That Freaking Gecko!

[SCadaddle]

So my fleet of 3 Subaru Outbacks, an early Miata and the 911SC are insured with the little green dude through the local agent. Get a letter from the Gecko expressing his concern that I don't drive the 911 as many miles as "the average drivers of the State of Mississippi" and if I don't tell him how many miles I drive it annually, he's gonna up it to 15K miles. He demands my reply via mail or fax in 30 days.

Make a trip to speak to the little green dudes local Agent. Discuss this with him. He takes a look at my policy and they are covering my fleet as being driven 34k miles annually! I don't approach half of that in reality! The real shocker was, even though I am in my mid 50's the Gecko had my 911 noted on the policy as being driven 5 days a week to school!That little bastard!

So we fine tune the mileage of the fleet to reflect the actual annual mileage and get this, the 6 month premium went up by $2.80! I explained to my agent that I am spending more in insurance per year for only liability and uninsured motorist coverage than any 1 of the 4 other vehicles are worth! Policy is paid up, Agent is claiming he can get me on one of the Geckos Classic Car policies for the 911 for "about a hundred bucks a year".....yeah right, go ahead, good luck with that!

So the moral of the story, if there is one, is check in with your auto insurer to see how they are scamming you!

[Steve Carlton]

Consider putting your Porsche on Hagerty or something separately.

[Tobra]

That, and stay away from the Gecko.

[BeyGon]

All Geckos aren't bad. That's a broad brush you are painting Geckos with.

[dheinz]

All of the major insurance companies use rate creep. They low ball you with " save 15% or hundreds by switching",then within 2 years your rates have increased to more than your original premiums.

I change insurance companies every 3 years. I have no accidents, tickets, or claims.

[SCadaddle]

Originally Posted by BeyGon

All Geckos aren't bad. That's a broad brush you are painting Geckos with.

Ok, that's a fair statement. It could have been Max the pig that drives around in the VW Rabbit convertible with a bad tail light....

[SCadaddle]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

Consider putting your Porsche on Hagerty or something separately.

Yes, that and thinning the fleet is the plan.

[BeyGon]

Originally Posted by SCadaddle

Ok, that's a fair statement. It could have been Max the pig that drives around in the VW Rabbit convertible with a bad tail light....

That was aimed at Tobra and it was only funny to a couple people.

[A930Rocket]

I used to get a letter from State Farm every year asking for my mileage, as it was about 2,500 with me driving it. That was track miles as it wasn't driven on the street very often.

I priced out Geico and it was substantially less than start farm.

[gamin]

I have Hagerty for both Porsche's and USAA for the other cars. Satisfied with the arrangement.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Tobra

That, and stay away from the Gecko.

I've tried most of them, they are BY FAR the best company that I have dealt with. Best service, cheapest initially, most stable rates, several claims that were painless.

You are going to get screwed on replacement value with a classic 911 on any standard insurance policy. Get that thing on agreed value collector car insurance ASAP! It will probably be cheaper and better coverage for an extra car.

[stevej37]

[ Agent is claiming he can get me on one of the Geckos Classic Car policies for the 911 for "about a hundred bucks a year".....yeah right, go ahead, good luck with that!]




I pay $8.25 per month, or $99 a year for policies on each of my 911's through State Farm Ins.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by SCadaddle

...So the moral of the story, if there is one, is check in with your auto insurer to see how they are scamming you!

I am with a different company and I recently had my house insurance increase by $800.00 per year!

I was ready to move it and then agent I spoke to said lets look over your policy.
It turns out they came out with gold and platinum policy levels this year and automatically moved me to platinum. It covered all sorts of idiot things including a full carpet replacement if my dog pukes. Great if you want that I suppose but more coverage than I was willing to pay for.

The games they play. I hate these new "we'll bump you up and its up to you to opt out" sales tactics.

Even road and track has automatically renewed my subscription and threatened to take me to a collection agency after I had decided to just let my subscription expire.

Its not just car insurance. Check all you invoices with all your suppliers.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

One VERY nice thing about NH is no mandatory insurance. It cuts down on a lot of the bull that the scumbag ins cos pull in other states (a huge reason I'll never register or insure in MA even though I could since I'm there 50% of my time and have an address there I could use through relatives).

It is a bit of a double-edged sword though since NH does get more than its share of stupid redneck dirtbags driving around in schyteboxes that can potentially hit you and from whom you'd have little or no recourse (what are you or your ins co going to sue them for? Their collection of sweat-stained Red Sox ball caps, "vapeing" supplies or their beat-up plow truck? A lot of these jokers have next to nothing to their name and no aspirations in life). Just as with illegalos in CA, this gets reflected in MY "un/under insured motorist coverage premiums too. So basically (just like was the case with CA) I get to pay extra to protect myself from irresponsible hucksters who can't be bothered to adequately insure themselves.

I still think it ought not be mandatory (I'm libertarian) but it just irks me that I need to pay extra simply because I have worked for things I wish to protect from some indiscriminate fool on his way home from the bar that evening (or morning - lots of habitual drunks around here - it's a New England thing...).

Maybe CA was onto something with their "evidence of fiscal responsibility" in lieu of a hard-and-fast insurance requirement - you could post a bond to satisfy the requirement but I never really looked into what it would take (was told "it's simpler to just buy a policy" by a few folks). That logic might have some merit though - you need to have a net worth / value / assets that could come into play of at least say $50k before you can legally drive - or buy a policy in that amount minimum. I think I could support that line of thinking. I don't like the idea of being forced to enrich an insurance company as a mandatory requirement, especially when the insurance companies are among the biggest political campaign donors (translation: legalized bribers) of politicians out there, but I digress...

[KFC911]

Insurance co's suck IMO....but what ya gonna do? Got to shop around periodically and do NOT assume that a multi-policy discount is better than looking.

911 is with Hagerty
F150 is with Geico
Primary house is Amica
Other houses are spread over two others...

All of my property policies went up almost 50% last year (never filed a claim on any of them), but Ins co's do NOT lose $....simply recoup payouts the next year.

Not eligible for USAA, but they'll only insure ONE of my friend's FL houses now...made him drop one

[KFC911]

ALL Ins co's will gladly take your premiums...beware of "too good to be true" rates....might regret it when the time comes. I'm more concerned about that aspect...YMMV.

[onewhippedpuppy]

My grandfather didn't insure his airplane, because he had the money to replace it. His philosophy was that you only insure things that you can't afford to replace. I hope to be at that point with my house someday, because it's freaking highway robbery. The cars are no better, but they are under my business so it doesn't feel as painful.

The worst part about insurance is that you pay them for years and never make a claim, then when you do they either jack up your rates or cancel your policy. So for years you pay for a service that you don't use, and when you finally do actually use said service you are penalized. WTF?

[BeyGon]

Sounds like the Liberty Mutual commercial

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by BeyGon

That was aimed at Tobra and it was only funny to a couple people.

I was thinking of the insurance people anyway, The Gecko. In Texas, used to have geckos covering the outside of my house, and I was good with it, as they would decimate the bug population, and did not crap on the car like the purple martins did.

Dad told me when I was a lad that if you want to get rich not doing anything, own an insurance company. I would say they are all the same, in my experience.

[DanielDudley]

I changed agents a couple of years ago, when I found out I was getting jacked on my homeowners policy. I saved about 2000 $ a year, and my coverage increased substantially on almost everything.

Let your agent get you classic car insurance, and talk around with your friends about who to insure with. My new agent is honest and hard working. My last agent was absolutely screwing me. It was only because I chose to look into my policies that I found out.