It is a good habit to check your insurance rates once per year. Those of you who have been following me since I began blogging know that I do that every August or September. Why that time of year? I try to split my “major” finance duties up. I re-balance my retirement accounts in January, do my taxes in February, look over health and life insurance in November, and check my home/auto insurance in September.
Every year I am able to find or negotiate a lower price. Two years ago was a big one for us (saving us more than $500/year)! Using coupons saves you money, but you need to keep up with the big things too! Insurance is one of the big things.
Head on over to this site to compare all the quotes at once (Geico, Farmers, AARP, and more). I always use one of these sites first then you can always let your current company know how much you can save by switching. Sometimes they will match the quote and sometimes they cannot. If they cannot then switch. If you are a Costco customer make sure you stop in and get a quote from Ameriprise. You will get a Costco discount if you use them.
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Thanks for the info. I was looking into changing insurance. I've never comparisoned it before, so it should be exciting.
I always use a comparison site to start. It is a lot easier than calling multiple companies. Plus, you can quickly see if you are going to save money before you invest a ton of time into it.
I switched to AARP insurance recently and saved more than $300 on the exact same coverage. Yes, it definitely pays to shop around!
It always pays to shop around!