good deal on car insurance...

[cusco]

any suggestion on where i can search for good deals?

i have 2 civics (2000 & 2002 model) and still paying $1K for full coverage a year. my coworkers suggested that i should change those to liabilities only, but what if i were to hit someone, my insurance would cover the person's damage car and perhaps medical bill, but my own car and medical bill is out of my own pocket right?

currently getting my insurance through costco/ ameriprise.

any help from insurance experts would be awesome! thanks!

[bzhayes]

...but my own car and medical bill is out of my own pocket right?

well medical bills would be covered by your medical insurance.. but yes you wouldn't get anything for your car.
... but what you should ask is: "how much would I get with my current insurance and how much am I paying for that?"

Go to kbb or edmunds and type in the details for your car and find out how much it is worth and then subtract your deductable. That is what you would get if you were in an accident. Honda's hold their value well, but you have a 10 y.o. compact car.. what is it worth?

Another option is to increase your deductable. You can often realize big savings by going from a $500 deductable to a $1000 deductable.

Shop the internet sites and get quotes from various places. Talk to local agents about local insurance companies. If you are in CA checkout Mercury Ins.

[bluevideo]

$1,000/year is really not half-bad for full coverage on two cars. I pay $1,180 for less than that -- one full-coverage 2005 Matrix and a liability-only old Accord -- also through Costco/Ameriprise. I went from paying $2000 (GEICO) to $1500 (Auto Club) to my current premium. It's never a bad idea to shop around, but I doubt you'll do significantly better.

To address some of your concerns -- your own car policy won't address your own medical bills if you're at fault, regardless of whether you have collision (i.e. at-fault accident) coverage or not. For this, you'd need MPC (Medical Payments Coverage), which is something only sold in some states, and normally only sold to people with no health insurance (or terrible health insurance).

The only case where your own insurance would pay some of your medical bills would be if you got hit by an uninsured motorist, usually a state-mandated coverage. So this isn't affected by whether you've got collision coverage or not, either.

With those two out of the way, here are some key points you should consider when deciding to drop collision coverage:

1. How much are the savings? Your policy renewal should itemize this, per vehicle. In your case, I'm guessing you'd save about total $400 annually ($200 every 6 months) give or take $30... double check.

2. How much is the "spread" between your deductible and your car's "blue book" value? Let's say your 2000 Civic is worth about $3,000; if virtually anything serious happens to it, it'll be declared total loss and a check for its value - minus deductible - will be issued to you. If your deductible is $1,000, then your amount of collision coverage on this vehicle is effectively $2000... making your yearly collision premium for that vehicle about 10% of its potential worth.

3. Dealing with the other driver's insurer. We've been hit twice (0% fault) in a liability-only insured vehicle. The first time was by an 18-wheeler from a company based in Missouri; despite everyone (witnesses, cops) agreeing I was waiting at a red light at the moment and thus not at fault - plus the truck driver being ticketed for failing to stop at the scene - the self-insured trucking company mailed me a check for 50% of my damages and effectively taunted me to sue them in Missouri if I didn't like it. Naturally the cost of hiring an attorney for an accident not involving personal injuries is rather prohibitive, so they "won" and I got stuck paying the other half.

Having collision coverage effectively puts your own insurer in between -- since they're on the hook for whatever the other party won't pay, they'll naturally go to bat on your behalf... well, more like their own behalf really.

The second time -- my wife's car was t-boned by a lady who ran a stop sign, and was ticketed for it. Her insurer was State Farm (my home insurance provider at the time), who was more than cooperative. They paid the body repair shop directly and provided the rental car.

My view on the issue is that once the annual collision premium exceeds 10% of the effective coverage, I take it out. That's an entirely personal matter, obviously. If putting a down payment on a replacement car would be a hardship, it may still be worth it to you.

[jc2008]

I have been with Geico for 9 years now. I pay around $1400 a year for my two cars (full complete coverage on my Saturn 2006 Vue, which i am still paying note on, and just liability/medical on my 1997 saturn sw1)

Take a close look at the value of your vehicles and what the insurance would actually give you back. I think my sw1 is now valued at around 1200$ which definitely is NOT worth putting full coverage on it. In fact it is MORE expensive to insure some older cars with full coverage as repairing them can cost moer than a new car with the parts readily available and currently being made.

When I bought the VUE in 2008 i had full coverage on my sw1 because I didnt know better, i added the vue and it was cheaper to fully cover the vue than the sw1, the insurance rep said it was because of the above issue.

Also, I dont know what state you live in, but here in lousiana, if you got homeowners insurance iwth someone, you should have your car with them too as they are most likely to drop people who dont have more than one insurance with them.. They are dropping people/s homeowner insurance left and right here cuz of hurricanes and such..