It is the first time to buy a car by yourself in the United States, and of course it is also the first time to buy car insurance by yourself. I am actually very satisfied with being able to buy a car insurance with a good price even though I am not familiar with the place and the language.
At that time, I was in a hurry to buy a car. I bought the car within a week. Naturally, I used the domestic driver’s license and translation to buy the car insurance. Our driving experience is less than 1 year, and there are so many insurance policies that look like English reading comprehension. The website was a headache. In order to get a good quotation, I compared several well-known companies such as State Farm, Geico, Progressive, etc. Geico had the lowest price, so I chose Geico.
If it hadn’t been for two consecutive car accidents within a year, I guess I would continue to consider using Geico when buying home insurance. After all, I am a very lazy person. (See the previous article for details of the accident)
The car is a 2018 Toyota RVA4. The initial auto insurance was $149.31/month, and the payment was deducted at the beginning of each month. After quickly getting a U.S. driver’s license, the auto insurance dropped to $145.31/month, and it has not changed since then. In fact, in the first year, I didn’t know anything about my car insurance, and I didn’t think about researching it. I didn’t know that I had a self-pay part of $500 until after the accident, which means that regardless of the liability Who, every time there is an accident, if the car needs to be repaired, basically I need to pay 500 dollars in advance. If it is not my responsibility, the money will be refunded to me. If the responsibility cannot be determined, the 500 dollars will not be refunded. coming. There were two accidents this year. If Costco hadn’t monitored it, maybe the first $500 would not have been refunded to me. This is $1,000, which is more than half a year’s worth of car insurance, so I’m planning to buy home insurance At that time, after careful consideration, I decided to change to another insurance. Geico’s home insurance quote was not very good.
The insurance agent was recommended by a friend. It is Allstate’s insurance agent. He can speak Chinese. He called to communicate with me about my situation, and then sent me a quotation directly, and I didn’t need to fill in any information myself.
The insurance company seems to have a unified system. In short, my agent can see the items I used in Geico before, so according to that standard, I was given a quote from Allstate—$395.64/half a year. To be honest, I was very shocked, how could it be so bad? so much? Geico is $871.86/half a year, almost double the difference!
I don’t know if it’s because I’m afraid of being hit. I’m always worried that if an accident happens later or if I’m caught speeding by the police, the insurance premium will increase at any time, so I upgraded from their standard plan to a platinum plan, which is nearly 15% more expensive. $395.64/half a year has become $445.02/half a year, but it includes Deductible Rewards and Safe Driving Bonus, and there is a guarantee that the premium will not increase even if I am responsible for an accident.
Deductible Rewards: The deductible will (without my fault) be automatically reduced by $100 per year.
Safe Driving Bonus: Refers to (without my liability accident) a 5% cashback premium every year.
Allstate also has a drive wise project, which is to download their home app, activate this project, and it will automatically monitor and record every trip, as long as the speed does not exceed 80Mile/H each time, and does not drive in the middle of the night, without emergency braking, such When the trip reaches 50 times, you can apply for a performance reward check, up to 15%. In this way, the extra price difference will be made up!
Just a few days after I happily switched to Allstate, our car was hit by a gorgeous parking lot. Two days before Geico’s insurance expired, Geico was unlucky enough to get insurance right away. It’s over, another accident happened.
After the accident, I researched several issues:
1. First of all, what is all risks? Where can we tell?
Deductible is full risk
2. Does the insurance include compensation for accidents caused by weather, animals and other factors, such as if you hit a deer at high speed?
Yes, there are two Deductibles, one is impact Collision, the other is non-impact Comprehensive, which includes hail, being hit by a deer, and smashed car windows
3. Our insurance coverage for bodily injury and property damage
At the beginning, they were $25k each person, $50k each occurrence, and $25k each occurrence. That is to say, each time an accident occurs, the insurance company pays at most $25k per person, $50k at most for each accident, and at most for property damage $25k.
Simply thinking about this number is absolutely not enough, especially in case someone is injured, the medical expenses of Meidi will be so expensive that it will go bankrupt in minutes, so quickly increase the insured amount and upgrade to $100k each person, $300k each occurrence , $100k each occurrence. In this way, the premium rises from $445.02/half a year to $482.57/half a year.
4. Deductible part
Our deductible at that time was the same as when we used Geico, which was $500, but after thinking about it, if such a small accident that cannot be judged happened twice a year, wouldn’t we have to pay at least $500 every year? Paid $1000? Minutes to catch up with a year’s premium ah.
So I lowered the deductible to the lowest possible option, and changed it to $50 collision deductible, $0 comprehensive deductible, and the premium changed from $482.57/half a year to $576/half a year, so I paid an extra $187 per year, but In the case of what happened before, I only need to pay 50 dollars out of pocket. It’s a good deal after all, isn’t it?
5. Car rental expenses during the accident repair period
It used to be $30/day. At this price, it is impossible to rent a car nearby. It is not even enough to rent a car before tax, so it was changed to $50/day, and the premium changed from $576/half a year to $591.3/half a year.
6. Auto Replacement protection
If the car is new for two years, if you choose this item, you can pay at the price of the new car when the car is scrapped. If it exceeds 2 years, it will not work. This project requires $12.88, so the final premium becomes $604.18/half a year.
Although many items have been upgraded, it is still much cheaper than Geico, and the difference is still quite large.
Finally, I sincerely suggest that before buying car insurance, don’t be afraid to compare several insurance companies. Everyone’s situation is different, so the quotation standards of different insurance companies may be different. In short, choose the one with the highest cost performance. Save money is earn!
This is the end of this article, I hope everyone can buy the insurance that suits them best, drive safely, and cherish life! Taking responsibility for others is also protecting yourself. If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment, and I will try my best to reply! I also hope that friends who like it can follow and collect my articles, thank you for your support!
