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Our Lifestyle and Insurance
Since I am buying a new coach, one of the items that had to be addressed was insurance. I was shocked at how disproportionately high the quotes were and yesterday I got a letter from an insurance company that explained why.
I have investigated further and I have reason to believe a lot of Prevost owners are overcharged as a result of how insurance companies skew the credit report data to create ratios which are used in determining what your quoted premiums will be.
By no means is this complete, but the two examples I turned up could apply to many owners and those owners unbeknown to them are being overcharged, possibly by as much as $2800 on the high end. The insurance companies create a ratio of your mortgage payments to your monthly debt obligations. In my case the insurance company wants that value to fall between 6% and 21%.on the high end. But if I have no mortgage and a monthly credit card average of $1000 the percentage is infinity so I am off the charts and viewed as a credit risk. If you have low mortgage payments or none at all, any other monthly obligations such as car payments, credit card payments, etc. put you in the credit risk category.
A second credit test is if I applied for a credit card in the last three years. Yup. We had one credit card for years which we paid off monthly or even more frequently, and decided to add another brand of credit card in case something got screwed up with the first one. That also conspired against us in getting an insurance quote. Just applying for a credit card is the action that triggers the score, so if you take advantage of discounts by signing up for a store credit card, even if you cancel it as soon as it is issued, you have negatively impacted your insurance premiums.
The bottom line is I am now dealing with the insurance companies, the credit reporting agency and the TN State Commissioner of Commerce and Insurance. As more information develops I will post it, but in the meantime be aware you may unknowingly have had your financial data skewed by the insurance company resulting in higher than necessary insurance premiums. In some cases the savings can be nearly the equivalent of a year’s worth of fuel purchases.
Nothing worse than an old(er) fart with time on his hands to make the lives of various corporate weenies and government types miserable.
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13 Replies
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I think insurance companies have a big red flag that pops up on their quote screen when the make is entered as Prevost that says, this guy is loaded!
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I have been thinking about insurance the past couple of weeks. I re-did our homeowners and cars and toys last year with American Family and saved a bunch over what Liberty Mutual had priced the renewal for. I had been with Liberty for over 10 years and never had a claim, but the rates kept going up.
Last years renewal went up a bunch so I started shopping. I was very surprised how much less I wound up paying. Then after I made the switch, I got a call from my old agent telling me how much less he could now get my coverage for. I told him that even if he was cheaper I was not going to shaft AmFam and switch back early. I think all insurance companies are suspect. My current agent said my credit rating and history were great and that it helped my rates.
My bus insurance has not changed in 3 cycles with Explorer, but it is about $4500 a year. I think this is the year that I have to change my guaranteed value for the policy, so I will have to do some checking on that before October. I am sure that the value has changed since we bought it.
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My cost are about 4600 per year, with Gilbert RV Ins in orlando, Don’t have mortgages or any payments and this seems high, and if you drop coverage down say one or two hundred thousand it does not make but a few dollars different in the premium. Sounds like you are on to something Jon go get em!
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My initial reaction was to poll owners on this site to see if we could gather data to measure how we stack up against others, but I quickly realized there are so many items that skew the quotes such as state of domicile, deductibles, limits, driving record, credit history, etc. that I am just going to see what falls out as I stir the pot. I doubt if gathering information is going to be fast or easy, but then again I am stubborn.
I have already spoken to an insurance specialist about putting on a seminar at our planned 2013 PC rally. If there are any insurance experts amongst us on PC would you have an interest in adding to this thread?
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Our insurance went up $200 this year, it goes up every year, but after reading this, I don’t feel all that bad at all. Owning and driving an older bus has its advantages I suppose. It does however, get a little irritating to see it increase year after year, with no tickets, no accidents, or claims against the policy.
When I called and made inquiries into the increase and the reason for it, I was simply told, “We did it to everyone across the board.”
Which of course, made me feel a whole lot better.
BCO
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BCO, You should not feel good instead of the company screwing one individual they screwed everybody! That makes me mad, I might just have to take to drinking!
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We found that different insurance agencies have different pricing for the same coverage for each state./
We have National Interstate thru Miller Insurance Agency Lake Oswego Oregon. They are are licensed to do business in most states. They were much cheaper by comparison to another insurance agent who a sponsor on another site. -
Just received my annual renewal notice – National Interstate through Miller. After 4 years with no claims, last year my premium increased about 10%. This year it JUMPED to almost double the previous baseline with no claims. Haven’t contacted them yet but obviously this is irritating.
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Gordan,
I just renewed with National Interstate. No claim history, clear driving record, increase was just a tad over 10 %.
AL
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Miller has found in my case National Interstate was not competitive and placed my insurance with Victoria (or Titan same company.)
I complained about the increase and Marlene and I found an oversight and I was able to reduce my premiums. Don’t hesitate to shop.
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I just got a new quote from them that will cut my bill in half, but I am not familiar with them and particularly the Prevost thing. How about you?
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My only concern would be if I called them and asked if they are familiar with Prevost, and they don’t know what one is, or if I asked if they insure bus conversions and they don’t know what I meant by that.
When we had the bus fire everyone in the insurance chain knew exactly what a Prevost was, what a converter was, and that made dealing with the issue so much easier.
I never want to be put in the position of having to explain to someone I do not want my coach towed to the nearest Winnebago dealr.
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My agent said she called them and that it’s my choice of where to take the bus if something happens. Also, I am going to use a value from Liberty to increase my value and have an agreed value for the insurance, which is new to me from having an actual cash value. As you know, that is problematic if something were to happen.
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