Insurance costs…YUCK!

Okay, we’ve changed our minds, we are not moving to Michigan. |-|

We called to alert USAA to our change of location, and the prices are INSANE. Our car insurance is TRIPLING from about $800/year to $2400/year. We are guessing it’s due to a high auto theft rate in metro areas, plus all the insurance Michigan requires (as opposed to North Carolina). Still, that’s going to hurt since we expected it to stay about the same…but TRIPLING? 88| OUCH. >:XX

And homeowners? Eeeesh. What a pain in the ass. XX(

We currently have USAA and since we have lived here, our homeowners has been around $800-$1200—which included some line item things like computer, guns, jewelry, and artwork. However, for the upcoming year, USAA just DOUBLED the cost (to $2400/year) because of all the hurricanes (they apparently want to get out of the homeowners insurance business in this area).

Well, we saw the notice but assumed we’d sell the house and not have to worry about it, so didn’t bother researching/changing insurance companies. However, now it’s looking like we might have to rent out our house, which means we’d have to keep homeowners on it, so we are looking at other insurance companies. Nationwide is apparently the only one we’ve found that will insure us in NC hurricane country—other companies pretty much just laughed at us and said NO WAY. >:XX

Well, since we were checking with Nationwide for homeowners coverage, we also asked for a renter’s insurance quote. Tom gave them all the same coverage info that USAA had and gave us a quote for…are you ready??? $1500!! 88| WHAT? >:XX At this time, we have not yet talked to USAA about their cost for renters insurance…but if we have to leave them for homeowners, why stay with them for renters insurance? You see the mess this is? 🙄

We obviously had to reevaluate our contents coverage, because we realized it was $160,000—which we surely don’t have that much in contents. We have no idea how USAA came up with that amount for contents coverage, but there must have been a formula and that’s what was included (i.e. I am sure we didn’t pull it out of the air). Once we re-evaluated, it was more along the lines of $80,000…but then we got an email from USAA saying our renters insurance would be about $350 for the original $160,000 in coverage (Tom hadn’t called them back yet with the revised figures). So, I have no idea why Nationwide was so high at $1500 with the same coverage, and then USAA came back with $350.

It’s all just a huge pain in the butt. Tom is NOT having fun with it—he usually never has to deal with this stuff because I am the one that always takes care of it—but I thought it would be good for him to see what is involved so he doesn’t take it for granted! :> However, this round of research is unfortunately a bit more involved and exasperating than normal, so he’s earning major brownie points.

Leave a Reply