Does AAA offer homeowners?

maire_cate, yes both offer dropped rates if I consolidate. State Farm has been the first one in this year and they are offering a 17% reduction on each.

cupof, yes, AAA offers homeowners.

ETA: It makes sense from a $$$ point of view. Any opinions on one of these companies being better for both, or do they each do one thing better than the other?

We were insured through two different carriers and this year, regardless of not having any claims on either, Liberty Mutual raised our rate from 1600/yr to 2650 p/yr for two older vehicles one of which doesn't even require full coverage. (Michigan has weird medical laws so the insurance is ridiculously high to begin with). Since I hate doing insurance hunting, I turned to a broker and they found us insurance with a highly rated company, consolidated the policies with the same provider and saved us about 1400/yr between the two and the policies offer better coverage. The broker said the savings was in part because of our zero claim history, excellent credit and multiple policy coverage.

AAA is one of the carriers they represented and I was thinking we'd end up going with them but she said their policy was the highest which surprised me a bit.

State Farm is one company I will never do business with. I had a really horrible experience with them once many years ago after I was hit by one of their insureds. I was at a stop when I was rear ended and their adjuster was a nightmare to work with. I also wasn't the least bit surprised to see the horrible way they treated their insured's during Hurricane Katrina and Sandy.

There are way better companies out there, you might want to shop around just a little or talk to a broker and have them shop for you. You might find substantial savings with a much better company if you do.

Lukki, thanks, very interesting. It's just me and one older car (2004). Neither of my policies has increased discernibly in the past 12 years, which is how long I've been on my own and having to pay attention to these things. Do you care to say which carrier you ended up with?

I think I'm less likely to change to a completely different third carrier, as opposed to switching both my accounts to one I already have, or just keep things as they are. Did you have to pay the broker?

I had State Farm homeowner's policy and Allstate auto. Then State Farm raised their rates a lot, with a high deductible, so we checked with Allstate. The combined Allstate policy has a much lower deductible, more coverage, and much lower rate. Plus, I have nothing but good experience with Allstate. State Farm, not so much.

Our state insurance commissioner's office has ratings you can look at on their website which shows which companies have the most complaints about them and a plethora of other tools to use to pick insurance companies. Check with your state's equivalent and see what you can find.

I once had car insurance through aarp's link with Hartford. They kept pestering me to switch my homeowners to them for a discount. But when I tried, because I live within several hundred yards of salt water, they wouldn't insure me. It was ridiculous, because I live at the very lowest part of Puget Sound where it's practically the size of a smallish lake (with about that much wave action). When I questioned them why - "Hurricane risk". But we don't have hurricanes here...(maybe there have rarely been hurricane force winds before in the PNW but proximity to Puget Sound is not a factor). They actually would NOT even look at their stupid policy about it, no common sense involved at all. All factored on east and gulf coast salt water risks. Made me crazy.

So I canceled my car insurance with them and bought both through a company that had people with some brains.

Yes, i agree with Olychick about checking the ratings in your state. Here, State Farm is considered one of the very worst home insurance companies, but it may be totally different on the other side of the country.

I've always heard it's better to consolidate and we do.

We have Allstate. They've been excellent till the last claim I made. Someone (other than me) moved my new car and didn't put it in park. It rolled downhill 200 yds and was stopped by a 200 year old oak tree. It was on private property. The person's ins didn't pay and Allstate said my car wasn't a total loss even tho EVERYONE else in the business said it was totaled. I spent every day for 3 months fighting with them. Noting every date, name and highlights of the conversations. I contacted the St Board of Ins (they denied my claim). I continued my fight with Allstate and continued to record their lies...lie after lie. My car's repairs were 95% complete (to the tune of over $21,000!) when they slipped up and told one too many lies. This time there was no getting out of it. Not only did they have to pay the mechanic and body man and parts but declared my car totaled and had to buy me a new car. And because the other ins company wouldn't take responsibility, my rates went up for 3 years.

I'm going to contact a broker in the near future and see if they can find better rates and more coverage or at least better rates.

I consolidate also. My insurer (Erie) gives the discount on the homeowners portion only. Perhaps that varies by state? It's time consuming to get all the estimates, but usually worthwhile. I would ask both State Farm and AAA to estimate the additional policy. Also, consider asking friends/ family who are in a similiar situation as you for their company recommendations.

We've used a broker for 30 years and they have saved us $$. They do receive compensation from the insurance companies but they have also researched to find us the best rates. They even called us when they added a new company that only insures low-risk clients and we ended up saving several thousand a year. They have also interceded for us when we've had special requests.

We've always been consolidated with a mostly local to Alabama insurance company (Alfa) and have been consistently pleased. Even though I had a minor parking lot incident last year (each party's insurance paid due to it being a backing up incident), my insurance paid off quickly and has not gone up.

DD has had a problem recently with State Farm however. She has everything consolidated, however my DGD (16) was hit in a parking lot by an elderly driver. She had only had her 2012 Honda CRV a week. About 2 weeks later they found out the other driver claimed both were at fault. My DGD was sitting still at a Starbucks, where parking is awful, waiting to pull into traffic. The other guy was parked in a fire lane and backed into her (fairly minor looking damage on her back bumper but assessed at about $1000 to fix). She had her boyfriend in the car with her as a witness but he was deemed a non-credible witness because he's a boyfriend (18, an honor student on soccer scholarship, very reliable, etc). She claimed possession of the lane, sitting still, honking at him, all the right things, but State Farm's adjustor said they were both at fault. My DD is still fighting this and it's been over a month. My DGD is really upset over the whole thing.

After this is over I'm going to encourage her to look at changing to Alfa in a year.

Monica and Outside, thanks for sharing your negative experiences with Allstate and State Farm. I seethe on your behalf.

Where does one find an insurance broker?

We used a small family brokerage when we first bought this place over 30 years ago. Since then the firm has been bought twice by larger firms and recently they merged with Bollinger Gallagher. I don't know if they work in your state or not. But even though they've expanded tremendously we've only worked with 2 agents in the 30 years.

from their web site:

.................Bollinger Insurance is one of the top 20 US insurance agencies with offices in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.
The personal insurance group provides home insurance, auto insurance, renters insurance, condo owners insurance, health insurance, classic car insurance, valuable collection insurance, watercraft insurance, flood insurance, and more.
We represent multiple insurance providers. That's the benefit of being a licensed independent insurance agent: we'll find the right insurance for your needs at the best price...........

Estimate your annual mileage too. Low mileage earns you a very big discount, at least in Ohio.

I'm in California and have low mileage.

I'm also in CA. I've always used Farmer's for both houses and Wawanesa for cars. We live in a wildfire area, and messing with my homeowner's isn't worth the risk. I've seen too many neighbors end up getting screwed :o

We ended up going with Citizens/Hanover. I was actually a little worried because I didn't know much about them, but I did some research on my own and found high reviews. They are also rated AA in the Best Book so we decided to give it a shot. In Michigan, if someone is injured or even has a heart attack in their car, the AUTO COMPANY is responsible for all the medicial bills. It's horrible and has raised our rates to unreasonable amounts; highest in the country actually. State Farm is notorious for not paying, fighting everything tooth and nail and for using very sneaky methods to get out of their obligations. They're going to be great for you until you have a claim or a problem.

There is no charge from an insured to use a broker and it really took no time for them to compare rates with 15 different companies. It was 3 days from the day I first called, to the day I had policies in hand. Wonderful experience. I would highly recommend you give a broker a call, send them a copy of your deck sheets and let them see what they can do. There is no obligation, so really what do you have to loose?

You might find a reputable one on yelp, ask friends if they use one. The one I went with is local, in our own community. I liked the idea of supporting local business and just called them out of the blue.

What you want to do though is make sure they only represent companies that have an A+ rating in the Best Book.

I guess everything's dandy until you have to make a claim, right? That's me, but I'm not gonna press my luck.

I do have a good friend I trust who's recently retired from being in insurance. I'll start with him.

It's not just in Michigan that medical expense in a car is covered by auto insurance. I was in an accident (I'm fine now), and discovered when I got to the hospital that because it was the result of an auto accident, that I would be billed directly by the hospital and all the other providers of medical services., including the County EMS.

We consolidate with USAA.

Suero, it's different here and not like any other state, or so I'm told. Here, the Auto Insurance is billed, they have to pay for everything from ER, Hospital care, physical therapy and whatever else is needed for the life of the injury. If it's permenant, they pay for everything resulting from that injury. The insurance companies spend countless amounts in attorney fees and staff looking for "preexisting issues" to avoid it and the courts are always busy with law suits over it.

ETA: Glad to know you're ok after the accident! They're always so scary, even just fender benders!

Linelle, that is wise and I'm glad you're going to look at other options. Let us know what you end up doing!

Mimi.....are you happy with USAA? I was thinking of calling them tomorrow for a quote. We've been happy with State Farm service, but they keep going up. Would like to at least do some comparisons.

We've been very happy with USAA ;-)

We consolidate and are insured with Ameriprise. We had a HO claim when a tree limb broke off and hit our roof and the neighbors tree broke and hit our hot tub gazebo during a big storm. Our adjuster was a dream to work with and our rates didn't go up.

DH was involved with several fender benders (other peoples fault on each) and ironically two of them were covered by the same insurance co we used to use (Horace Mann) DH was treated HORRIBLY by them. Our agent was a gem (different adjuster than the HO claim). Our auto insurance went up a little bit due to DH's accidents, but nothing too bad.

I'd say just be absolutely sure you are covered for what you need. Our auto is at max coverage limits and our HO covers all the contingencies I thought we needed (we're not in a flood plain so no need for flood coverage) but I did learn our coverage does cover broken pipes.

One source for information, that is not as obvious, is where you get repairs done. I've been rear-ended a couple of times while stopped at signal lights. While at the body shop, when they were not busy at the desk, I asked the companies they liked, and disliked, dealing with. USAA was their top pick.

They quietly shared (whispered, actually) the name of their least favorite insurance company to deal with, saying that company would usually argue about almost every detail of the repair the shop said was needed to restore the vehicle, and then would require multiple calls and many weeks to get paid for the work. IMO, if a company treats their approved shops in that manner, they aren't going to treat their customers any better.