Overhaulin'

How much do you pay for your car insurance?

I just bought a new car. A Honda fit, and my insurance went up $40 more per month. This is my first brand new car, and I am use to the insurance that comes with a used 7 year old car. I was wondering what others pay for their car insurance, and whether it is new or old. I hope I am not asking anything that people would feel uncomfortable with. I just want to see if I am being charged in the range of what I should.

Public Comments

1. there are many variables involved with pricing so asking others what they pay can be misleading. age, use of car, garage location, tickets, accidents, type of car, special equipment etc etc etc. Typical full coverage cost for younger people can easily be over $1,000 a year for a newer vehicle and that assumes you live near a city and drive the car to and from work
2. How much I pay for my car insurance, doesn't help you at all, because you don't know where I live, what my credit score is, which coverages I have, how many cars I have, how many drivers I have, and what all of our driving records are. To find out if YOUR rate is fair, there's no short cut - you HAVE to shop around. If you get quotes from four other companies, and they're all in the same ball park, then your rate is fair.
3. Did you just stick with your current insurance carrier, or did you shop around? We have two cars, one is a 2008 Fit, the other a 1998 Forester. We have a loan on the Fit, so we have always had full coverage insurance on it. When our insurance came up last month, I shopped around and found every other insurer I called was lower than who we had, and the one I settled on gave me full coverage and higher liability on BOTH vehicles for $200 less (over 6 months) than what we were previously paying. I'm not here to advertise for my insurer, so I'll put it this way: I spent a couple hours on the internet and on the phone and called several national insurers directly. I don't trust generic comparison boards on the internet, because that is where I got our last insurance. You don't even have to leave your current insurer, you can call them and tell them the quotes you got from the competition. Make sure you maximize your discounts. Paying all up front netted me a $50 discount. Letting them put a "big brother" device in our cars is netting us about $100 discount. No wrecks since 1988 (although I think they only consider the last 3 or 5 years) was another discount (not sure how much). Seems like there were a couple others, but I can't remember them.