With 95% of Americans ordered to stay at home because of the coronavirus pandemic, there’s a good chance you could save money by lowering you car insurance premium due to crisis.
Background
At the time of this writing, 306 million Americans are under lockdown orders. Some are driving just to get essentials like groceries and medicine. Others are not driving all, opting to use services like Amazon Fresh to delivery their groceries and mail orders for their pharmacy needs.
What’s true regardless is that the total amount of driving is way down. If you aren’t using your car as often (or at all), there are a few things you can do to save money while we wait for the end to this crisis.
Our government is pitching in to help with relief checks, but it doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of this opportunity to save on your car insurance premium.
Related:
List Of Insurance Carriers Offering Relief
Here’s a list of auto insurance carriers who are offering an automatic discount or refund:
Allstate
- Allstate will give most customers 15% back on their car insurance premium for the months of April and May; crediting back their customers via a deposit to their bank account, statement credit to their credit card, or directly to their Allstate account
Esurance
- See Allstate above (Allstate owns Esurance and they both have the same coronavirus policy)
American Family
- American Family is giving back $50 per vehicle on a customer’s policy
Amica
- No discounts or refunds, but Amica will postpone any payments due until the beginning of June if you call in and ask
GEICO
- GEICO has announced that the company will give a 15% discount on renewals that happen between April 8 and October 7
- Some feedback we received suggests that you’ll get an additional discount on top of the 15% just for calling in and stating that you’re working from home AND they may take 15% off the entire insurance line (home, auto, etc.)
Liberty Mutual
- Liberty Mutual is reducing auto premiums by 15% for the months of April and May
State Farm
- State Farm finally caved in and announced they are following other auto insurers in provided a COVID-19 discount. The company is giving a 25% credit that will apply automatically in the next billing cycle.
Auto Insurance Credit With “Car Storage”
This is a little known trick that allows you to save money during the times that you don’t drive at all. I do this whenever I’m traveling more than a couple of weeks.
You simply call in and tell them that you’re not going to be driving for a while and if they could “pause” your coverage.
Some carriers will refund you for the time period that your car is just sitting in your garage or driveway. Other firms might give you a credit against your future bill instead.
Decrease Coverage Levels
Another way to lower your car insurance premium is to review your policy and decrease the amount of coverage for certain things.
For example, liability coverage is broken out in three parts: bodily injury per person limit, bodily injury per accident limit, and property damage limit.
It’s usually listed together with backslashes. Let’s say your liability coverage is 100/300/50, which simply means you’ll be covered up to:
- $100,000 in expenses for each person you may injure
- $300,000 in expenses for all personal injuries
- $50,000 in property damage (ex. crashing into someone’s fence)
Chances are, you’re not going to need that when the roads are basically deserted. Most states require a minimum amount of insurance. In Massachusetts for instance, you need 20/40/5 – much less than the amounts above.
Reducing your coverage will save you hundreds of dollars every year.
Another thing to reduce or even remove is your collision coverage. Some ninjas with older cars already do this since the premium and deductible amounts costs more than the car itself.
Ninja Note: As you review your policy, one thing you DON’T want to reduce coverage on is your comprehensive insurance. Comprehensive covers you against things like theft or if a tree falls on your car – something you’d want to keep at regular coverage levels.
Shop For New Auto Insurance Quotes
Finally, if you haven’t shopped around for new insurance quotes in a while, maybe it’s a good idea to take a break from binge watching your favorite Netflix series and grab a few auto quotes online.
The GEICO commercials are right, 15 minutes can save you 15% or more on your car insurance.
If you do price shop, I’d appreciate it if you would support The Money Ninja and use our partner, Insurify, to find the lowest insurance premiums for your coverage:
The Bottom Line
Many of us are worried about our finances, especially with the economy and our jobs up in the air. Lowering your car insurance premium is one of the quickest and easiest ways to save money.
Think about it. We’re always excited to save $15 at a restaurant or 25% off at a clothing store using a coupon. This has the potential to save you a couple hundred dollars or more.
If any ninjas have any insurance-related questions, feel free to ask me by commenting below. I’ve worked at the corporate offices of a number of insurance companies and would be happy to answer any questions that come to your mind 🙂
