Car insurance savings

Maybe I should save this for a Frugal Friday post, but I had to share my excitement.

Since before we got married we've used Farm Bureau insurance for our car, well when we moved her we were bummed to see that there wasn't one in our town. Eugene took one day off from work to get everything with car insurance, drivers licenses, inspection and all that stuff done. We were kinda rushing and just decided to go with State Farm- my mom and dad always used state farm and i used it before i moved to NC from Maine- it was pretty cheap then.

Well we got a quote of $86 a month for full coverage on our Taurus. We were quite shocked since in TN we were paying about $140 for 3 months. We knew the cost of living was more here so we accepted it, added renters insurance (which we were astonished was so cheap, about $11 a month. I wish we had known that earlier!) so our total per month was $97. That was fine, we could make do.

Well then we got something saying it was going to go up because in NC they have insurance points (not points on your license) and Eugene had 2 from an accident he had almost 3 years ago in the Band Van. So our new monthly total was $130!!!! That was crazy. Plus an extra 67.83 to make up for the difference in premium.

We started looking at other places and found a Farm Bureau in the town Eugene works at and decided to check with them. Before we signed any paperwork we had the insurance agent check with the "underwriter" who can see more information and give us an exact quote. I Highly recommend doing this, that way you don't jump into anything then find out it's way more than you expected. So our quote with them for six months for just car insurance was 620.78, because of our bad credit we were unable to get renters insurance with them but it was still a savings.

$620.78 compared to $778.35. $157.57 every 6 months, $315.14 a year we are saving. That's 3 years worth of car insurance we saved by switching to Farm bureau (sounds like a commercial) .

There are some other fees involved with both, State Farm charges $3 a month if we want to pay by check - they say it's to cover the cost of the bill and postage, yet we picked to have it drafted for $1 a month but we still get a bill. I have no clue. anyway that's $12 a year. With Farm Bureau you have to pay a yearly membership of $25. So technically we are only saving $302 a year. Either way, we're saving almost 3 months of insurance!!

So I suggest you shop around for car insurance- but make sure not to switch until your policy has run out (normally every 6 months) or you might end up paying a fee.

I also recommend you look into renters insurance if you rent. It's so cheap I think just about everyone can afford $11 a month, you might have to give up a soda or a meal at McDonalds, but think about how it would help you if anything ever happened to your apartment.