Rates depend on age, driving records,vehicle type, state etc. There are also some policies that seem to be the highest. Single car policies with no support will generally be the highest out there. If you have a home,insure both of them together for multiple policy discounts. Even if you don't own, try a renters policy. Sometimes the savings alone on the auto can pay for the renters policy. Auto insurance is mandatory in most if not all states now. You'd be suprised how many people are going without it though. Just from seeing my cancellation audits done weekly I'd have to agree with the national statistics that 1 of every 6 drivers is going without insurance. Most people couldn't self insure, I know I couldn't.

Having a local agent is very beneficial when it comes to processing claims either against you by another, or one of your own. I've turned down several offers because there was no local agent; Claims would have been processed remotely and the claims adjuster would have been an unknown under contract (at lowest cost) to the company. I would have been saddled with expediting the whole affair and making many phone calls and dealing with no answers and leaving messages on answering machines and hoping I was home when a call-back arrived. I was in the situation one time when a car rolled back out of a driveway and smashed my door. It was a simple, uncontested claim. However, the car was driven by a wife of a serviceman and he had insurnace through a company that catered to men in the military. There was no local agent. The uninjuried party merely gave me a phone number and company name and did nothing more. It fell upon me to make the phone calls and co-ordinate the process if I wanted them to pay for the repair. And then, there was always wheedling to pare down the repair award. They wanted me to run around and get 3 estimates and then mail in the paper work. I balked unless they were willing to pay me for taking time off from work. I told them that if I did not get satisifaction within 2 days, I would file a complaint with the police. A claim adjuster contacted me rightg away, but he wanted me to chase him all over town. I refused and told him when and where he could find the car. I needed to keep using for my job. He came to my driveway and inspected the damage. That was the first real person-to-person contact I had with that company. The repair was made. In my opion, its worth a few dollars more to have an agent in your corner.

Alisande, you're giving them praise for talking you out of using their service that you had already paid to use? They were real happy with you too, believe me. You could have gotten the same info about the nearby service station from a map on a gps device or a smart phone. (When I called the State Farm dispatcher as described above, they said "Do we have permission for one time use of the locator system for your phone, so that we know where you are?" I said yes, and they came back and said "OK, we see your position". I didn't have to tell them.) Sushipup, so a truck that stocks and sells replacement batteries drives up, "checks your battery", and tells you what you need is a new battery? I'm not sure I would have fallen for that. Maybe they were on the level, but hmm... I would have limited the service to a jump start and then gone to a garage to have it checked.

I'm sure this insurance company practice has been common -- but generally unknown to the public. I was surprised to get a notice in our auto insurance bill INFORMING me that State Farm does consider your credit rating when setting your rates. They stated that my DH's report was closed to inquiry, so they had used mine! Years ago we applied for a store CC to save 10% on a large purchase. When the clerk ran my DH's soc. sec. number our report was incorrect, listing another name and another address! We contacted one of the reporting agencies to rectify it. (Partial success.) It was then that we decided it would be prudent to freeze. I think we have 'unfrozen' on only two occasions since then -- simple to 'open' the record at one reporting agency for X hours and to only X company. We seldom require credit -- not opening new accounts for CC's or establishing utility service, etc. However, I had not thought about hiding our *good* credit causing us trouble. Now it's State Farm...what else? The credit reports are so rife with errors -- that the report keepers refuse to correct -- that I wonder how *credible* they can be!