I just purchased an 04 Cooper S. I used to drive an 03 Jaguar x-type 3.0. My insurance went up by $170 for a 6 month premium. Can anyone explain this increase? I was actualy hoping that it would go down. I'm slightly dissapointed.

 

Whoa! Bad Luck and black karma!! Have you cked with other insurance companies? My insurance agent told me my rates went up because the Mini is labeled as a high performace car... I think it was because they like my money.

 

Four doors vs. two.
But should be a less expensive car to repair/replace.
Check the breakdown - is the premium higher for liability or collision?
My MCS is about the same as my Subaru wagon, but I'm an old married guy...

 

Im not old nor married, maybe that is a problem for the insurance rates. I think that it being classified as a performance vehicle doesnt help. The Jag is much more expensive to fix. The breakdowns are all exactly the same for the Mini and the Jag. Very weird. I will shop around.

 

unfortunatly as part of the agreement with getting my mini I had to pay insurance.. red, kid, sports car, two tickets eat paycheckssss

 

i pay my insurance too, and evne though its up the roof (same as justin, minues the tickets) it was only like $200 more a year then the honda accord sedan 4cylinder i used to drive, i just ifnd that either amazing, or insane (depends if your looking at it as the mini being only a little more than an accord, which sounds great, or hte accord being only a little cheaper htan a mini, which sounds like i was getting ripped on my accord)

 

Shop around, I know there's others threads that have talked about this in general.

I'm paying less than what I was for my hyundai accent by just a few dollars. Still, it makes me wonder how good mini is or how bad hyundai was.

 

I'm an Auto Underwriting Manager for the world's largest insurance company (notice the avoidance of free advertising).

There are many variables that affect your premium, of course. Assuming you didn't move, hit one of the age levels that cause an increase, add another driver to your household, increase your coverages, etc, at the time you purchased the MINI, I would assume it was one of two things that caused the increase.

I can rule out the first one which is "IRG"--Insurance Rating Group--assigned to a particular vehicle. The IRG is determined through statistical evidence regarding the rate of accidents for each Make/Model/Year of a vehicle along with the average cost of repairs for that vehicle. In this case, your Jag had an IRG of 23 and your MCS has an IRG of 18. The lower the number, the lower your premium.

Another reason your rate can go up is your "score". Most insurance companies today use a complicated computer model to determine your score. They all are different but most models use information such as your consumer credit information, your accident history (whether you were at fault or not), and even things such as the number of times you've moved. Very complicated.

Anyway, my suggestion would be to just come out and ask your agent why your premium went up when you switched vehicles. He or she has all your information and should easily be able to tell you.


BTW, for "justintime"... I assure you, the color of your MINI has nothing to do with your premiums. However, your age and your speeding tickets certainly do !

 

Sounds like the new car increase. It will usually go away in a year.

 

Well, the Civic I drove before was $42 a month, and now I pay $140 a month, for a $500 premium.

 

gotta love insurense. cant live with it cant drive without it

 

Insurance on my MINI costs me the same as my 95 Accord that I sold last year and I get better coverage. Shop around and if you've been for your insurance company for a while they should be willing to give you a lower rate or else threaten to leave and see if they do anything about it...

I'm excited though because I will be hitting that magical age of 25 later this year, Hooray for lower insurance!!!

 

Just got off the phone with the insurance company. I have Esurance by the way, and I HATE it. I talked to a representative who told me that they would do a rate review, and send me an answer in 3 days. Chili red and Pepper White, thanks for the great info. She tried to tell me that the rating is higher for the cooper than the Jag and I used your IRG numbers to disprove that. She was very surprised that I knew about the IRG number She also said that the increase could be due to the Mini being newer by a year. And since they are both considered sport cars, the premium should not have gone up by $170. I never thought of the Jag as being a sports car, very interesting. I'll let you guys know what they say after the rate review in a few days.

 

woolaxis, I'd be very interested to hear what Esurance tells you in "3 days" (great service). I'll let you know if it passes the Underwriter's Logic Test.

Their preliminary answer does not pass the logic test. The IRG already takes into consideration the year of your vehicle.

You can PM me their reply or just post it on this thread. I'll be keeping an eye out for it.

 

I went from a POS Cavalier to a brand new MC and it went up about $100. So other than the POS being several years old, really there would be minimal increase for me.

 

I went from a miata to my mini, and because of a 300$ fender bender on the other car in the miata accident, my insurance went from 100$ for the miata a month, to 250$ for the mini. I didn't have any tickets though :( Now that i'm back in a miata, it's down to 113$ a month. I'm just waiting to get older and richer, and for my insurance rates to drop before i take another plung into the expensive mini coverage :P

forgot to add i'm 21/female

 

Not sure exactly why, but the only way I have been able to get competitive rates on insurance is to switch companies every 12 or 15 years.

A sure way to see if you should be looking elsewhere is an unexpected increase like you (and I) just received. Other things that have gotten me looking and ultimately changing insurers, includes the number of clients an agent has. The more clients the more likely you are paying too much. Not sure why that is, but about the same time the agent never answers the phone himself is about the same time he takes his eye off providing competitive insurance rates.

I just switched companies 5 days ago the morning I picked-up my new Mini for the same reason you describe, rates higher than it should have been and no drop on the 1998 Regal even though it would presumably be driven much less with another car in the stable. This is the second time I have switched, was with State Farm from age 16 until age 30, then American Family until age 45, and I have now just signed on with AAA. Premium including multi-car discount was $400 a year less than with my old agent with the big payroll.

 

Am I the only person that thinks linking credit scores to insurance rates is BS? I mean I can see doing it for a brand new customer, but I have been with state farm for over 20 years, I have a flawless driving record, I am married, the wife is flawless, we have never made a payment late, we have 2 house policies, 2 life policies and 3 vehicle policies with them. When we added the cooper that was the first time they told me they wanted to run a credit check.

I was like...ummm, ok, but I am not borrowing anything from you. Well after buying another home our debt to income ratio has gone down, thus our credit score was affected. So we didn't get a "prime rate" with State Farm.

It took some pushing, but I simply went into the agents office, printed out what I have paid out over 20 years to State Farm, and what they have paid out (about $50,000.00 vs. $0.00). All I said was I am a model customer and they shoudl be lucky to have me, I would appreciate you provide me with the best rate possible. Not sure what they tweked, but the 6 month premium went from 509 every 6 months to 279 every 6 months.

I was possibly lucky, but I would canceled my policies right then and there.

I still don't understand why credit is now being linked. You are nto borrowing anything, if you don't pay your bills, they will cancel the coverage.

And its not like we had poor credit either. We both are over 700.

Rant off..

 

I had a 2002 Suzuki XL-7 4x4 when I got my '06 MINI S. My insurance actually went DOWN albeit only $25 or so annually.

I was VERY surprised a NEW car, even one that is, I guess, classified as "sport" or "high performance".

I am 43, male, unmarried and live in one of the highest risk zip codes in a high-premium state (AZ), last ticket/accident was a year ago in November "my fault" . I have State Farm and get a discount with the homeowner's policy.

FYI.

 

if youre ghetto and unwise in your dealing with your money, youll be ghetto and unwise in dealing with you car and general safety.

700+ is a fine score to have if you are younger. If you own a home and are older, it should be higher, you might want to look at why from a company called Experian, one of the "three" credit agencies. I did and found some things that i needed to fix. My score is like 715, im 30 years old, screwed up cards when i was much younger, so I duno how all its calculated.


According to State farm insurance, the mini is one of THE safest cars to drive on the road. it has a VERY low chance of injuring you or occupants. Honda civic is VERY HIGH chance of screwing everyone up in the car and getting everyone's *** sued. I was shocked to see that all the cars that had 5 star crash ratings were actually NOT SAFE at all to drive, mainly the honda company ones. Fascinating isnt it?

 

It's all in the computers talking to each other...,, pretty soon you can expect secret healthcare data bases linking your insulin level to your premiums!

But seriously, once the housing market crashes and wipes out about a third of homeowners who were speculating with borrowed money, --under those conditions there might be a genuine reason to link credit history with insurance premiums if only because those homeowners will be muck more likely to be drinking for oblivion in an effort to foget about their finanical problems. I for one do believe there is a link between the way someone handles their finances and how careful they are in other areas of their life.

At the same time, I don't think it is fair to penalize entrenpenours (sic) who have taken some financial risks but who are otherwise very careful drivers. But it's a free market (sort of, if you ignore the legal requirement to have insurance in the first place) and shopping around is the ultimate solution.

 

Actually, I am pretty close to your age, and our ratings are 725 and 740. Very fine credit scores.

We are not "ghetto" and have a proven track record for flawless driving and responsibilty with our money and payments. Why then should our rates change if our credit scores dip for some reason? Having an 850,000 dollar house purchase has no bearing on my driving safety.

After all credit ratings are based on several factors, some of which are not necessarily negative things.

It just another way to "justify" raising rates. Yes its a tool, and maybe even a good one, but it should be used as a supplemental way to establish a rating, and not carry such a large weight when used to calc someones rates.

 

....but some of us can do math and have chosen to live on less than we make! .....the fact that someone has debt INCREASES thier risk, and the likelyhood of making claims because they have many obligations....Often times it is not as much responsibility as it is luck. Most people in this country have no savings and are one job layoff from bankruptcy....The fact they have made all their payments has more to do with luck than responsibility, because any look at the finanical statistics of our materialistic society proves this.

I do know how its calculated and it isn't a secret.....your credit score is actually an i love debt score, and does not factor wealth or responsibility in at all if you ask me. you can read about it here
http://www.fico.org/WhatsInYourScore.aspx

with that said.....all the money saved from no intrest payments and finance charges more than makes up for the little more one will pay to some insurance companies who have unplugged thier brain from the process.

 

My insurance company wanted to check my credit but they gave me an option. I didn't let them even though they offered a small discount. My limited credit history is all positive but other factors (like high debt due to student loans) have kept my score from being rated as good. Even if I did have a really good credit score though I still wouldn't share it with my insurance company. Its none of their business. Especially if I'm paying my premiums on time.

 

Wow sizedontmatter, I wish my wife was "flawless" too!

All kidding aside (I dig my wife ), but according to my Allstate insurance agent the only reason why credit is checked is to offer customers a premier rate on an already premier rating. Does that make sense? Both my wife and I score higher than 750 and I am the only one with a blemish within the past two years (speeding 75 mph in a 60 mph zone). Because of our credit scores and regardless of our driving record they could offer us a less expensive premium because we have a track record of paying people on time...an added benefit for me and the insurance company I guess. Maybe Chili Red & Pepper White can confirm this.

Our premium here in SC is $512 every 6 months which is more than the 04 BMW E46 I had, but still a bargain compared to NJ rates. Before I turned 25 I had a 98 Twin Turbo Supra where the premium was $8000 annually and then dropped to $4300 once I hit the magic age.