It seems that every time you turn on the TV, there’s a new car insurance company claiming that people who switch to their service save an average of X dollars, X usually being in the 200-300+ range. It seems that I’ve seen a similar commercial for just about every major car insurance provider.
Now, logically, it seems that if there are this many commercials advertising that an average driver saves this much with their insurance, certainly there must be a significant number of car insurance companies that are much more expensive to balance that average out… So what/where are they? Hopefully I’m making sense and decently wording this question.
You’re making sense.
For a given consumer, different companies will charge different premiums based on their proprietary system for projection the risk that consumer presents.
State Farm might have slight concerns over my particular combination of auto-liability-related traits, while Progressive’s algorithm has serious concerns about my traits.
You, with a different record, age and vehicle mix, might not worry Progressive at all, but worry the hell out of State Farm.
So… if you’re with State Farm, check out Progressive and see lower rates, you’ll be inclined to switch.
OTOH, if Progressive COULDN’T save you money or would cost more, you won’t switch over, and thus you aren’t going to show up in Progressive’s stats they quote in advertising.
I think Mr. Slant’s response is spot on, and probably catches most of the cases - and as he said since in general people will only switch if it saves them money there is definitely bias in a statistic such as “people who switched to us saved an average of …”
Approaching your question in a different way, I actually think there are companies that are in general more expensive. I say this based on seeing the TV commercials for “The General” and “Safe Auto”, which appear to be targeting people with marginal driving records, or people who aren’t attracted to them because of their competitive pricing, but because they actually offer them the legally mandated insurance at all.
There are, in fact, cheaper and more expensive insurance carriers.
You pay a small premium for customer service, and I generally find that the companies with the highest JD Power ratings are, coincidentally, usually the ones that are a few dollars a month more than the ones with bad ratings.
I’m not talking 50% difference here, though, I’m talking maybe $50 per year on a policy that costs $1100 per year.
I seem to notice the same thing with homeowner’s coverage, FWIW.
All you need is to have a household with three teenage drivers in it and you’ll see dramatically different rates from different companies for the same level of insurance.