Last year I decided to look for auto insurance that was cheaper then what I was paying with GEICO. I called AIG and the agent asked me what $ amount I was covered for on my GEICO insurance. I didn’t know off hand and he said that he couldn’t give me a quote without the info. I asked him what the standard amount was. He gave me an amount and I said go with that. The quote he gave me was about $700 a year less then GEICO. I said wow and decided to switch insurers. The next day I found out the actual coverage that I had from GEICO was less then the amount the AIG anent used in his quote (I think by a factor of 10). I was happy because I thought that when I told him to lower my new insurance coverage to match that from GEICO that I might even be paying less then he quoted me the day before. No so. For some strange reason that he could not explain to me (he said something along the lines of “just one of the strange ways insurance works”) my quote actually got higher! It was still something like $400 less a year then my old insurance, so I didn’t mind too much, but still….
My question is what happened and why? How can the amount of coverage from my old insurance being less then presumed have a negative effect on a quote for my new insurance?
As a side note I asked him that if I hadn’t told him the correct amount would there be any way for AIG to find out and he said no. In this case I guess honesty does not pay.
