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I'm a happy lifelong USAA member, ever since I got my learners permit in 1978. Sometimes their homeowners rates can be edged out, but I've never had anyone come close on the car. The rates can be beat, but show them your current policy with coverages, deductibles, exclusions, etc. I even called Geico once, their rates was $10-15 higher per 6 months. And USAA had no problem with my single self having two cars.
I never said that USAA wouldn't insure a single driver with multiple cars. They will. But in my experience, their rates in that situation have been
a lot higher than what other quality insurers have quoted. When I priced insurance while I was in that situation, USAA was only a few dollars a month less than Erie, Amica, or Farmers. But with only one car, USAA's premium is roughly half of those other companies' quotes. And if the policy is configured so one car has only liability insurance, the other quality companies can actually beat USAA on premiums.
But that's only in my own experience, and only here where I live. I've never been able to make sense of the different actuarial approaches used by different insurers in evaluating any given driver and situation. One would think that the data sets are sufficiently established that they'd all come to pretty much the same conclusions based on that data. But apparently one would be wrong. Different companies seem to draw very different conclusions from the same data. Factor in regional differences within the same company and it's even more befuddling.
I have never understood the scam of a "no fault " state law including uninsured motorist coverage...
At face value.. you buy a policy in a "no Fault" state, you get hit by a uninsured illegal alien... Your " no fault" pays for your damage and losses...
If the other guy is uninsured... he is siht out of luck.....
..
What is the need to pay for the dead beat..
I have mixed feelings about no-fault. In theory it's supposed to eliminate the lawsuits for most, but not all injury claims (there is a "qualitative threshold" in New York that does allow lawsuits for some injuries) and speed payments for those claims. The problem is that it also seems to increase base premiums overall, especially for drivers with clean driving records.
But then again, because it's mandatory here, there's no good basis for comparison. Maybe the base rates would be even higher if we didn't have no-fault because of the added investigative and litigation costs. Last I heard, there was no shortage of lawyers in New York; and where there are lawyers, there are lawsuits. So it's hard to say.
As for "Uninsured and Under-Insured Motorist" coverage, my understanding is that a basic version is mandated by the state, but that there is another more generous version that is optional. I take the optional one which in my case has limits of $500,000 per person / $1,000,000 per accident. It costs something like $40.00 for six months, but it's actually less than that because the mandatory version that it replaces would cost something like $15.00 or so.
My reason for taking the optional rider is that a friend of mine who is a deputy sheriff told me that we have a
huge problem with kids (and the occasional adult) driving uninsured (and usually unregistered) ATVs, motorbikes, go-karts, farm vehicles outside their legal uses, and so forth, as well as "junior drivers" operating outside their legal restrictions (usually time of day limitations), in my county. He also told me that UI coverage comes into play somehow if the other driver is DUI, although I forget exactly how that works.
Whatever the case, for the small additional cost, the enhanced rider seems worth it.
Rich
