revheck said:We've had State Farm for many years, in New Jersey, and get special discount for long-time customers. Everytime I look for better rate, nobody can beat their total auto-homowners-umbrella package.

I've never had to file a claim with State Farm, however, so I've not tested how good they really are.
I know they don't have a great reputation. But every time I'm tempted to switch to someone with a
better reputation, I look at the rates again and stop myself... Who knows what I'm really buying.

Count mine as another voice for State Farm. I/We have been with them (in IL) for 20+ years (since I started driving). We have not filed too many claims, but they have all been handled well and quickly when we did. Auto rates have consistently gone down each year, with the exception of the most recent as they have experienced "higher than anticipated repair costs" the minivan we have - still cheap though. My wife recently had an accident and it was "forgiven" as we haven't had anything (that was our fault) in 10 years.

Interesting quirk - since they are a mutual company, I have occasionally received dividend checks for years where they payed out less than expected. I am not sure if they still do this, but it is a nice occassional unexpected piece of mail.

TomB

mapson said:We're with Allstate and we don't think we're in good hands at all.

Allstate smokes pole. Not only did we experience the premium creep mentioned in the OP, the customer service is absolutely garbage. For example, I bought a new car and called in after hours to get the car added to the policy. The person who answered the phone told me that she was sending a message to the agent, who would make the changes and call me the next day. Two days later, when I hadn't heard from the agent, I called back to learn that the changes hadn't been made. This time, the guy wanted to take all the information again because he had no way of verifiying that the "message" that the first person had claimed to send to the agent had actually been sent.

After that call, I shopped online a little and found a better rate with Liberty Mutual. I moved my auto, homeowners and umbrella to LM tonight.

F Allstate and their lousy customer service.

I am also looking into insurance rates. I am currently with State Farm and their rate for my motorcycle are lower then anything I can find at other companies. Did anybody look for a less expensive motorcycle insurance ?
I am 41 years old, 2 cars and the motorcycle is a sportbike which has high rates at a lot of insurance companies. From what I understand I have to keep car in order to keep the motorcycle.

I'm in good hands with USAA.

Liberty Mutual and Geico gave me similar quotes. Which one should I go with?

USAA is the absolute best insurance you can get, if you can get it. A close second for those who cannot get USAA is ERIE. In my experience, both are fantastic. USAA may not be the cheapest, they usually are very close, their CS is #1. Just my thoughts.

I've had State Farm, Travelers, and The Hartford before.

Currently, I'm getting the best rates I've yet found with this strategy:
Ameriprise through Costco for homeowner's (about $200 per year cheaper than Travelers had been)
Auto through Geico; I haven't combined under Ameriprise because Geico is giving me a 5-year good driving discount, and I got a ticket about 2.5 years ago that they haven't noticed.

Judging by the number of good reccomendations, I'm going to try to get a quote from Erie.

Geico has been 100% great to us, with and without claims. Then again, the claim that Geico paid us was another Geico customer hitting my wife's car...

Ameriprise is OK. They sent out an appraiser - they claimed he was only looking at house value, but then they sent me a letter that said: A)my front porch needed a new railing B)my driveway cracks needed to be repaired C)I needed to cut down a tree that overhung the shed, otherwise they were going to opt not to renew me. I haven't hit my renewal date, but I plan on fixing the driveway and porch rail, and the tree is worth more to me than the shed so I told them not to cover it in my policy.

I never really had a problem with Travelers, but when I converted from renter's to homeowner's with them, the rate was simply not competitive with Ameriprise. The Hartford was relatively expensive when I had their insurance, but I was a crappy driver as a teen, so I'm sure my driving record contributed to my high rates. State Farm sucked. I was covered under my parents' policy with them until I was 18. I had one accident, and they sent a letter to my parents stating that they had to drop me from their policy and put a clause in that said I was no longer allowed to drive any of their vehicles, otherwise they'd cancel the whole policy and dump my parents' both auto and homeowners insurance. Needless to say, my stepmom cared more about her insurance than about me, so I was on my own. (By on my own I mean I had to find my own insurance company; I had been paying for my portion of the premium all along)

State Farm sucks so much. They wouldn't insure our home unless we insured our car too. Of course, insurance on the car is about 50% higher than the cheapest. Bastards.

AsylumBoy said:In NJ. I have had Allstate for a long time. When I first got it back in '83 I was paying $600 (High Risk). When I fully insured a new car (Mid 90s) it went as high as $1200. Now with only liablity, good drive discount, and Frivolous Lawsuit disclaimer I pay $187. Geico recently sent me a letter saying that I could save $243 by switching. Being paid $56 for Auto insurance sounds like a deal

why didn't you switch to geico?

USAA