Are you a telecommuter paying commuter rates for auto insurance?
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Istockphoto I was reading through the http://www.thedigeratilife.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/13/lower-car-insur...
That was posted as part of Will’s great list of articles on April 9, 2009 and thought I’d share a couple of tidbits I didn’t see mentioned in this article on car insurance.
I just added my husband as a driver on my car so I’ve been in a good deal of contact with my AAA guy. We’ve already followed many of these tips including bundling our home and auto insurance, maintaining a good driving record, and trying to keep a good credit rating.
A couple of other things to consider that are working in our favor is the car being completely paid off---which seems to be lowering it quite a bit as does paying it up front for the whole year (no finance charge or interest).
But the thing that saves me the most is being listed as primarily a telecommuter. Apparently many auto insurance companies now offer a telecommuter rate if you can prove most of your work is done from home. My car takes my kids to school every day but pretty much sits in the garage unless I’m running errands or out of the area. I qualified! Makes me land in the same category as a Sunday driver. For all of you beginning to work at home or anyone who is unemployed, this might make for considerable savings. Worth asking your insurance agent about anyway.
Of course, living in the mountains means we’ll always keep the deer collision insurance. Deer are notoriously bad about carrying their own insurance and great about playing 'dodge car' down the mountain highways.
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Does anyone know if every insurance company has this option? Specifically Mercury, whom I use? As a telecommuter I reduced my yearly mileage to 6,000 (from 12,000 when I was commuting), and it reduced my rate by just $50 dollars per 6 months. And since it labeled me as a business (which is correct), my rates went up by about as much anyway.
They never offered me any telecommuter rates.
I drive my car so seldomly now, and it's kept in a garage, but it's still a new car (2 years old), so I'm compelled to keep comprehensive and collision. Would you do anything else in my situation to reduce my rates?
At some point when we received auto insurance quotes, we were told that our rates would be cheaper if we were using the vehicle regularly, rather than leaving it sitting in our neighborhood. I'm going to double check with my agent.
Of course there is the neighborhood bias too. I know my neighborhood is $15 more a year than one mile away from me because my area includes the highway and the other area doesn't.
Margaret Garcia-Couoh
I totally didn't know about this until about 2 years ago. I called up to get my defensive driving course discount and the customer service agent asked how many miles I had on the car. It was less than 2 years old and I had maybe 17K miles on the car. She told me that since I was obviously driving less than 12,000 miles per year why not reduce my driving quote level to 10K. I asked if it would make a difference and yes, it sure did! Maybe $20 a month doesn't matter to someone else but that's $240 a year and I haven't had to change one dang thing about my driving habits.
And if your home address is also registered as a business or if you do deliveries with your car or commute to work versus just "recreational" driving you WILL pay more. It all adds up.
Great tips, Margaret, and worth looking into. Of course, we have to worry about moose and bears, as well, though I've heard bears are better about paying their premiums. Nice pic, BTW.