Hey everyone, and welcome back to Digging Out of Debt with Lanette and today we are going to be talking about car insurance especially if you live in the state of Pennsylvania you may have noticed with your policy renewal that your rates have gone up and that is a state wide deal so everyone in the state of Pennsylvania had a rate increase so when my renewal came around and it told me that my new monthly payment because I pay monthly was going to be increasing by 15 dollars a month I was like what is going on here and I was a little scared because I was involved in an accident last year and I just wanted to make sure that that wasn't going up because of that accident because that was a I was not at fault in that accident and I was just hoping I was kind of scared you know if that had something to do with why it went up so much and so anyway I made a phone call and that is going to be my advice to you guys MAKE A PHONE CALL to whoever your car insurance policy holder is mine is Progressive I don't make any money from telling you about Pogressive I'm just telling you what I think and what my experience has been but I've been with Progressive for 10 years and I felt like they did a pretty decent job with this accident that I was involved in last year I felt like I had to do a little bit of the fighting on my own but I feel like they've always been really good as far as customer service is concerned whenever I call them I always end up with some other discount finding someone always find some other discount that I wasn't yet getting and so every time I call you know I'm trying to get the budget whittle it down as much as I possibly can every time I call somehow they get that that price tag to come down on my premiums so anyway I just wanted to tell you some of the discounts that are available to people and I know this is just you know Progressive I'm talking in terms of my own personal Progressive policy and Progressive in general so I don't know what other discounts are out there offered by other companies but I just want to go through a list of some of the discounts that are available and if you don't have these discounts or if you're not sure if you might qualify for these discounts make a phone call it all it takes is making a phone call and I know I know how awful it is to have to make those kinds of phone calls but when you do you will feel better because you will feel like you're not overpaying for for what you have so let me just go through a few of those discounts okay so some of the discounts that I personally have okay um continuous insurance discount electronic funds transfer because my payments are made monthly via electronic fund transfers so I'm not sending a check and I'm not going online it's just automatically getting deducted from a checking account and you get a discount for that 5-year accident-free 5-year claim free loyal customer multi-policy discount multi-vehicle discount paperless discount did you know that if they don't have to send you paper bills you get a discount um three years safe driving driver and passenger side airbags passive anti-theft device other available discounts are these are not mine but other ones available homeowner discount can different they have like five different levels of continuous insurance discounts driver improvement course discount mobile home discount paid in full discount and we're going to talk about that one a distant student good student and teen driver discounts also snapshot Progressive has snapshot and snapshot is where you actually plug a little like tracking, it's not a tracking device it is a tracking device it is a tracking device that you put it plug into your car it's very easy to do and it tracks how hard you brake it tracks like when you drive and how far you drive so if you're a person who doesn't do a lot of like overnight traveling between like 2:00 and 4:00 am

you know you could possibly get an even better discount using snapshot or if you're a person who doesn't drive more than 50 miles a day if you take a long time to slow down when it comes to coming to red lights and stop signs and things like that it's quick hard braking that most that will trigger your snapshot so if you're just if you're just commuting back and forth to work mostly and that's you know under 50 miles a day if you work if you drive during normal hours that are not like 2:00 to 4:00 am and you drive safely and you're not constantly you know hard braking and fast braking you could save money with snapshot both my husband and I had snapshot back with our old cars and I was able to get the snapshot I was able to get a discount he was unable to get the discount because he had this little zippy car that could literally stop on a dime and that thing beeped so much I was like you know what this is just this is just horrifying so he didn't get the discount with his car but now we're gonna try it again with our two we have two different cars now so we're gonna try it again and and they allow you to monitor that and track how you're doing like you can actually go and see how you're doing and if you feel like oh my gosh I'm not doing well you can bail you can bail before the end of the term you can bail and say nope I'm not I'm not doing this because there is an ever so slight chance if you are not a great driver and you're driving a lot a lot a lot of miles there's a chance that your rate could actually go up so I have to tell you that but I think snapshot is one of the cool things that Progressive offers that's actually based on your driving so we're going to get those I ordered those but what did I want to tell you about oh the paid in full discounts okay so Pennsylvania I made a phone call last week and I was like okay Pennsylvania had this you know rate increase across the state okay my my six-month policy premium went up I think it went up like $90 well monthly it was $15 a month let me do the math I'm terrible with this 15 times 6 oh yeah 90 I'm right so it went up $90 we were paying $120 a month roughly and it went up to $135 and I'm like wow my premium is $809 for the the six month policy period and I'm like that is just that right so I called and right away the woman on the other end of the phone was like well we're going to check and we're gonna look at every single discount and see if we can't get that lowered for you and I was like okay so she starts asking me all kinds of questions this that the other thing okay well that's gonna reduce your insurance by this much and that one's gonna reduce your insurance by this much and and the paid in full discount is the real clincher the paid in full discount which means obviously I would have to go from paying monthly to actually when my policy renews in March I would have to pay for the whole thing which I was planning to do because you know from one of my other videos that what I was going to do with my tax refund this year one of the things I was going to do with my tax tax refund was to pay off my premiums my insurance premiums so I didn't have to deal with them in my monthly budget so I'm like I have the money and I'm ready to do this the paid in full discount I'm not even kidding you got me back to my old my old remember I said that it had increased ninety dollars due to the Pennsylvania rate hike well guess what it came right back down to what I was paying before so that paid in full discount and and just making that phone call and going through and checking to see if you qualify for any other discounts is totally worth the call and um what was I going to say oh you're coverages if you are a person who has like a large emergency fund you could technically have less coverages with larger deductibles so that when you are involved in an accident or something like that that more money is going to come out of your pocket because you're prepared for those kinds of things and so you pay less insurance because should you be in an accident you can pay a higher deductible so you save money most of the time and in the case of an accident then you are going to have a little bit more out-of-pocket cost but you're paying less all the time so you could do that I do not have a large emergency fund so I prefer to have the coverages with the lower deductibles and I keep pretty standard liability and collision we have two cars that I would definitely want to replace I would not consider either one of them okay to lose so we do liability and collision so you can also go over with your insurance agent are your coverages that you currently have right for you do you need could you go a little bit less could you do a higher deductible if those things that can also help sort of offset the rate increase but I strongly suggest you simply make a phone call and and the people at Progressive every time I call they are so great at getting my my policy premiums you know looking for every single possible discount I I truly appreciate that another thing you can do and like I said I've been with Progressive for 10 years so I have a few of loyalty rewards and loyalty discounts but if you're not loyal to your insurance company and you're just looking for the cheapest thing go to a broker instead of going to the actual individual insurance companies to get quotes go to a broker go to a broker who who works for all of those places and let them you know go over with you which coverages you need what deductibles you are willing to pay should you ever have to you know be in an accident or use that and then let them figure out which company gives you the most coverage for the least amount of money and maybe you'll want to stick with that company for awhile but but I strongly suggest using a broker because they're not like they're not like loyal to anyone insurance company it's not their job to like keep your business it's it's their job to work to find you the best price so you guys it has been fun talking about car insurance with you and I just hope that you are able to make that phone call get your current insurance premium reduced especially if you're in Pennsylvania and you just experienced the rate increase if you would like to please in the comments tell me what insurance company you use and have you found them to be great as far as pricing I don't have teenagers yet but I know I have a teen driving discount on my policy and by the time my kids actually do I will have been actually drive I will have been with Progressive probably for oh gosh 15 16 17 years I'm getting old anyway in the comments put the insurance company that you have and whether or not you're happy with them okay and I will see you again thanks so much for watching and I look forward to seeing you again bye