Please learn from my mistake!

For the past few years, I have not given my insurance policies much thought. They are fine... and covering us without issue. We rarely have made any claims (rear ended one year - though), and our driving records have been clean. All told, I have really not had much reason to scrutinize our insurance policies... I just religiously paid them.

Just a few days ago, I was cleaning up our office area. I came across this next year's Johnson Insurance policy renewal... and had a few old copies in the file... so I started comparing them. What I found infuriated me, for just cause. Since I rarely paid attention to the claims, my insurance provider took it upon themselves to increase my rates as they pleased. There were no additional risks added, or additional services. Take a look at the spreadsheet. 

Over the past five years, in Canada the average Consumer Price Index (CPI) has been 1.86%. This is the inflation rate. Yet my auto insurance rate increases (for the next year) have ranged from 2.2% through to 10.7% per year - averaging 6.4%. 

Not to be unreasonable - I expect that the premium would go up on average - at around the CPI rate - maybe even slightly more ... but definitely not 4.5% higher than the CPI - across five years! 

Although only one example, this certainly explains why the word "Insurance" is the most expensive search term according to Google! I am probably not the worst hit by these premium hikes, so I can only imagine that our insurance firms have been quite profitable through the years. 

I reached out to another insurance provider. They offered me a quote of exactly the same coverage, but miraculously it is $670 cheaper - per year! 

The Moral of the story is to keep your eye on your insurance policy - when it comes up for renewal. I let is slide for far too long. For a policy of about $4.5k this is a 15% saving... and I can watch quite a few movies at the theatre with my kids ... with an extra $670 in my pocket!

From now on, I am going to be getting annual quotes... and keep fighting the rate increases. My recommendation to all our Kamazooie friends - keep an eye on your own policies, and as the old ING commercials used to say "Save Your Money!"