Detroit Auto Insurance Study

[nain rouge]

Jt1, if he's paying for full coverage, it's VERY believable. Most of us can only get affordable car insurance in Metro Detroit if we settle for the most basic no-fault insurance legal. If you're part of the lucky minority, you'll refuse to believe it. Once you make one claim in Metro Detroit, you're done for. They'll charge to the moon for the rest of your life unless you have a credit score that's through the roof.

I'm a guy that pays all of his bills, but I keep my expenses to a minimum and like to pay up front, so my credit score is just solid, not great. I don't feel like playing around with credit cards in the off chance it'll help my insurance rates.

When it comes to big services, America always devolves into oligopolies and monopolies. Might as well socialize a lot of this stuff because the free market fails us time and time again.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by SyGolden48236The automotive coverage is for 6 months, not per annum. I did mis-speak in my initial post, it was late in the evening. The annual cost is the residential policy.The deductible on the residence is $1,000. A claim has never been filed against the residential policy. I shopped multiple vendors for the policy and found that the current policy provides the proper coverage for the lowest available cost. One of my employees is also a licensed insurance agent and she reviewed my policy and found the cost to be in line with the coverage. She also mentioned the "Detroit effect".

Living in Wayne County, and adjacent to Detroit does indeed have a detrimental effect on insurance rates. I can only imagine what it would cost if I had to live in that city.


But my family is very happy in our current locale so I have to suck it up and pay the price.

If you're paying $8400 per year for five cars there are details you aren't sharing. How old are your kids [[under 20?) are one or two of the cars massively expensive. $1700 per car per year makes no sense. That is Detroit rates and I assure you that people in GP are not paying GP rates.

My bs meter is just ringing out like mad on this one or there are very important details missing.

+1 on BI's post, Sy's deductable on his HO is WAY too low. 5k minimum in the GPs. Anything less than that an it's not worth making the claim as the premium will double. Up that deductible to 5k and I bet that premium drops by a third.

On the Auto, we moved this summer within the pointes and explored options. All of our stuff is with one company. Two cars, two adult drivers, one fenderbender 3 yrs ago, "premium" cars but not new [[5 & 4 yrs old), broad form, 1k deductible, and it's about 2k every 6 months. Allegedly that is after $3500 in "discounts" for multi policy and anti lock breaks and anti theft..etc. [[yes, we could have gotten slightly cheaper auto elsewhere, but then the HO and others were way more) Insuring them up at the cottage, premium is less than half.

But of course it would a lot more here, I mean the probability of getting into an accident or having some sort of incident must be several times greater as you're just around way more people and drivers.

[Wesley Mouch]

There are states that do ban the use of credit scores in setting insurance rates - but it is legal in Michigan. Of course, if enough people complained/referendum - it could be outlawed too - but the prevailing thinking is people with good credit pay their bills on time, tend to have security alarms etc and thus file less claims for frivolous things - meaning home/auto insurance should be lower for such.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/35103647/n.../#.VG4_ufnF9XF

The question that I think has to be asked about 'zip codes' or 'credit scores' isn't whether there is a correlation. Of course there is. The question is whether the correlation is sufficiently strong, and how many 'outliers' there are.

It may be the credit score is a great general indicator, but for maybe 10% of people its just wrong. That's why I believe credit score is a bad indicator. It is 'unequal'. And we all know equality is the only thing that matters in everything.

[SyGolden48236]

If you're paying $8400 per year for five cars there are details you aren't sharing. How old are your kids [[under 20?) are one or two of the cars massively expensive. $1700 per car per year makes no sense. That is Detroit rates and I assure you that people in GP are not paying GP rates.

My bs meter is just ringing out like mad on this one or there are very important details missing.

Your "bs meter" is of no consequence to anyone. But I will indulge you a few details. My children are both in their early 20s. Whether the vehicles are "massively expensive," as you put it, is not something I will discuss with strangers on an internet forum. All I'll say is that they are newer cars.

To satisfy curiosity I made inquiry as to what the same coverage would be based on using my home up north as the garaging address and it was approximately half the cost of using my main address. As I said earlier, I will not engage in insurance fraud so I do the right thing and insure with my local address.

[trstar]

Are insurance premiums higher in Detroit? Yes.

Are they inhibiting growth? Let's be real.

My SUV full coverage in Royal Oak for six months was $600. In Detroit, it's $1,000. I'm hardly going to make a quality of life decision [[i.e. Detroit vs. Royal Oak) off a $400 insurance bill.

Yes, yes you will, and yes you do. That $400 stab is real and very painful for residents, and you get nothing for it. Nothing.

[softailrider]

Let's see, republican governor, republican house and senate and a republican Supreme Court that is bought and paid for by the insurance companies. Michigan is a totally pro insurance company state.
Don't like it? Quit electing republicans for openers.

[Wesley Mouch]

Let's see, republican governor, republican house and senate and a republican Supreme Court that is bought and paid for by the insurance companies. Michigan is a totally pro insurance company state.
Don't like it? Quit electing republicans for openers.

I love politics, but it has little to do with this.

Jennifer Granholm [[D), Coleman [[D), KK [[D), Bing [[D), Dingell [[D), Conyers [[D)... and during those years there was ZERO progress on insurance.

You can choose to hate Republicans and blame them for your bad breath, but it just a political blame game, IMO. They could have made this an important agenda item. They never have and never did. Only Duggan [[D) is even talking about this issue. No other Democrats and Republican are talking about this. There's no partisan blame to toss at [[R). But did it make you feel better to blame them for the failings of every elected official for the last 40 years?

[softailrider]

I love politics, but it has little to do with this.

Jennifer Granholm [[D), Coleman [[D), KK [[D), Bing [[D), Dingell [[D), Conyers [[D)... and during those years there was ZERO progress on insurance.

You can choose to hate Republicans and blame them for your bad breath, but it just a political blame game, IMO. They could have made this an important agenda item. They never have and never did. Only Duggan [[D) is even talking about this issue. No other Democrats and Republican are talking about this. There's no partisan blame to toss at [[R). But did it make you feel better to blame them for the failings of every elected official for the last 40 years?

You are wrong. 12 percent bad faith penalty interest above policy limits against insurance companies was passed during the Granholm administration. We've never had that before and it was a huge move forward. I wouldn't call that zero progress on insurance - would you?

[Wesley Mouch]

You are wrong. 12 percent bad faith penalty interest above policy limits against insurance companies was passed during the Granholm administration. We've never had that before and it was a huge move forward. I wouldn't call that zero progress on insurance - would you?

No. Its progress on insurance -- just not progress on Detroit insurance rates.

[rjlj]

The city couldn't figure out how to run a golf course, cobo, belle isle, or make itself business friendly. You are naive to think it can run an insurance company. If the study is positive, I predict a huge failure.

Good to see Duggan is still pushing for this. I was worried that it was going to get lost in the shuffle with everything going on. I hope this ends up being a viable insurance option.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...-car-insurance

[ABetterDetroit]

I get more short tempered when I can't sleep. Am I the only one watching the state of the state? He said that michigans no fault law was crap and needed to be changed because people trying to get insurance in certain locals were getting screwed... Did any of those people support him in getting the laws changed? Prolly the last bipartisan Governor will ever see and when he reaches across the isle he is ignored.

[softailrider]

No. Its progress on insurance -- just not progress on Detroit insurance rates.

You plainly stated in post number 32 there was zero progress on insurance in the State of Michigan during Granholm's adminstration. I pointed out to you that you were very much wrong. I should know, I've been in the industry for over 35 years. I was one of the persons that worked and contributed my own money to help get that bad faith penalty interest reform passed. If the governor had been republican during that time frame it wouldn't have happened.

I'm no Granholm fan and never really was but don't say politics has very little to do with insurance or insurance rates in Michigan.

[bailey]

Your "bs meter" is of no consequence to anyone. But I will indulge you a few details. My children are both in their early 20s. Whether the vehicles are "massively expensive," as you put it, is not something I will discuss with strangers on an internet forum. All I'll say is that they are newer cars.

To satisfy curiosity I made inquiry as to what the same coverage would be based on using my home up north as the garaging address and it was approximately half the cost of using my main address. As I said earlier, I will not engage in insurance fraud so I do the right thing and insure with my local address.

Details aside, you really should up that HO deductible to at least 5k. you'll save a ton.

[Wesley Mouch]

You plainly stated in post number 32 there was zero progress on insurance in the State of Michigan during Granholm's adminstration. I pointed out to you that you were very much wrong. I should know, I've been in the industry for over 35 years. I was one of the persons that worked and contributed my own money to help get that bad faith penalty interest reform passed. If the governor had been republican during that time frame it wouldn't have happened.

I'm no Granholm fan and never really was but don't say politics has very little to do with insurance or insurance rates in Michigan.

Thanks for working on this, and for the clarification.

I did not intend to infer than Granholm did nothing on insurance, but that she [[and nobody else) has ever taken up the charge to reform Detroit insurance in the way Duggan has. I wanted to celebrate that and disassociate it from the strong political statement that the Republicans are the problem. They may not be helping. But I still don't see that the Democrats have done anything on this even when they had the opportunity.