Any advice on shopping vehicle insurance rates?

also consider that cr doesn’t tell the whole story regarding the profitability of a company because it doesn’t include things like investing. i also look at many other factors both as an industry professional and a personal investor.

geico has always been tough for me to gauge. i know what their current structure is like and what their goal is, but because it’s under berkshire, not all of their data is available.

cr of 1.3 definitely means upper management is not working out.

 

Yes, you are correct, but unless a company has a large market share, surviving on investment income is not a long term plan for success. SF can do it because they are so large. Erie can't.

 

tell than to warren buffet lol.

his investor meetings are very interesting. he’s in a unique position where he can use his investment income to fund geico. they are way behind on telematics and rare:risk but they’re trying to catch up.

 

Geico's competitive advantages have been being at least serviceable at underwriting (not great, but certainly not awful), writing tight/accurate damage estimates, and controlling LAE. They've been the best at LAE for a long time, though they stumbled a bit a little while back. Unlike SF though, Warren Buffet wants to make money on the product itself, not just rely on investment income like SF does. They've dropped $9 billion behind Progressive in the past few years after being a strong #2 to SF in market share for several years. They raised rates dramatically because their CR wasn't where Uncle Warren wanted it to be.

 

i personally believe geico being so focused on gaining new customers, puts retention on the backburner. progressive is the opposite right now. they are trying to slow new growth and concentrate on retention and robinson.

you may get a low premium joining geico but their rate stability is very poor which causes people to leave.

 

Speaking of Erie...
It's my understanding that Erie is rather selective about whom they're willing to insure.

We pay ~ $750 /year for 2 vehicles, a 2006 Tacoma and a 2005 Highlander.
This after Erie's latest rate increases.
We dropped comp a few years ago since the vehicles are rather old (still perfectly serviceable though).


For low car insurance:
- Move to the Boonies
- Drive old vehicles
- Don't have accidents
- See if Erie will take you

 

i’m not too familiar with erie but each company will have a different strategy to mitigate risk.

moving to an unpopulated area can be cheaper, just depends on the company’s loss history in that area.

driving older vehicles may not be very accurate as the cost to repair them is an influence, so is vehicle safety.

not having accidents is the biggest factor that is within your control.

 

What you pay has no bearing on what someone else pays. It's great that you have what you feel is a low rate. I wouldn't expect it to remain that way if they don't turn their results around.

I'd also bet that you didn't save a whole lot by dropping comp. Comp on many common older vehicles is cheap, and is worth considering especially if the vehicle is in good shape and even moreso if it's parked outside vs. garaged.