase customer base to non-retired former military who did not join while they were active and maybe others. To me, this is pretty much the general public and they are underwriting a riskier group so everybody is getting higher rates now.

 

While My rates went up a few $$ from the Solstice GXP to the Vette , SF has been pretty good to me over the last 35 years .

 

Not in this life time, make no mistake...all insurance companies would love to do this if they could and then use any infraction as they would put it "to adjust your premium based on risk". Several years ago I had a bad run of cracked windshields while some road construction was going on. I had to replace the windshield 3 times. My deductible was $150 dollars and the windshield cost $210 installed. The insurance company called and said they were going to raise my rates because of excessive claims. Let’s see, it cost me more each time this happened than it did the insurance company plus I was still paying my annual premium that was about three times what the windshields cost them. I now have a new insurance provider and better rates.

 

CF members who are retired military might want to check into Armed Forces Insurance, a member-owned non-profit insurance exchange -- like a credit union. I've had my homeowner's insurance with them for many years. I added my auto insurance when they expanded into Illinois. For the first three years I owned Red, they didn't insure Corvettes as a class and handed me off to Progressive. That just changed, and I'm back with AFI for about $1100/yr for full coverage on my daily driver.

The nice thing about AFI is that, unlike USAA, they are extremely conservative and have kept to their core business model. In the '80s and '90s they chose not to expand into credit cards, mortgages, and other Go-Go "financial instruments". They've weathered Andrew, Katrina and other huge losses without jacking up premiums of their policy-holders. See http://www.afi.org

 

I thought that the more the car depreciates, the more it should decrease your premiums....

oh well, time to start looking for new insurance,

btw
the rate per month on my vehicles----
08 vette increased $8.xx a month
06 frontier increases $11.xx a month
05 GSX-R 750, increased $0.80

 

We have been with State Farm for about 20 years now through many, many claims for various things and they have never sent us a letter of non-renewal as they easily could have. Our agent has been incredibly helpful in claims processing and getting things paid correctly without hassles. To me, that is well worth the premiums they are charging (which aren't much). Sure, we could go somewhere else....maybe we'd save $50 or $100, but if we had a claim would they drop us from coverage? Then we'd be screwed trying to somewhere else after getting dropped.

I sell health insurance for a living and there are certain companies I won't deal with because of the claims problems and their hassling of customers for various underwriting requirements. If it's that hard for me to get something done with the company as an agent, how hard must it be for a policyholder to do it themselves? Great customer service is worth a little extra IMO.

 

Are you saying that you are paying $1100 per year for one vehicle - your Corvette I am guessing? If that is the case, you can do way better than that! That is the same amount I am paying for full coverage for 3 vehicles, including my 2008 coupe!

 

Depends on his driving record.

 

...and your credit report.

http://www.carinsurance.com/Articles/content9.aspx

 

Other things factor into your car's premiums. Just because a car's value decreases, doesn't mean that the cost to repair it from accident damage also decreases. Also as cars decease in value, the more likely those cars will end up in the hands of younger drivers where the chance of those cars being involved in accidents increase. if you own one of those cars, there is a chance that your premiums will increase even though your personal accident record hasn't changed. Only if the car is totaled or stolen, would the cost to replace be less then the cost to repair accident damage. On certain cars, the cost to make repairs will increase, thus the insurance company will increase the rates on owners of those cars. Certain cars are stolen more then others, thus the insurance co. pays more claims on those vehicles, thus the will raise your rates if you own one of those cars. If the premiums on all your cars keep going up, to me, it's a sign that your insurance company, s bottom line is hurting, overall, and that's a indication that a new carrier would be in my future.

The rates on my Mercedes just went up $0.36 a month because of a increase in the cost to repair that particular vehicle model went up. Some times I get a slight decrease in one of my four cars monthly premiums because of a change in that models accident history of claims, etc. I'm sure that if tomorrow morning I woke up to find I was only 17 YO, instead of 67 YO, my premiums would jump substantially, even though my driving record/accident history would not have changed overnight.

 

Every year. My State Farm policy has gone down essentially every year, except when I buy a new car, of course. I've also gotten a rebate when they made too much money one year (the policy I have is a mutual company).

 

They stated that they determined that my area is a higher risk due to more claims. I agree, they opened their doors a bit and we all are paying the price in everything.

As far as mileage per year, USAA said they don't care. I'm not too crazy with their claims though. They wouldn't help me at all when an Allstate driver hit me and admitted fault. I also have a friend that rolled his vehicle. They researched and found out he was trying to trade in his car before the accident. He got blasted by a 40-50 mph crosswind in a small SUV.

 

Very creepy.