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Xavi said:
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Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m leaning heavily towards switching to Progressive based on what I’ve heard so far.
I briefly worked for GEICO and they’re well known for having a high turnover of customers. They slowly increase rates each renewal hoping you won’t leave, but I bet if you pretended to be a new customer asking for the same coverage, their quote will be lower than what you’re paying them now. They love to give super low rates for new customers hoping you’ll stay. I honestly think most insurance companies are like that, so it’s good to switch around every couple years at least. It also won’t hurt to call GEICO and tell them your quote from Progressive and see if they’ll match it. Sometimes they will.
@Finley
Got it! Thank you for sharing your insider knowledge. For the time, I have been with Geico, they have raised 2-3% every six months, but I had an old car, so the increases weren’t noticeable, so I just stayed with them. But these days, their increases become a bit too much (again, I get that there’s higher-than-normal inflation).
I am going to take your advice and shop around every 1-2 years from now. Such a tiring chore for us to be doing that. If I were a major insurer, I’d rather keep my customers who are safe drivers who drive very few miles instead of increasing their premiums by noticeable percentages.
@Val
Insurance companies don’t “price match”. This ain’t Walmart. I’m stunned someone who supposedly worked in the industry suggested that. You can pretend you’re a new customer like that person suggested to get the new costumer rate many companies offer, but you won’t get it because they’ll very quickly realize you’re actually NOT a new customer like you claimed to be. So suggesting doing that is just dumb. You can ask geico if there’s any discounts or more favorable policy tiers that you’re now eligible for that you weren’t eligible for before, but that’s about all that can be done about your rates. The CSR can’t just change your rate to match Progressive’s without doing something along those lines. Rates are submitted to the state months in advance and must be approved by the state DOI before they can be implemented. A CSR can’t change that.
By the way, good coverages you picked. You can also call up an independent broker to run quotes with companies you can’t access in your own. Who knows, you might find an even better rate.
@Harlem
Thank you for sharing what-seems-like-an insider take on how insurance companies decide on the rates.
It’s interesting to know that the rates are submitted to state months in advance. Does that apply to all 50 states? How frequent (e.g., every 4 months) do insurers have to submit rates to the states? Just curious not that it is going to help me get better rates. 
@Val
Yes, all 50 states. They request rate changes when they feel they need to change rates. That can vary. My company once was trying to take a rate decrease for certain demographic (believe it or not) and if I recall it took about 2 months to get that approved.
@Harlem
Wow… I didn’t know the insurers need state government approval to change rates. What happens when the rates don’t get approved? I guess the insurer would just leave the state. It is weird that request to reduce rate, which is a no brainer, takes 2 months to be approved. I guess this is an example of government inefficiency.
@Val
Yes, insurance is very heavily regulated. They may pull out of the state or they may just stop issuing new policies in that state until they are in a better financial position to do so or until they can get approval for the rate increase they feel they need. People assume insurance companies take in a HUGE amount more in premiums than they payout in claims. That’s not true. Most operate on only 1%-3% profit margin. In fact many times the industry as a whole pays out more in claims that they take in in premiums. Allstate alone lost 1.4 B (yes, billion) in 2022. They make their money in investing the premiums collected, not from the premiums themselves.
@Harlem
Thanks for sharing more insights! I read about floats and how insurance companies rely on it to make up for the unexpected loss, etc. It’s always interesting to read and learn about another world that I am not familiar with.