Insurance is now not based on your driving record. It's based on many factors (including credit) and one such factor is how often you submit claims. Even claims where your company pays zero dollars. Your insurance company can't raise your rates for a zero pay claim (in almost all states) but other insurers that you might be looking at switching too CAN and DO look at even zero pay claims as claim frequency and factor that into your rate equation.
I found out this is our current "problem" when I did my every couple of years "shopping" of insurance this year.
Karen had a legitimate claim after she rear ended someone who was out and unhurt who apparently later claimed medical issues. Insurer never told us the other driver had done that, and we've had "the talk" again that in any accident the camera phone comes out and is recording VIDEO at the scene no matter what, no matter how nice the person seems, no matter how uninjured they appear or not, because they'll go home and LIE.
She trusts people too much. I don't. You're getting videoed if you hit me or I hit you. I don't care anymore. It's too expensive not to. I'm going to capture you up and walking around and refusing the ambulance ride.
Then I had a hit and run with a real claim to repair the 17 year old Subaru which I probably should have just paid out of pocket. Was barely more than the deductible. Someone rear ended me and ran. Couldn't get a plate, it was a temporary in a rear tinted window.
And my claim after I tossed a rock through her truck window with the mower. That was spendy. Power rear window. But insurance didn't pay that much after the deductible.
And then she got caught in a monster hailstorm in her truck and that was a bunch of work.
All in a three year or so timeframe with no other claims in forever... she had her run of six accidents that weren't her fault in seven years long long ago.
But when shopping I had two places flat out refuse to quote and others that quoted total ridiculousness.
So since the current company -- that I was originally quite happy to pay them too much money to keep comprehensive on vehicles way too old for that -- got a note to remove it from all but two of them.
I'll fix my old junk myself for cash if this is the new game. It'll be cheaper. (Plus let's not even go into the total scam multi-car is when you have more vehicles than you can drive at once. You can tell them to lower the annual mileage and it'll still be insane numbers to insure four or five vehicles in a two driver household. The assumption is that you're scamming them and have uninsurable teens or you're a house full of illegal immigrants or whatever in their computers. Not two people with four old vehicles that you've paid off.)
If they'd have left my rates alone instead of doing the usual yearly creep up, and trust me, they were getting plenty of money to cover their "losses", I wouldn't have shopped this year. I was busy and I always do it in a particular month. They could have just collected lots of money and I wouldn't have told them to shove it. I wouldn't have been annoyed by the industry saying we had too many claims, and I wouldn't have cut my insurance bill nearly in half with the current provider. I don't mind paying good money on the table to get good coverage. But start messing with me and it's game on.
Slitting their own throats. I hope they drown in their own blood. I used to be one of those "loyal" customers they claimed to want, pay for 20 years, claims always well below what they charged in total, high deductibles, and all that traditional insurance game "stuff", but no more. They want to play games, I'll play. Never seen an insurance company not make a profit.
They're getting dumped as soon as these other companies will quote reasonably again. Idiots. All they had to do was sit back and collect their money that I was happy to pay, but they had to get greedy. Easily covered all the losses and more.
Interestingly this (of course) also triggered insane numbers for homeowners quotes. You should have seen some of these things. LOL.
Most funny part -- one of the major carriers quoted us something so outrageous it was insulting. But better... they then sent a note addressed to my deceased father that they could beat his current homeowners on the same house and it was 1/4 of what they quoted us. LOL. I had fun calling that agent back and playing dumb... "So why can't I get THIS deal? You would have given it to my father..."
Agents are also worthless today. The computers and algorithms are running the show. About all I've ever seen an agent do is try to convince me to lie when applying to get a better rate, which is both illegal and also a serious problem when someone finds out later during a claim. A sure sign that the agents have also given up trying to put any sanity back into the system -- they're playing games with their own employers now. The only people who have any sway are adjusters. And like you said, you're just trying to get them up to their upper limit.
My current agent was at a party I attended recently. She got all excited when their golf tournament came on the TV at the sports bar and their CEO was being interviewed. All that did was solidify my desire to kick that company out of my life. Golf tournament? Seriously? Now I know where they're spending it.
