Progressive Ins. -- New Twist

[bikerscape]

Hi folks,

 

I just have to share my experience with you all. I'm just a little po'd. I posted it on the Goldwing site too.

 

I just bought a 2008 Airbag Titanium. I called Progressive at the dealer to have them swap the 2005 RSTD with the GW. They said that would be $150.00 difference. After that I thought my policy is 1/2 up and that is the balance to the renewal period. Well yesterday I got this mail that said my new rate would be in excess of $1100 for my 08 Concours and this 08 Goldwing. Dang, that just didn't seem right. Read a little further and it states that my rate is high due to 4 credit strokes and that my wife had gotten credit when she was

 

So, I saved money for my daughter to buy her a car in her 12th grade year. I did that October 1st. Fully loaded Nissan and ended up paying cash -- after I checked what the lowest rate was from both the Nissan dealer and my credit union ... ~ 5.5%. About a week later my wife gets the new car bug and wants to trade off her 20 month old 06 Honda Civic. We do that and again check rates at the dealer and the credit union -- since the Fed had made some adjustments recently wondered if it had any impact, plus the dealer was really close to the credit union rate and wanted to edge a little more out of the credit union. On her car we had trade equity plus threw another 10K cash on the purchase.

 

Now, I had a trade for the GW and paid the difference in cash as well. Very fortunate to be able to do so, but not without a lot of planning and time.

 

So, I shopped for rates, have stellar credit, had my credit hard stoked 4 or more times in the last 24 months, ended up paying cash for most things and somehow my wife establishing credit at an early age is a bad thing.

 

In escalating the issue I talked with the big dogs and they said more or less that their analysis shows that people with those characteristics (4 strokes and credit at a "young" age) file more claims than others...and I just admitted to the behavior. Go figure.

 

Looks like the housing slump and the lack of trust in credit scores has moved into the creativity realm. I'm thinking class action lawsuit against scums like this. If you are a lawyer or know a good one -- talk to them. I'm sure there is some money to be made with this crap.

[cmiles3]

Insurance companies are scammin' again. But they're right, a little. People in hock up to their ears scam them more often. But credit scores are black magic; they change even when you don't do anything. You score better when you carry a balance than when you pay it off.

[juggler]

I believe in MN we finally got the credit check for insurance banned. There is no legal reason why an insurance company needs to know your credit or can hold a 30 year old entry (and a positive entry at that) on your credit record against you.

[Dexx]

I can't remember the name of the form ( and I could be wrong) but you have to prove financial stability in NYS just to register a vehicle. I don't think they really look at it to closely, because if I'm considered financially stable, I'd hate to know what life is like for considered financially unstable.

 

Wait.....I found it. It's called Article 6 (Motor Vehicle Financial Security), or the FS-20. NY DMV requires it, but since you have to have proof of insurance to register a vehicle, the insurance company's actually run the check. That's my understanding of it anyway. I'm always willing to be corrected.

[ediddy]

I am an insurance agent in Georgia and can only speak for Georgia but credit scoring is similar in all states. It is not new and first started here in 1998. I was against it and most agents were against it but I talked to our Insurance Commissioner in person and he said the complaints his office were receiving were coming from the agents and not consumers. Insurance Commissioners don't listen to the agents as much as they do from consumers. I have changed my position and now believe credit scoring has been better. The insurance companies have the statistics to show that each time the credit score drops claims go up. I can tell you from experience that some people just seem to find a way to have a claim. Since credit scoring most people are paying a lower rate. Before scoring everyone paid the same rate. Now some companies have as many as 100 different tiers of rates. An automobile premium could be as high as 1500.00 per year with the worst score to as low as 600.00 per year for the best score. Many states and consumer groups have challenged credit scoring but it has been upheld in every court case. All companies that use scoring send you a generic letter that states you didn't get the very best rate if you didn't get in the top tier. There is no way that your wife getting credit at or before age 18 had anything to do with your score. I recently got a quote on my motorcycle from GEICO. I wouldn't buy from them if they were the last company of earth but I wanted to see their rate. I got a letter from them a few days later telling me I didn't get their best rate because of my score. They were $700.00 per year and I am paying $402.00 per year now. You need to find a good agent and call and get other rates because the rates will vary. For example I had someone in last week that insured a 89 Honda 1100 and a 02 Goldwing. Here are how the rates stacked up: Foremost $503.00, Dairyland $492.00, Progressive $453.00, American Reliable $441.00, AIG $397.00, American Modern $340.00 and Victoria $245.00. Another more extreme example was a guy with a harley, his wife had a harley and his 18 year old son had a harley. The rate through harley davidson's insurance agency was $2,400 per year. I wrote the coverage with American Modern for $1700.00 per year but the highest quote was $6,600.00 per year. So as you can see the rates do vary by company. Credit scoring is here to stay and even though you didn't get the company's best rate it was still probably better than the rate if there wasn't credit scoring.

[Kidh2]

Y'all are killing me with these rate numbers. I have been insured on my 02 midnight through Progressive since I bought the bike and actually got the best rate with them paying $290 a year...Guess I'm lucky

 

Homeowners is a killer though. It has more than tripled for most everyone in this area since the storm and now my monthly escrow for insurance exceeds my P&I mortgage payment.

[venturejockey]

What is nuts to me is that if you pay all of your debts off your credit rating goes down.

[SaltyDawg]

So what the insurance companies are saying is that "Your credit NOT your driving record" drives how much you pay? That makes no sense.

 

Anyway I wouldn't deal with progressive if they offered me full coverage for $1.00 a year. Everyone I talked to told me how good progressive was and I should check them out. Well I did and went online to get a "QUOTE" and while I was filling out the forms online I couldn't remember what the coverages required by the Base I work on. So I "STOPPED" the process, intending to get the needed information and then finish.

 

Well 3 weeks later I get a letter from the NCDMV stating that Progressive has informed them that I "canceled" my insurance with them and no longer had any insurance on my vehicles.

 

So I had to jump through hoops to get the needed information and prove that I still had insurance through another company. One which I have been with for 25 years.

 

So I wouldn't advise anybody to go with Progressive.

[muffinman]

You should see the insurance guys face when he finds out I am 44 and have never had credit.No credit is worse than bad credit.Go figure.

I wont tell ya what I pay for insurance but I will tell you full coverage on the 83 and liability on the 84 and liability on 2 mustangs 97 and 99 and 1 f150 I can do a couple of side jobs and pay the yearly rate.For all of them with a little left over.

No gas for all of these is a full time job :rotf::rotf:

Jeff

[Guest KitCarson]

I carry insurance for everything with State Farm. I think if I remember right it was like $387.00 for insurance for my Bike per year. I like to have insurance locally, close by, just in case something does happen. You can shop around locally and find good insurance that will normally match or even beat Progressive. I did call Progressive about Crickett and they wanted almost twice this amount.

I used to live in Oregon, long ago and I had a brand new Honda 750(that was a hot bike-too hot) I only had had it for about two months, went to the grocery store for milk and this lady just simply ran over it while I was in the store!! I mean she flattened it.....had her front end all stuck on top of the bike!! I had progressive at that time.....yes I have no complaints, they took care of me, but took some time, took like six weeks to get it done. First they had to send an adjuster to see it......take photos,,report back to the main company, this and that........took the adjuster like ten days just to be in the area(I think it is better now) Anyway that is why I like to deal local and close. If something does happen all it takes is a phone call, and you get things done quickly. Kit

[Guest hank]

Under $350 year for the RSTD - State Farm.

[ediddy]

Hey Saltydawg,

 

Thats why you need a good agent to deal with rather than trying to do things on line. That would never had happened with an agent. Just a quote wouldn't trigger something going to the state. A policy number had to be issued.

[cmiles3]

I've looked at the online quotes that Progressive & other sites provide. They don't come close to what my agent finds; usually they don't come within the best 5 quotes she'll uncover. I have Progressive on my bikes right now, but not at the quote I got online; she got me a better deal. The online process isn't very friendly, for some reason. And the details you need to complete the application take me a lot of time to dig up and type in. Don't get me started about NetQuote, either.

 

The credit reporting industry doesn't really care if you're going to be a good insurance risk; they want to know if you'll make money for the loan industry. So, no credit is a poor credit risk, as is bad credit, paying off your debts, no debts, etc. The best credit score means you have "Sucker" tattooed on your forehead; you have a track record of making money for the lenders.

[yamahamer]

$300.00 PER YEAR FOR 2006 RSV MIDNIGHT FULL AND 1981 GOLDWING LIABILATY WITH DAIRYLAND GUESS IM LUCKY TOO:cool10:

[Guest KitCarson]

$300.00 PER YEAR FOR 2006 RSV MIDNIGHT FULL AND 1981 GOLDWING LIABILATY WITH DAIRYLAND GUESS IM LUCKY TOO:cool10:

:stickinouttounge:

[1BigDog]

I used Progressive when I first bought my RSV, within 3 years my rates went up almost 200%. I went with Geico and my rates dropped drastically. This last year I even had it decrease even more for the same coverage. I use Allstate for all my vehicles and home. My agent called me recently to push bike insurance. The price for the year was actually less than Geico! So, looks like I'll be an Allstate baby come Janurary..

[Guest Ken8143]

This insurance stuff is really wacky. I went through an agent and got more coverage for less money with Progressive compared to American Modern. Go figure.

 

AND for the life of me I simply can not figure this out - why should your credit rating be bad if you pay off your credit card and pay off your home and pay off your credit card and work hard to be frugal and responsible with your finances? Isn't that a good thing? Why be punished for that. Insead if you carry a heavy debt load and pay lots of iterest and credit card fees this makes you a better credit risk? go figure that one out.

[juggler]

I used Progressive when I first bought my RSV, within 3 years my rates went up almost 200%. I went with Geico and my rates dropped drastically. This last year I even had it decrease even more for the same coverage. I use Allstate for all my vehicles and home. My agent called me recently to push bike insurance. The price for the year was actually less than Geico! So, looks like I'll be an Allstate baby come Janurary..

 

I've been using Progressive to insure our RSV and the rates have been dropping for me. Next year I am going to increase the PIP to the maximum so that will cause a rate increase but I already priced that out and the increase is small.

[1BigDog]

I've been using Progressive to insure our RSV and the rates have been dropping for me. Next year I am going to increase the PIP to the maximum so that will cause a rate increase but I already priced that out and the increase is small.

 

There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason why rates fluctuate so much in different parts of the country. I mean, several years ago Allstate, whom ive used for over 20 years, wanted 1000.00 for 6 months coverage. My agent explained on the side that Allstate really didnt want to cover bikes but if someone wanted to pay that price..well, you get the picture. Now I guess bikes are a big thing now and theyre jumping on the bandwagon. And the prices she quoted me were excellent compared to Geico and Progressive. Go figure......

[ediddy]

Hey Ken8143,

 

Having a heavy debt load decreases your credit score. When insurance companies first started using credit scoring I had a hard time figuring how it worked. I had people that were successful and living in $300,000 and up homes that couldn't get a good enough score to qualify for coverage. I would then quote the insurance in the wife's name, she didn't have any credit, and they would qualify for the insurance company's best rate. It doesn't matter if you pay all your bills 30 days before they come due; if you have a lot of debt it knocks your score. Some insurance companies do the scoring on the husband and wife and average the score and some companies run the score on the first person listed as the insured. If you apply for credit and are approved and open the account and then change your mind and close the account it lowers your score so you are better off to keep the account open. If you access more than two thirds of your credit limit it lowers your score. If you have a credit card lets say with a $10,000 credit limit and you aren't using it your score will go up. If you closed the account your score would go down. Another crazy thing about credit scoring is that all insurance companies don't use the same scoring model. I was quoting my homeowner coverage with Hartford Insurance company and I didn't get in their best preferred tier. I quoted with Safeco Insurance Company and I got in their top preferred tier. Some insurance companies use a company called the Fair Issacs company for scoring and some companies such as State Farm have developed their own scoring model. The insurance companies keep the way they score hush, hush and won't let anyone see it. At first, in Georgia, the companies wouldn't even let the insurance commissioner look at their scoring model. When the commissioner wouldn't approve their policies that used scoring the companies finally made the scoring model available to the commissioner. Your credit score can change daily.

[ediddy]

Hey ruffrider99,

 

When GEICO first entered the motorcycle market that were buying the business with ridiculously low rates that they couldn't live with for long. The were insuring $50,000 custom choppers with liability and comprehensive and collision for $250.00 per year. In some states they still are. There is no way you can insure these customs bikes for that rate. They are going to get killed. You can drop one of those bikes at a traffic light and do three or four thousand dollars of damage. You can't repair the chrome parts you have to replace them. You can tear a seat and cause eight or nine hundred dollars in damage. And if one gets stolen, and they do a lot, and you pay out $50,000 it takes a lot of premium at $250.00 per year to make up for that loss. A friend of mine ran into the back of a car on his chopper and GEICO paid over $10,000 to repair the bike. The custom bike dealers know about the $250.00 per year rates with GEICO now and are getting their customers to call GEICO for insurance before they leave he dealership. I hope GEICO insures every custom bike in the U.S. because sooner or later they will have to raise their rates out of the roof to pay for the claims. Who knows, they might even go broke like they did several years ago. State Farm is doing the same thing with "crotch rockets." They will insure a Hyabusa with full coverage for 3 or 4 hundred dollars per year. This is going to ruin their rates for motorcycles. Besides the fact that most crotch rocket riders wipe out going 150 miles per hour you can drop one of those bikes making a slow turn and total the bike. Most all of the major companies wouldn't even talk to you about insuring a motorcycle a few years ago. Now they see how many motorcycles are being sold in the U.S. and that riders arent' only Hells Angles anymore but all classes of people so they are jumping into the marketplace. The more companies decide to insure bikes the better it is for us as the competition will keep the rates down.