Nor'easter News

Car Care

Membership

Other Cool Stuff

Sponsors & Advertisers

Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region

First, let me say that I am not totally ignorant about Mass. auto insurance. I long ago gave up the myth that “the Mass. insurance industry is regulated and all policies are the same”. Its true that all the insurance companies operate under the same rules and regulations, but, given enough rules and regulations, they can do just about anything they want in pricing policies. Yes, the basic charges for coverage are fixed, but there are more than enough discounts available to manipulate the cost of the policy. There are discounts for multi-car, annual mileage, anti-theft, airbag/seatbelt, and even public transit commuter discounts. In addition, there are safe driver discounts that the companies can set at their discretion. I even get a 10% “business account” discount. I think it has to do with being part of a group policy, but its not a surcharge, so I’m not going to question it. There is even a 25% discount for drivers over 65 (I sense some questionable logic, but I won’t go there.) These are only the discounts that I am aware of, there may be more. These only appeared when I asked one company to see if they could give me a better rate than my old company. They quickly found me a better rate, but are there more discounts available? To further complicate the rate calculation, these discounts only apply to specific, different, coverage sections within the policy. And, all of these discounts are stated as a percent discount on the basic premium. The calculation of the basic premiums is another story, altogether. Given a family of multiple cars and multiple drivers, the range of possible policy pricing is almost unlimited. With all multi-car policies, the driver with the worst driving record is considered the primary driver of the most expensive car, resulting in maximum policy costs. You can exclude a specific driver from a specific car to save money, but that causes obvious inconveniences. It also results in the strange effect that your young son or daughter with a perfect driving record can’t drive your 911, but any of their friends can (could, if you let them). Add to all of this the fact that your agent has considerable latitude in applying the rules. In my case, our agent was perfectly OK with my insuring my daughter’s car on our group policy and declaring the garage location as either Medfield or Somerville. (This was somewhat unique, since the car is registered in my name, Somerville is reasonable close to Medfield and we use all of our cars somewhat interchangeably.) The resulting policy rates were dramatically different. Declaring the car garaged in Somerville raised the cost of the policy on her older BMW by large factor. At the same time, since my daughter was no longer the principal driver, the cost for insuring her mother’s newer BMW went down by a large factor. The result was, however, that we could have saved a considerable amount on the combined policies by leaving the car listed as being garaged in Medfield. I won’t even get into what the policy cost would have been if we had registered the car in my daughter’s name. Add to all of this the ability to selectively “self-insure” the older, less expensive cars, select deductible limits, and now the ability to buy “agreed value” and track coverage insurance (do I keep my existing collision and comprehensive, as well?), and I am ready to hand this over to an expert. Any takers? I’m sure it wouldn’t require any more than a couple of years of training and probably no more than 3-4 months annually to keep up with the rules. On the other hand, taxes might be easier. 

After commiserating with several other club members about trying to get the best price for the right coverage, we all came to one conclusion. The only way to get the best price is to take your situation to several agents and get their ideas for your coverage. Each one you visit will unearth new opportunities. After that, stop and think about the time that the coverage matters the most – when you need to file a claim. At that time, it won’t really matter what the policy was costing you. What you need then is a company or agent that will work with you to restore your car to pre-collision condition. You want an agent that will let you select the best body shop. One that will work with the body shop after the initial appraisal misses some hidden damage. One that understands the difference between after market and OEM replacement parts. In short, you want to have an insurance company that your friends (and don’t forget to ask your favorite body shop) have given glowing recommendations. While it seems that low cost and glowing recommendations may be difficult to find together, don’t forget that the insurance industry is regulated in Massachusetts. All of the discounts and policy combinations that one company can offer you are available to all the other companies in the state. Just take your “model policy” to your insurance company of choice and see if they will write a similar policy. Chances are, they will match the policy, or come very close. 

If all of this has been confusing enough, wait until next month. Next month I will attempt explain the Massachusetts “Safe Driver Insurance Plan” (SDIP), and what it takes to go from a “Step 9” to a “Step 15.” At the same time, you will find out exactly what that next speeding ticket is REALLY going to cost you.