Happy Easter from our family to yours! We hope that everyone is staying safe during these uncertain times. Mrs. Doughmaker and I have been staying home with the exception of a rare drive for groceries or a trip to ride bikes in a church parking lot down the street. With fewer people on the roads, there are some real opportunities for savings. Here’s how I saved $280 on our auto insurance this week.
Reviewing my Mileage
Since I keep a close watch on our budget, I’ve realized that being stuck at home does have a few silver linings. It has been strange to watch some of our budget estimates change wildly during this pandemic. Foe example, I have yet to fill up my car with gas this month. Prior to life as it is now, I was driving about 200 miles weekly for work before any additional trips. Over the last 5 weeks, I have only driven 50 miles.
Now that Mrs. Doughmaker and I are driving far fewer miles, I decided this would be a good time to review our auto insurance policy. I navigated over to the insurance website and made a quick change to my existing policy. Moving my annual mileage from 16,000 down to 10,000 dropped my premium $60 annually. It only took 3 minutes to make the change online. I didn’t stop there however.
Shopping Around
This is something I recommend everyone do at least annually. Set aside a time between now and the end of the month to spend 30 to 60 minutes checking for better rates. You know the commercials “3 minutes could save you 300 iguanas” or something along those lines. I thought it was a gimmick. That was until I tried to switch and saved over $600 on my policy a few years back. Since then I set up an annual reminder on my calendar around my renewal date to search for the cheapest rate. There are two main strategies I use:
- Shop around online at a lot of the major insurers. The benefit I’ve found in using them is that they usually have pretty good rates and their websites are easy to use.
- Consider using an insurance broker. This is a company who will shop for the absolute best rate from their group of insurers. They get paid by the insurer, not by you. We don’t currently use a broker, but have used one in the past. If you go this route, I would recommend doing your own research on the insurer by reading reviews and looking at their website before you commit.
I decided last week I would take the time to see if I could find anymore discounts for our annual car insurance bill. After providing information to four insurance companies, I found a rate that was $220 less than our current policy. Another big win for our annual budget!
Recent News on Insurance Discounts due to COVID-19
There have been various companies in the news that are expecting to add a discount to your next car insurance bill due to reduced driving/accidents during the pandemic. I suggest reviewing if your company has made these promises and set a reminder to check this on your next insurance bill. For example, the company I am now using states that there will be a 20% discount for April and May insurance rates (and may continue depending how long we need to stay off the roads).
I hope a few of these tips save you some money on your car insurance. If they do or you have any other suggestions let us know below!
