Hacker News Reader

Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

You have multiple friends paying $2K/yr for car insurance? Are they amateur demolition derby drivers?

I pay just over half of that for three cars and two adult drivers. (and in Massachusetts, which does not have a fully open/competitive insurance market.)

View on HN

Auto insurance rates are greatly variable throughout the US and many people cary more than state minimums. Near $200/mo., is pretty normal in California. My auto insurance, with a perfect record is $3100/yr with a $5 million umbrella for three cars and two adult drivers in Idaho.

Agreed on the state minimums, which are a joke ($20K and $40K I think here).

We carry many multiples of the state minimum, which was needed to secure an umbrella policy for the excess. That doesn't include the umbrella, which we have in place mostly for other reasons (and is cheap).

I'll throw a data point in here: Three vehicles (2014, 2009, 2006), no accidents, rural Midwest. ~$2,000/yr for insurance with standard 100/300/100 coverage.

I just renewed my insurance in SF for $555/6 months. I have progressive, high deductible but coverage for me, other driver and all that (100/300/100).

Thats pretty good. Can you share a bit more details about your demographics/driving history. I pay ~1600/yr with metromile and i have a good driving history. I'm in SoCal.

Surely - Demographic, ~30 year old male, married. (Getting married didn't drop it as much as I was hoping but did decrease it $150/year.)

Wife and I have not had any traffic infractions in over 3 years.

I haven't had a traffic infraction in at least 3 years (moved to West coast 3 years ago). ~30 year old male, married and are insuring a 2015 Cherokee with $2,500 deductibles.

My advice, if you can set aside $2,500 or have it in savings I would move your deductible up and use insurance for severe accidents. Don't use insurance to replace a cracked windshield.

FWIW, depending on your state and policy, "glass only" claims don't affect your premiums. Agreed with the general principle of a higher deductible though.

As another data point, perfect record, about $700 a year in insurance for my spouse and I sharing a car in Boston.

different states' laws can have a major impact. I have no experience with insurance in MA, but in Michigan 2k/yr per car would be considered fairly cheap. My insurance is routinely near the cost of the car payment itself, and I have a good record and multi-product discounts with my provider.

We definitely have a problem here in this state though.

I once had a payment to an insurance company lapse, so I was technically without coverage for one month. Because of this, all insurance providers insisted the bare minimum I could pay for any auto insurance was $400/month. Then I got a speeding ticket, and it went up to $600/month, and then $800/month. That's $9,600 a year, for auto insurance, for one person. (Fuck you, Progressive)

They claimed the rate would stay that way for several years, so I got rid of my car. I was going to get a car again once the rate lowered, but it turns out I didn't need one. Now I'm saving bundles of cash. (So, in a weird, way: Thanks, Progressive)

I used to have to pay several hundred dollars / mo after I had a major accident with a personal injury involved and was in my late teens / early 20s in Washington state. The policy renewals were nearly $3k each time for just myself even under my parents’ policy (I was supposed to not be insurance due to the massive claim the company ate). I’ve heard of a special insurance policy for a basically legally blind driver that gets in accidents frequently that costs $800+ / mo.

Even the most bare bones policy I could find after that dropped off my record was $140 / mo for state minimum coverage at 22.

I paid more than that when I was a teenager because insurance companies assumed I'd be street racing like all teenage boys apparently. It took less than a year to spend more on the insurance than I did on the car. Of course the cost of your own car barely counts in insurance rates, which are dominated by healthcare costs for the people you hit but don't quite kill.

Annoyingly I never made a claim so all of that money was wasted in the end.

Young men get hit pretty hard on insurance prices. It was looking like 100$ per month for me and was enough to push a car payment into the monthly expense range I didn't care to have. I work from home though, so I don't drive a lot and have the luxury of not owning a vehicle. I could take Lyfts everywhere I go and definitely come out ahead of a car payment + insurance.

I live in Florida. Paying less than $200/mo. for insurance before the age of 25 is almost unheard of.

I live in Vancouver. Insurance for new drivers can start as high as $5000/year.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com