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Household Finances

Looking for Homeowners/Auto Insurance

18 years ago

I am currently using Allstate for my 2 autos and homeowners policies. I am looking to switch to another company-Allstate seems to be getting more and more costly and the last time I filed a claim under homeowners it was not an easy process to collect from them. Does anyone have any suggestions-I am currently looking at State Farm and Liberty Mutual. Thanks.

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Comments (10)

zone_8grandma
18 years ago
You might consider looking at an independent insurance broker.

We had State Farm for over 20 years (home and auto). The premiums just kept going up and up. I finally shopped around, getting quotes from both the big companies and brokers. We saved (overall) nearly 300/year by switching. A few years from now, if our new company (Safeco) keeps doing the same thing, I will shop around.

We had one claim with State Farm and it was not a pleasant experience.
bentruler
18 years ago
Ameriprise through Costso.
Cheapest I've seen.
Had one auto claim (100% not my fault). No problems, smooth. Auto rates dropped next renewl
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I just went to their site to get more info and got the following message: Effective August 1, 2005, the American Express Property Casualty companies are Ameriprise Auto & Home Insurance. Ameriprise Auto & Home Insurance is underwritten by AMEX Assurance Company or IDS Property Casualty Insurance Company, De Pere, WI. Both companies are wholly owned subsidiaries of Ameriprise Financial, Inc., expected to become independent of American Express on or after September 30, 2005. Learn more about this change, other changes to names of certain affiliated companies, and the anticipated separation from American Express Company by clicking on the Corporate Entities and Important Disclosures link at the bottom of this page. All other information on this site remains the same and does not change. I understand that some American Express companies and businesses have changed their names and that, for my convenience, I will see this message only once. Sounds like AmEx insurance isn't going to be AmEx for much longer . . . maybe not a good time to switch. tom418 - As far as AmEx being strict, thats kind of what I'm getting at. If they are so strict when it comes time to file a claim that they are hard to work with, it probably is not worth the switch. I don't have any first hand experience, but I've heard many times that is how AAA is, atleast here in California, even when working with their own policyholders. And you are right earthworm, a lot of times their is a catch to saving money and you do get what you pay for. I like your idea of a fill-in-the-blank form, but I'm sure they'd just laugh and hand it back.
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I'm anti-Allstate now as well. First of all, they dropped my parents' home insurance after they'd been clients for at least 30 yrs due to one break-in. That put them into a high-risk pool which nearly tripled their premium. Before that, it turns out all those years DH and I had a policy that we were in Allstate Idenmity (which is a high risk pool). The agent never told us that we could have switched over 2-3 yrs after DH's last speeding ticket which was 9-21 months into the policy. In fact, he never told us that we were in a high risk pool at all. It was only after we got a new statement and were looking at paying nearly 3K a yr that I began calling around and kept being told Allstate Idenmity is not the same as "normal Allstate". We have Liberty Mutual now and since we're paying what appears to be an extremely fair premium (smile), we'll stay put.
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graywings, we had auto insurance with GEICO for over 10 years and our experience was positive, but I guess any insurance company could handle some customers badly. As for State Farm paying regardless of who was at fault because it insured both drivers, they were willing to pay us, but would not assign liability to the other driver though she was at fault. We didn't think the claim should be paid from our policy (which could affect rates or coverage later) because there was no dispute as to who was at fault in the police report and the witness statement. The other driver wouldn't admit fault until a few weeks after the police report came out and she didn't have any other justification or proof.
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Can we talk insurance companies (home/auto) again?
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Comments (25)
We have Farm Bureau for home and auto. Also have a life insurance policy with them (hubby) and have had both boats and rvs insured through them. We have had FB for probably 25-30 years. In this house we have had 3 roofs in 18 years. This one has been on a while (knock on wood!). For several years we had some bad spring storms with some serious hail. Both times FB was wonderful to work with. We didn't have to submit multiple estimates and the claim was paid quickly. Last year on a day I was working, I was coming back from lunch and a student and I collided. Police could not assign blame (I honestly think we were changing lanes at the same time) so each of us handled our own vehicle. They are great to work with on an auto claim. We had to use them once before for an auto claim and the one body shop in the area we would choose to use is set up with FB. All you do is take your car in. They handle everything, even a rental car if needed. My only complaint is we had a wonderful agent for years, and are not so fond of the younger agent who took on his clients (original agent retired). But it's a personality thing, I can't say he doesn't do his job. In both the roof claims and the recent car claim, our rates didn't go up. The home owners did eventually, with an explanation of so many claims, etc. due to storms in the area. It was not a major increase though. We do get discounts for having multiple policies, for having an alarm system, for having fire coverage, etc. I manage my grandmother's affairs and she has had Travelers for years. She also had a claim a few years back due to hail and they were good to deal with. However, they did the depreciating method, which I do understand. Her rates seem high compared to ours.
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noodlesportland
18 years ago
Just switched back to Amica after originally being with them for over 15 years-they went high-switched to Ameriprise through Costco for about the last 8 years- which is now IDS for auto. Last week made "the calls' and ended up back at Amica. Amica just adjusted their prices and they are now lower, for what we wanted, than IDS. They said they adjust about one time a year-so we will call again and check in a year! We have learned over the years that you need to shop around and check your rates frequently.
steve_o
18 years ago
We had State Farm for over 20 years (home and auto). The premiums just kept going up and up. I finally shopped around, getting quotes from both the big companies and brokers. We saved (overall) nearly 300/year by switching.

Ditto. State Farm customer for 20 years and saw the premiums keep going up even though the houses and cars and I all were getting older and they had paid out only once (minor accident). When I left, I didn't even get a phone call from anyone at State Farm (not even my agent) wondering why a good 20-year customer left. Don't let the door hit you, guys....

I'm now with American Family and saving a bundle over what SF was charging. But I do watch and I do shop around, and, if AF starts getting unfriendly, I'm elsewhere.
PRO
acdesignsky
18 years ago
We have MetLife for home and auto. When we switched last year from Liberty Mutual, our auto premiums dropped by 30%. We've also had Allstate, State Farm, and Harleysville. AS and SF were by far the most expensive and least customer friendly.
debr
Original Author
18 years ago
Wow, I didn't even realize that there were options thru Costco and Metlife, etc. I will certainly look into these options as Allstate premiums are thru the roof. Thanks, everyone.
Jonesy
18 years ago
We have Farmers Insurance Group and have had since my husband was a young man, even the same insurance man. We haven't had a claim in a long time, but when we did there was none of this, "heres a check for a down payment on the repairs, we will pay the balance when the work is done." They just wrote us out a check for the damages. We have our auto, home and an Umbrella Policy with them and never had a problem.
quiltglo
18 years ago
We've had pretty good treatment with State Farm. They are also about the only ones doing earthquake policies here. Which I consider essential. We also have 11 policies with them, which helps our rates. I was irritated with our agent once and my DH called him and said "Make nice with her or we change to a different agent." He called. Made nice. I'm still going to changed to a different State Farm agent, though. I shouldn't get a call only because the DH makes him do so.

Gloria
chelone
18 years ago
Another satisfied Amica customer. They've insured me since I was 18 yrs. old. And they've had the policy on our home for the past 16 years.
bill_h
18 years ago
try grange, went from allstate to grange a few yrs ago, better coverage, at 2 3rds the cost.

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