Changed car insurance, saved a massive headache
Changed car insurance, saved a massive headache
Was originally with AAMI, and noticed they had quietly dropped my covered rate to $7,500. If I was willing to pay more, I could be insured for $10,500 max. This is for a 2008 top spec Nissan 350z, which you couldn't look at for anything less than $17,000. My premiums for comprehensive were about to go up to $141 a month (despite being with them for 5 years with no claims) so I checked with Shannons, and they covered to $20,000 for $146 a month. Always pays to check how much you're covered, as if my car was written off, I'd be getting less than half it's worth. Outrageous.
As much as I hate having to do it, shopping around for all my insurances is an annual thing now.
Like clockwork, I get my RACV renewals at the same time each year (house, two cars, caravan - all co-termed) with the usual, unjustified premium hike. I then go get three competing quotes, ring RACV, and tell them I'll leave unless they can do better. Inevitably, they point out that the quotes I've gotten include new customer incentive, at which point I tell them to look really hard for a loyalty incentive.
They usually find something that brings me to within a few hundred buck total of the competing quotes, at which point I accept. Amortized over 4 policies for 12 months, it's usually not worth my time (and the pain) of having to change everything over.
I fucking hate the insurance industry.
It's definitely not worth being "loyal" to an insurance company. My partner was with RACV for years, but his last bill I just noped at. He was all "but my silver loyalty card and discounts" 🤦🏼♀️Shopped around and got a deal that was exactly the same coverage and T's & C's for almost $1,000 less. I asked, "is your loyalty worth a thousand bucks?" 😆
Yeah, beware being insured for market value vs agreed value, especially if your car is in good condition, low kms etc.
I always play with the agreed value sliders, and for my car, it's little extra cost to have it insured for it's real value vs the 'average' market value.
Note also that the market value will usually continue to decline throughout the year. So, eg, using the example above, the market value might be $7500 now, but $6000 in another year.