Auto insurance who ya using?

[Randy Bohannon]

Funny this subject came up, I had Geico until today. I had been divesting from Wells Fargo Bank and have new Acct’s at First Interstate that is a local Bank.
Called Geico this am to change banks for payment their response was less than encouraging. “ We don’t do business with small banks” , their web site is horrible. New insurance now is Farm Bureau Credit a wee bit more expensive but it’s here in town, I have my home owners insurance with them and a nice savings on both.

[Outer Rondacker]

Im a unicorn as in 0 credit score. I have never had a CC or a loan. I do not exists in the credit world at all. This is the only reason I use Geico.

In the old world this was good in today's world its bad.

[jdgabbard]

As someone who deals with insurance claims every single day on the legal end of things (and have been in this business for years), I will tell you this. If you have Allstate or USAA and you get into an accident for which you are at fault, they will get you sued. They can be OK to work with if its a 1st Party claim. They are absolutely the worse "large insurance companies" to deal with. Even being a Vet, I will never use USAA after seeing the way they treat claimants.

That said, my short list for companies that are actually good to deal with both for 1st Party and 3rd Party claims are as follows:

Progressive
Geico
Farm Bureau
OK Farm Bureau
Farmers
OK Farmers & Ranchers
American Farmers & Ranchers
Traders
Nationwide
Encompass (I say this with reservations, as it is owned by State Farm - but this is who I currently have, was Progressive prior to this)


My Short List of Insurance companies I would NEVER do business with, these are terrible companies when it comes to handling claims - literally what you bought the insurance for:

USAA
Allstate
State Farm
Mercury Ins
Save Money Car Insurance
First Chicago
United Security Health & Casualty
Casualty Corp
Shelter
Old American
Root
The Hartford
Safeco / Liberty Mutual
Gainsco
And lastly ANY Insurance Agency that shops around for the best policy from multiple Companies.

Again, I deal with insurance claims for a living, and see many more claims than likely anyone else on this board, which ones are good and which one are bad. By that I mean I handle approximately 20-30 insurance claims a week, and have done so for approximately 15 years. I'd say that makes me well qualified to submit my opinion. But, we all know that one internet-expert... So if you don't believe me that's your prerogative.

[jdgabbard]

anybody use HAGERTY for 'vintage' car insurance?
..

They're decent. Just make sure you raise your "Stated Value Policy" as the value of the car increases. Doesn't matter if it's worth $56k if your policy is only a State Value Policy of $35k. It's only going to pay $35k.

Had a guy a while back with that problem, nothing I could do to help him out....

[jdgabbard]

In the 50+ years I have been paying home and car insurance I have discovered that the agent you have is much more important than the brand.

This is TERRIBLE advice. Your agent is nothing more than a cashier at Big Box Mart. They have absolutely ZERO to do with the claims process. They're just there to ring out out at the register....

Suggest that you Do not ask insurance buyers for data, they know no more than you do, ask the folks that actually get paid, who it is that pays them the best and is easiest and fairest to deal with as a damage repair person, medical service provider, etc. Then buy that insurance.

This the smartest comment in the thread thus far. You buy insurance to "take care of your problems". The ones that do this without giving you more problems are the ones you want to deal with.

FYI, I posted a list above about which ones in my opinion are the easiest to deal with...and the worst to deal with...

[higgins]

You might check prices on bundling all of your insurance with one company. It may not save you a lot of money but it makes dealing with your insurance carrier a lot easier.

[Idaho45guy]

As someone who deals with insurance claims every single day on the legal end of things (and have been in this business for years), I will tell you this. If you have Allstate or USAA and you get into an accident for which you are at fault, they will get you sued. They can be OK to work with if its a 1st Party claim. They are absolutely the worse "large insurance companies" to deal with. Even being a Vet, I will never use USAA after seeing the way they treat claimants.

That said, my short list for companies that are actually good to deal with both for 1st Party and 3rd Party claims are as follows:

Progressive
Geico
Farm Bureau
OK Farm Bureau
Farmers
OK Farmers & Ranchers
American Farmers & Ranchers
Traders
Nationwide
Encompass (I say this with reservations, as it is owned by State Farm - but this is who I currently have, was Progressive prior to this)


My Short List of Insurance companies I would NEVER do business with, these are terrible companies when it comes to handling claims - literally what you bought the insurance for:

USAA
Allstate
State Farm
Mercury Ins
Save Money Car Insurance
First Chicago
United Security Health & Casualty
Casualty Corp
Shelter
Old American
Root
The Hartford
Safeco / Liberty Mutual
Gainsco
And lastly ANY Insurance Agency that shops around for the best policy from multiple Companies.

Again, I deal with insurance claims for a living, and see many more claims than likely anyone else on this board, which ones are good and which one are bad. By that I mean I handle approximately 20-30 insurance claims a week, and have done so for approximately 15 years. I'd say that makes me well qualified to submit my opinion. But, we all know that one internet-expert... So if you don't believe me that's your prerogative.

Interesting.

As a former Auto Claims Adjuster for USAA from 2007 to 2013, I have to say that I disagree with your assessment. In the thousands of claims and liability decisions I handled while there, I can only recall a handful that escalated to litigation. I prided myself on being absolutely fair and arbitrary when it came to assessing liability and determining who was at fault.

Now, it has been 11 years since I worked there, so I will have to defer to your recent experience. Could you please elaborate as to what kind of practices you've seen USAA adjusters engage in that would expose their customers to legal jeopardy?

[jdgabbard]

Interesting.

As a former Auto Claims Adjuster for USAA from 2007 to 2013, I have to say that I disagree with your assessment. In the thousands of claims and liability decisions I handled while there, I can only recall a handful that escalated to litigation. I prided myself on being absolutely fair and arbitrary when it came to assessing liability and determining who was at fault.

Now, it has been 11 years since I worked there, so I will have to defer to your recent experience. Could you please elaborate as to what kind of practices you've seen USAA adjusters engage in that would expose their customers to legal jeopardy?

Afternoon, evening... I'm just now getting to the point that all my senses aren't cluttered by the pain meds. I can't really discuss a lot of things, as they're dealing with privileged information. Lets just say a LOT of violation of the Unfair Claims Settlement Practices ACT, and a whole lot of exposing their insureds due to improper liability determinations. The problems with adjusters is many times they're non-attorneys trying to act like they know the law, but have absolutely no idea how it actually applies under specific circumstances.

If you'd like to talk a bit more details through PM, I'd be happy to discuss the topic further. The problem is that I obviously can't share privileged information on client's cases.

[MT Gianni]

Been real happy with Costco Insurance program. I was at fault in an accident and have hit a deer and an elk in the last 15 years. you talk to real people who deal with you fairly. It might help that Montana's Constitution gives you the right to take your car to the shop you want to.

[Ithaca Gunner]

Here's a different view, I worked 9 years for a very busy body shop in the Harrisburg PA region. Now, it's been 15 years since, however at the time USAA, State Farm, and Erie were always a pleasure to work with. On newer cars and trucks, it was OEM parts, (read, original factory parts that fit!). Farmers, Liberty Mutual, Hartford, Met Life, Geiko and a few others were okay... They would specify used parts a lot, but still OEM. Nationwide was bareable, their adjusters were at least reasonable to work with. The worst of the big insurance firms were All State and Progressive, with Progressive being at the bottom of the barrel specifying cheap made in china garbage parts that didn't even come close to fitting right!

In the case of a person with good insurance being hit by someone with garbage insurance specifying chinese parts we advised them to go to their insurance company to sue the other company for OEM parts. Why pay for good insurance only to be hit by someone with bad insurance and have your new car/truck repaired with chinese junk? All State and Progressive always fought tooth and nail to repair as cheaply as possible. Neither were, ''blue ribbon'' partners of our shop. We kept a ''blue ribbon'' status with most other companies because they didn't put up a fight about fair repairs if their insured was at fault and the injured had good insurance, most times they simply agreed to fix the car according to the injured's insurance specs. The ''not at fault's'' insurance would pay us then go after the, ''at fault's'' insurance for payment. Choose a good body shop that's on YOUR side and read carefully the repair estimate. If an older car, you'll probably have to deal with used and some after market parts, (used OEM is better than new after market in my opinion). OEM=new factory original manufacture. LKQ=like kind and quality, (used OEM salvage part). AM=new aftermarket garbage. In most states, if you're not at fault, you do not have to settle for what the at fault driver's insurance specifies just to save themselves money.

[Rapier]

This is the reason you ask the service providers where you live.

[farmerjim]

GEICO for the last 35 years. The one claim in that time was handled with no problems.

[jdgabbard]

Been real happy with Costco Insurance program. I was at fault in an accident and have hit a deer and an elk in the last 15 years. you talk to real people who deal with you fairly. It might help that Montana's Constitution gives you the right to take your car to the shop you want to.

My understanding is most states allow you to choose the shop of your choice. The only gotcha is you could be responsible for overcharging. Some states have case law on the books that allow insurance companies to only pay for rates that are consistent with standard market rates for the repair. Oklahoma is one of those states. You chose a shop that charges twice as much because they claim they're the best, you'll get stuck paying a portion out of pocket for something you weren't responsible for. You can fight it, but the problem is the cost of doing so typically outweighs any benefit you would see - assuming you'd win at all, which is not a good chance going in. So you're definitely playing a rigged game if you want to do so. This is one area that I actually do agree with the insurance companies, find out which shops they have agreement with and chose one of those. If they screw something up they have agreements to go back an fix it, otherwise they stop getting sent work by that shop.

That said, I'll have to look into Costco's program, I'm not familiar with it. But I'm also not a member of Costco...

Here's a different view, I worked 9 years for a very busy body shop in the Harrisburg PA region. Now, it's been 15 years since, however at the time USAA, State Farm, and Erie were always a pleasure to work with. On newer cars and trucks, it was OEM parts, (read, original factory parts that fit!). Farmers, Liberty Mutual, Hartford, Met Life, Geiko and a few others were okay... They would specify used parts a lot, but still OEM. Nationwide was bareable, their adjusters were at least reasonable to work with. The worst of the big insurance firms were All State and Progressive, with Progressive being at the bottom of the barrel specifying cheap made in china garbage parts that didn't even come close to fitting right!

In the case of a person with good insurance being hit by someone with garbage insurance specifying chinese parts we advised them to go to their insurance company to sue the other company for OEM parts. Why pay for good insurance only to be hit by someone with bad insurance and have your new car/truck repaired with chinese junk? All State and Progressive always fought tooth and nail to repair as cheaply as possible. Neither were, ''blue ribbon'' partners of our shop. We kept a ''blue ribbon'' status with most other companies because they didn't put up a fight about fair repairs if their insured was at fault and the injured had good insurance, most times they simply agreed to fix the car according to the injured's insurance specs. The ''not at fault's'' insurance would pay us then go after the, ''at fault's'' insurance for payment. Choose a good body shop that's on YOUR side and read carefully the repair estimate. If an older car, you'll probably have to deal with used and some after market parts, (used OEM is better than new after market in my opinion). OEM=new factory original manufacture. LKQ=like kind and quality, (used OEM salvage part). AM=new aftermarket garbage. In most states, if you're not at fault, you do not have to settle for what the at fault driver's insurance specifies just to save themselves money.

A lot of that depends on what your State laws allow for, not the insurance companies. Oklahoma specifies that insurance companies may use "like parts", unless they're not available. In which case they can use new non-OEM parts or new OEM parts. How much the insurance company fights you on this is obviously something that determines how easy they are to deal with. But generally speaking, they don't get to just pick and chose what they want to do. The law lays out what they're allowed to do.

As for using your own insurance, there is more than just that reason to do so. Everyone thinks that their rates will go up, or "my insurance shouldn't have to pay", etc, etc... That's not necessarily the case. Most states have laws that prevent insurance companies from raising your rates due to using a policy for which you purchased a coverage and were not at-fault. What causes your rates to go up is your "risk factor". They use software to calculate the likelihood of you being in another accident, and your insurance having exposure. They are a business, and paying out money isn't how you make money. Using this "likelihood" they can determine what your rates are. The simple fact that you have been in an accident makes it more likely that you'll be in another statistically speaking. Don't ever let your agent tell you otherwise, they don't know what they're talking about. Check with your State Insurance Compliance Agency to find out what they're allowed to raise your rates for, and if they tell you otherwise when you use them file suit. But the best part of using your own insurance in a situation like this is that there is 1) No wait to get the ball moving (you have a contract for coverage - if they wont move forward you could have a bad faith claim), and 2) They'll subrogate back from the other insurance company (get paid back from) - even getting your deductible back in most cases.

Another reason you might want to do this, is most States have rules that you, regardless if you were at fault or not, must mitigate damages. Meaning that if your car is in storage, unless you're incapable of mitigation, you have a duty to get the vehicle out of storage and put it in a place where you can maintain control until the claim is resolved. Not doing this means the insurance may refuse to pay for some of those storage fees, or if the vehicle is ultimately auctioned off after 30-60 days (however long they have to wait in your state to deem it abandoned) they may only be required to pay for whatever the cost to repair it was or if a total loss the Owner Retained value of the vehicle (Fair Market Value of the vehicle - Salvage Value = Owner Retained). Using your own insurance allows you to avoid the delay, thereby mitigating your own damages. If you don't have rental coverage, pay out of pocket. Most states allow you to be reimbursed for the cost of renting a comparable substitute.

Keeping mind I live/work in Oklahoma, and mostly deal with our own laws. But I have seen and handled claims from throughout the country (where a decent sized firm that handles thousands of new cases a year, and I'm the guy that gets liability established and property damage claims moving). But just because I have experience in other states, every state changes laws every year. And I'm by no means an expert on all of them. And will not give you legal advice, which none of this should be construed as. Find out what your local laws allow for, and make sure the other parties are doing what they're supposed to do. And remember, failure to be aware of the law is not a valid defense. You're expected to know it whether you do or not. So when in doubt, consult an attorney.

[Handloader109]

Thanks for all the advise. It won't ever be Allstate, farm Bureau or State farm (had coverage when under 21 and they were awful on a claim, and I had forgotten about my wife's incident with an idiot backing out of his driveway, almost had to take them to court as liberty was tough to work with that time. So most probably Progressive or maybe Geico. Flip of a coin.

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

[skeettx]

State Farm - house, autos and at one time whole life

[Johnnybuck]

I've been with Progressive for a few years and haven't had any major issues. They were pretty straightforward with the claims process when I had to use it. It's definitely worth giving them a shot if they're offering you a good deal.

Since you're looking at insurance options, I'd also recommend checking into how these companies handle claims for special types of vehicles, just in case. Here's a link that discusses the costs of transport services for classic cars and highlights why having good insurance coverage is crucial. It might provide some extra insight as you make your decision.

[Sig556r]

Doesn't pay to be loyal with insurance or any subscription for that matter.
They'd rather screw you with progressive incremental increases till you quit & then spend the money to win you back since their kpi metrics for new subscribers outweighs keeping existing ones.
A good analogy is in employment nowadays, loyal employees get crappy increases & are 1st in line for layoffs, while returning job-hoppers got better deals.
Sad but true.

[schutzen-jager]

State Farm - house, autos and at one time whole life

same here + never a problem with any incident in almost 2 decades - plus find that the agent we have will always go the extra mile if a problem happens - contrary to previous post, i really believe the agent does make a difference + is much more than a cashier -

[shooterg]

We dropped progressive years ago, no accidents or claims, kept going up each month! Hence the name progressive!

Currently Liberty mutual, 3 vehicles, ones a classic so we're around that $2400 mark a year. Liberty was the only one that would carry the classic for us at a decent price.

Tried Hagerty for the classic ? Not the only ones for that, but have been reasonable on classic/antique vehicles.

[porthos]

i have erie!! about 20 years ago; i lost a my buick lesabre on black ice and totaled it. the next leasbre got hail damage totaling $2800.00. about 5 years ago i rear ended another car with my gmc acadia. the damage to my car was $8500.00. don't know how much to the other car. my rates never went up!! have erie on home and car.