GEICO Syndrome

[seekermeister]

I guess the little gecko on the GEICO commercials must hook them a lot of customers, because they are even higher on their insurance than the company that I just left. Mercury insurance started out cheap ~ $145 per 6 months for automotive liability, but they just kept jacking up their prices, so when the last bill was for $274, I went shopping. I bought a policy from State Farm for ~ $148 for 6 months.

When I was young, liability insurance was pretty cheap, and the insurance companies treated their customers carefully, because that kind of insurance wasn't required back then. Now that they have the law forcing people to have it, they seem to do pretty much as they please.

 

[pparks1]

Don't forget tons of lawsuits resulting in tons of money paid in by these insurance companies. Obviously this is going to impact rates.

 

[seekermeister]

I do not think that is an excuse, because if they have more customers, they also have more money to pay their costs...unless the costs that you are referring to is from their customers suing them to collect what is owed them, or that they are particularly bad about insuring bad drivers. I have a State Farm policy back in 2002, which I let lapse, because of financial problems, and while I was with them, they never had a rate increase, and the premium now is only ~ 40% higher now than then, which is largely due to inflation. I tried to get a policy with them, when I had to go with Mercury, because they wouldn't let me have insurance with them...probably because of a fender bender that I had back in March of 2008. Either that, or they still had hard feeling about the previous lapse that I mentioned.