"insurance is more expensive in FL", true? or fear-mongering/exaggerations of natives?

[ColS]

I'm on the phone with USAA as we speak. We are in LoL zip 34638.
01 Mitsubishi Galant
07 Toyota Prius
12 Toyota Sienna

We moved from IN and paid _____ every month.

We now have to pay _____ every month.

Well..... I'll leave that there for now and I'll edit that when she calls me back. Apparently the number was SO high that she wants to verify it before giving me the quote. She wouldn't even they'll me the number when I asked out of curiosity.

I'm changing our renters insurance as well and that is only 64.83 more a month or maybe it was a year. I think it was a year. Ugh, I can't remember, now. My brain is fried after talking about auto insurance. Deductible changed from $250 to $500.

Talking to the renters insurance guy he told me the car insurance quote going up to 213 to 750. Holy spit! I REALLY hope that is wrong. The lowest he'd be able to get is $495 lowering everything to the bare minimum amount. Now, I have a 17 year old on our policy to take into account. If we take his insurance out of the equation it would be

2,000 every 6 months for just my 17 year old. 319.35 for his portion every month. If they wait until 7/23 to move our insurance over (since he'll be 18) it'll be cheaper so they want us to wait until then to change our insurance. He also said to wait to go to the DMV until after his birthday.

We need to audit the amount of miles we drive. If he takes drivers Ed we would save $106 every 6 months and get us an add'l discount. We could lower his insurance to liability only, but at his age we do not want to do that.

Unstacked option would save $200/6 months
100,000 per person 300,000 per accident.
Raising person injury protection to 1,000 deductible will save 150/6 months. Right now it's at 0.
Change the work loss benefits to 0 = saving $100/6 months

Comp 74/6 mo
Collision is 264/6 mo
Recommends keeping comp for weather/theft and getting rid of collision since car isn't worth more than $1,000.

Last option is to audit the amount of miles each person drives.

[MortonR]

When we returned to Tampa from the Midwest in 2010 we had been with State Farm for nearly 30 years at that point. Prior to returning to the Midwest in 2008 we had lived in the same area of Tampa for 12 years and were insured user State Farm.

Granted, some of the increase was obviously due to having a young adult driver, but the original quote from State Farm when we returned in 2010 for three cars, only one that was relatively new (2005 Mazda) and no tickets, etc., was nearly $8,000.00!

I laughed at our agent and told them they needed to put their crack pipe down and call me back when they had sobered up. Understand that the agent was someone who was a friend and we had known for nearly 15 years, so this wasn't some off the wall one time drive by quote. Also realize that this was with every possible discount that was available, including the "smart student" stuff for the youngster.

They explained to me that insurance fraud had increased so badly when the economy tanked that their rates skyrocketed and there was nothing they could do. I signed on at the time so we would have coverage and immediately started shopping around.

We ended up with Allstate, who cut State Farm's premiums nearly in half with better coverage. We've never looked back, in fact, we were really bitter about it because when we told State Farm we were leaving they suddenly wanted to "help us cut down some of the costs." I told them this just reinforced our decision to leave them as if they couldn't give us their best price up front after 30 years of business we didn't want to do business with them.

RM

[Spring Hillian]

Allstate is my carrier. Ryan Green in Largo does a terrific job for our insurance needs.

Originally Posted by MortonR

When we returned to Tampa from the Midwest in 2010 we had been with State Farm for nearly 30 years at that point. Prior to returning to the Midwest in 2008 we had lived in the same area of Tampa for 12 years and were insured user State Farm.

Granted, some of the increase was obviously due to having a young adult driver, but the original quote from State Farm when we returned in 2010 for three cars, only one that was relatively new (2005 Mazda) and no tickets, etc., was nearly $8,000.00!

I laughed at our agent and told them they needed to put their crack pipe down and call me back when they had sobered up. Understand that the agent was someone who was a friend and we had known for nearly 15 years, so this wasn't some off the wall one time drive by quote. Also realize that this was with every possible discount that was available, including the "smart student" stuff for the youngster.

They explained to me that insurance fraud had increased so badly when the economy tanked that their rates skyrocketed and there was nothing they could do. I signed on at the time so we would have coverage and immediately started shopping around.

We ended up with Allstate, who cut State Farm's premiums nearly in half with better coverage. We've never looked back, in fact, we were really bitter about it because when we told State Farm we were leaving they suddenly wanted to "help us cut down some of the costs." I told them this just reinforced our decision to leave them as if they couldn't give us their best price up front after 30 years of business we didn't want to do business with them.

RM

[gypsychic]

Can't beat Allstate - been with them for DECADES and never a problem. I do think they are as reasonable as any.

[ColS]

We are going to shop around. My poor son about died when I told him. He is back in Indiana for the summer and said he can't afford to live in FL. He was only paying $77/month there and now his portion would be $320/month. That seems like price gouging for us law abiding citizens. Looks like we will have to adjust some stuff on our policy to bring it down. My husband did a quick check on insurance rates via einsurance.com (or something like that) and I do believe Allstate was the cheapest. We are going to do some more shopping.

RM I know what you mean about them saying if you get a better deal to call back and they'll see if they can match it. That is what the guy said at USAA today too. When we had dish and I went to cancel it, the lady pulled that card and I laid in to her that they should have given me their best rate from the get go, not when I'm trying to cancel my service. That is a bunch of crap.

[MortonR]

Originally Posted by ColS

We are going to shop around. My poor son about died when I told him. He is back in Indiana for the summer and said he can't afford to live in FL. He was only paying $77/month there and now his portion would be $320/month. That seems like price gouging for us law abiding citizens. Looks like we will have to adjust some stuff on our policy to bring it down. My husband did a quick check on insurance rates via einsurance.com (or something like that) and I do believe Allstate was the cheapest. We are going to do some more shopping.

RM I know what you mean about them saying if you get a better deal to call back and they'll see if they can match it. That is what the guy said at USAA today too. When we had dish and I went to cancel it, the lady pulled that card and I laid in to her that they should have given me their best rate from the get go, not when I'm trying to cancel my service. That is a bunch of crap.

What made it especially exasperating was that this agent was a personal friend who we had known for nearly 15 years. The implication was that they were putting their profits ahead of our friendship, not to mention not giving us the most competitive rates up front. We have life insurance from State Farm that we can't take away from them without losing the coverage, so rather than continue with this agent we transferred the policies to another one closer to our home. We had to write a statement to State Farm explaining why we no longer wanted the agent to handle our policies, as State Farm won't let you just randomly pick up and move policies to another agent if you're in the same geographic area.

Not a lot you can do about the teenage driver. Rates for teens here are stupid expensive. We found that about the best thing to do is go for the "good student" discount first, then ask if the insurer has any kind of first time driver training. State Farm had a course they offered on DVD with a workbook that required observing another driver and making some notes and observations over a period of time. They also had to spend an hour or so in training with the agent. Once they completed this course they got an additional discount. I believe that Allstate has a similar program, so be sure to ask your agent.

RM

[bobandsherry]

Originally Posted by CuriousMiscer

I currently pay about $125/month thru State Farm on my mid-size truck. I only just recently stumbled upon this city-data forum (very useful info is my first impression!), but I've already been seeing scattered anecdotes here and there that "car insurance is thru the roof in Florida" and "it's bad, insurance is high here"??

Is this true, or is it "not actually that bad"?

Say I went to sleep in Denver tonight and woke up in Tampa tomorrow, how much would my insurance change? Realistically?

Moved here from Chicago (suburbs) in February. Couple in our 50's, newer car (18 months old). I was paying $285 for 6 months (Geico). Got quote of $800 for same car and relatively same coverage here (Florida coverage is different that Illinois coverages). I priced many companies and Progressive was the lowest priced for me at $500 for 6 months (driving with their silly Snapshot currently) and had quotes well above $1,000 (up to $1,400). So do your shopping.

[bobandsherry]

Originally Posted by gypsychic

Can't beat Allstate - been with them for DECADES and never a problem. I do think they are as reasonable as any.

Everyone will price differently, no one company is going to be best for everyone. For me, they were $900 for 6 months. Got Progressive for $500.

[PDF]

A friend of mine had his car insurance cut in half when he moved from FL to CO. And myself, I paid more than double in FL compared to what I'm paying now in NC. What you hear about expensive insurance is very much real, but it does vary.