Geico wants 25% more to insure my 30-yr-old, unremarkable, essentially worthless Saab 900 than they do my 15-year-old, unremarkable, also-essentially-worthless 9-5. Liability only; same coverage on both. WTF?
Geico wants 25% more to insure my 30-yr-old, unremarkable, essentially worthless Saab 900 than they do my 15-year-old, unremarkable, also-essentially-worthless 9-5. Liability only; same coverage on both. WTF?
I went through the same thing. I was told when I asked the insurance folks that the modern life saving devices, nannies, etc reduce the bodily injury costs. So even though repairing modern cars is more expensive overall expense of crashes is less.
Why do they charge more? Because they can
Parts. How available are parts to make you vehicle whole in the event of an accident? Quarter panel for a P71? All day long. One for a first generation 4Runner? Good luck.
In reply to Appleseed :
That doesn't matter when they can say, well, blue book on that car is $1000, here's $250, have a nice day.
procainestart said:Geico wants 25% more to insure my 30-yr-old, unremarkable, essentially worthless Saab 900 than they do my 15-year-old, unremarkable, also-essentially-worthless 9-5. Liability only; same coverage on both. WTF?
Which is the primary car? You typically pay more for it. I was rated as primary drive on my ancient Nissan truck and the 4runner just sat in the driveway. The agent actually suggested this.
Probably because the actuaries figured out that a typical claim on a 30 year old car will cost them 25% more than a 15 year old car, and they probably don't have enough relevant data on a 900 to get a good sample size, so they have to go with the average 30 year old car.
Think about it--a 30 year old car is from 1990. It may or may not have a passenger air bag. Side impact? Fuggetaboutit. It doesn't meet current pedestrian impact standards, parts availability--especially on a SAAB--is not there. It likely doesn't have any theft-deterents (a manual doesn't count), and the average buyer of a 30 year old car that is worth $1000 is probably not the greatest driver in the world. Not to mention that even if they were the same age, it is not an apples to apples comparison. The 900 is likely a 2 door (or 3 door, same difference). It is a compact car. The 9-5 is a 4 door, mid-size or full size car. The classes alone will cause different rates.
Despite the 900 being one of the safest cars of the time, that data is pretty worthless now. A 9-5, however, still has a sample size, at the time was one of the safest cars available, and the newest of the same generation is only 9 years old. I'd imagine both are pretty cheap to insure though, how do they compare to a TSX and a Civic SI?
mtn said:Probably because the actuaries figured out that a typical claim on a 30 year old car will cost them 25% more than a 15 year old car, and they probably don't have enough relevant data on a 900 to get a good sample size, so they have to go with the average 30 year old car.
Think about it--a 30 year old car is from 1990. It may or may not have a passenger air bag. Side impact? Fuggetaboutit. It doesn't meet current pedestrian impact standards, parts availability--especially on a SAAB--is not there. It likely doesn't have any theft-deterents (a manual doesn't count), and the average buyer of a 30 year old car that is worth $1000 is probably not the greatest driver in the world. Not to mention that even if they were the same age, it is not an apples to apples comparison. The 900 is likely a 2 door (or 3 door, same difference). It is a compact car. The 9-5 is a 4 door, mid-size or full size car. The classes alone will cause different rates.
Despite the 900 being one of the safest cars of the time, that data is pretty worthless now. A 9-5, however, still has a sample size, at the time was one of the safest cars available, and the newest of the same generation is only 9 years old. I'd imagine both are pretty cheap to insure though, how do they compare to a TSX and a Civic SI?
Liability insurance pays for the car/object he hits, not his medical bills.
So I'm not even sure why that's relevant.
NOT A TA said:I went through the same thing. I was told when I asked the insurance folks that the modern life saving devices, nannies, etc reduce the bodily injury costs. So even though repairing modern cars is more expensive overall expense of crashes is less.
This. My bill from Geico even shows where they ping you for lack of airbags, lack of ABS and lack of theft deterrent system. Naturally I tend to get whacked on all pof those because I own old stuff from when that wasn't standard.
In reply to NickD :
OK, but I'm still confused.
The OP has liability only. Why should his lack of airbags have anything to do with how much damage he can cause to someone else?
z31maniac said:mtn said:Probably because the actuaries figured out that a typical claim on a 30 year old car will cost them 25% more than a 15 year old car, and they probably don't have enough relevant data on a 900 to get a good sample size, so they have to go with the average 30 year old car.
Think about it--a 30 year old car is from 1990. It may or may not have a passenger air bag. Side impact? Fuggetaboutit. It doesn't meet current pedestrian impact standards, parts availability--especially on a SAAB--is not there. It likely doesn't have any theft-deterents (a manual doesn't count), and the average buyer of a 30 year old car that is worth $1000 is probably not the greatest driver in the world. Not to mention that even if they were the same age, it is not an apples to apples comparison. The 900 is likely a 2 door (or 3 door, same difference). It is a compact car. The 9-5 is a 4 door, mid-size or full size car. The classes alone will cause different rates.
Despite the 900 being one of the safest cars of the time, that data is pretty worthless now. A 9-5, however, still has a sample size, at the time was one of the safest cars available, and the newest of the same generation is only 9 years old. I'd imagine both are pretty cheap to insure though, how do they compare to a TSX and a Civic SI?
Liability insurance pays for the car/object he hits, not his medical bills.
So I'm not even sure why that's relevant.
Ah. Missed the liability only part.
Then my post should have read:
Probably because the actuaries figured out that a typical claim involving a 30 year old car will cost them 25% more than a 15 year old car, and they probably don't have enough relevant data on a 900 to get a good sample size, so they have to go with the average 30 year old car.
The average buyer of a 30 year old car that is worth $1000 is probably not the greatest driver in the world. Not to mention that even if they were the same age, it is not an apples to apples comparison. The 900 is likely a 2 door (or 3 door, same difference). It is a compact car. The 9-5 is a 4 door, mid-size or full size car. The classes alone will cause different rates. I'd imagine both are pretty cheap to insure though, how do they compare to a TSX and a Civic SI?
Liability coverage is just about damage to other vehicles.Geico presumably has some statistics that say that drivers of older saabs are substantially worse than drivers of newer saabs and hit stuff more often/in bigger ways.
procainestart said:Geico wants 25% more to insure my 30-yr-old, unremarkable, essentially worthless Saab 900 than they do my 15-year-old, unremarkable, also-essentially-worthless 9-5. Liability only; same coverage on both. WTF?
This entire thread is just one big Saab story regarding insurance rates.
Brett_Murphy said:procainestart said:Geico wants 25% more to insure my 30-yr-old, unremarkable, essentially worthless Saab 900 than they do my 15-year-old, unremarkable, also-essentially-worthless 9-5. Liability only; same coverage on both. WTF?
This entire thread is just one big Saab story regarding insurance rates.
#dadjokes
Yes, liability only.
I'll try changing the newer car over to my primary car.
dps214 said:Liability coverage is just about damage to other vehicles.
No, it's not. Hypothetical scenario: OP has 3 passengers in his car. He turns left in front of an oncoming brodozer. Given that 30 year old car is lacking in modern occupant protection, the 3 passengers are hurt badly. Guess how that claim is getting paid, for medical bills and pain/suffering? Yep, liability (with very limited exception)
I'm not an underwriter, and it does get into lots of statistics, but my very strong hunch is that liability on an old daily driver could pose a higher liability claim risk, so that's factored in.
Insurance requirements vary by state so take this with a grain of salt but some portion of the liability is bodily injury liability, a passenger would file against this. Again I can't speak to your specific state but my state (Oklahoma) requires some amount of bodily injury liability. Check your policy it probably breaks out what percentage of the premium is for vehicle liability and what percentage is for bodily injury liability.
Toebra said:Why do they charge more? Because they can
"Because berkeley you, that's why." - insurance
In reply to nutherjrfan :
Speaking of Saab stories, when I told my SO that I wanted to buy this latest car, she made me promise to cap total cars at three (that is, I'm now up to three Saabs). Of course, as soon as I promised, another sweet deal came up...
Not that anyone here would know anything about having total-number-of-cars-not-to-exceed negotiations with their spouse.
Clearly, somebody at GEICO subscribes to the "They haven't made real SAABs since GM bought them" mindset.
Asked the same question of my insurance agent re: my Yaris. It costs almost twice as much as our Mazda5, which is 4 years newer and cost significantly more new than the Yaris. My agent explained: "Each vehicle's base rate is set by our underwriters based on actuarial data."
I believe what he was saying is: "the other Yaris owners are dipE36 M3s who have frequent, expensive crashes."
In reply to kazoospec :
Yup. Our CRX and R1 are cheaper to insure than the Scion and Ninja 650. That boggled my mind. Oddly, my insurance went UP when I sold my old ninja 500r. The math is suspect at best, logic clearly only applies in the most spurious manner.
Another part of your problem may be that you send payments to Geico. Shop around.
Nugi said:In reply to kazoospec :
Yup. Our CRX and R1 are cheaper to insure than the Scion and Ninja 650. That boggled my mind. Oddly, my insurance went UP when I sold my old ninja 500r. The math is suspect at best, logic clearly only applies in the most spurious manner.
I doubt the math is suspect.
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