Jump ship. Seriously, I'm 27, and every insurance company I've ever been with slowly raises my rates every 3 or 6 months. And I have no tickets or crashes against me. I just change insurance companies on the average of once a year; my rates drop back down to where I started out at, and then the game begins anew.

Then again, I'm a 20-something guy, so my rates are through the roof even if I were to put an old Toyota Echo on my plan

 

You keep jumping insurance companies like that, and you'll never build up enough time with any of them to earn "Accident Forgiveness", or accident-free discounts, or worse yet.... if you ever have a bad run of violations/accidents over a period of time, you likely won't get the benefit of the doubt on a termination.

I understand the need to shop for the best rate from time to time. But you need to balance that against the advantages of staying with one company for a long period of time.

 

Jumping ship also gets more difficult and costly when you have homeowners, umbrella, etc.

State regulation also makes a difference. I laugh at all the mail and commercials about comparing rates. I have done it a few times and for comparable auto coverage they always come out the same, due to the state setting a base rate that most companies charge. Haven't done if for awhile though, so am I up for another exercise???

 

Good point. What a lot of people may not realize is that all insurers in a given State must have their rates approved by that State's Dept of Insurance. So, while there are some variables from company to company, you should not see large variations in quotes when shopping for your insurance. If you do, watch out for the extremely low quotes... there's gotta be a reason for it---i.e., poor claim service.

 

Most quotes I got were actually about the same except for, believe it or not, State Farm was lower by quite a bit - over $200/year when I added my renter's insurance. I made one claim - go figure, first ever - and they were great to deal with. My parents even switched their business, house, cars, everything when they heard what a deal I was getting - and theirs is much cheaper, too.

 

Always glad to hear someone happy with "my" company !

We're not always the lowest quote, but I would put our claim service up against anybody's.