I live in Massachusetts where car insurance can't compete my question is....?

Question

What is the benefits of competing rates? Well duh, you say because you may get cheaper rates somewhere else but I need proof. Right now I have a '95 Ford Escort, I have basic insurance, I'm a step 12, and I pay about $140 a month...what is better than that? Please name the state you live in.

Answer 1

Ah yes, mandatory offer and fixed rates where the good driver pays the same as someone with multiple accidents and claims.  I left MA in 1983 and still don;t pay as much in auto insurance as I did then and have higher coverages.

In most states a drover can shop around and get competitive rates for car insurance as some companies just refuse to cover bad drivers at any rate and charge more for persons with poor driving records.  By bundling my house insurance, farm insurance, car insurance and an umbrella policy with one company I get deep discounts and save several hundred a year.    All of my above listed insurance with $1000 deductible and $1M liability is about 1800 - 1900 yr not that much more than you pay for car ins.  I live in rural TN. and have 2 cars plus house barn and horses.

Answer 2

its hard to give an accurate quote because of all the different policies and they usually run your social security number to give you the correct price BUT i found these 2 sites where you can compare insurance at http://www.COMPAREusINSURANCE.com and http://www.COMPAREeQUOTES.com that give out the best comparisons for auto insurance, i hope that helps.

Answer 3

crud I'm sorry... I know I said on the other question I asked I would come and answer this one, but I really don't know much about car insurance... and especially not in Mass.  Good luck though.  Sorry I couldn't help more.

If you want some more information, I would check out...

http://www.safelinked.info/go.php?link=i...

Take care.

Answer 4

Better is a value judgment, of course.

I live in a province with competitive pricing but insurers must charge any group of insured what it has cost to insure that group of people.

Any company here that happens to have good claims experience gets to charge a low  per month premium for that group of people but they do not have to. They can fail to lower rates on renewal. So they will quote a low rate to get your business, then raise it when experience of the group is worse, and leave it up, waiting for insured to trickle away to other companies.

The insurers will know that I am shopping around for a lower price, and will offer a lower price to keep my account, if they can. Often they can not because that would take them below the cost of insurance experience.

So, some companies give extra savings for so many years of claims free insurance with them.

That form of competition is  justifiable, but it breaks the competitive model.

Those provinces that provide government run insurance give much lower premiums for people with the same risk profile. But they also have limits on pay-out that bring complaints.

Now these government run insurance programs are not negotiating lower premiums, you pay based on risk profile alone.

I would not say we get better premium rates with competition. But we do get a lot of phony rate setting, and companies charging twice as much as a competitor because they happened to have had a bad risk experience over the past year.  Car owners switching from one company to another to avoid paying the cost of their former company's high insurance cost for their group.

Answer 5

I live in Texas.  I used to live in MA.  The "managed competition" that went into effect 04/01 this year DOES have premium differences - up to $500 when I did the quote comparison on the state website.  

But I'm old, and a step 9.  

So run through here:  http://www.autoratecompare.doi.state.ma....  and see if you can find better rates with a different carrier.  Don't expect the sample rate to stick, though.