If your leasing company finds out, they will effectively add their own insurance on it and theirs is much higher. You don’t want to do this!
ALSO, some finance companies can and WILL ask the insurance company when you stopped having the high coverage and backdate your coverage as far back as you lowered your coverage and make you pay for it, even if you didn’t get into an accident.The reason for this? If you did get into an accident, they would’ve covered you for the higher limits of liability. This does vary from finance company to finance company, state to state. The example above was in the state of CA.
I was thinking about that too, but…a $35,000 cash deposit with the DMV would probably net $35,000 * 7% = $2,450 in a taxable investment account though. Plus, that’s probably not enough $$$ if you hit someone and they end up in the hospital for a couple of days.
Yes, the opportunity cost of depositing $35k with the DMV wouldn’t make it worthwhile. (Personally I’d rather buy Cryptocurrecies instead of 7% return
But posting a Bond with the DMV and making a Cash Deposit at the DMV is not one and the same. To post a Bond you would need to buy a Bond from a bonding company, costs are about 10% of the bond, so $3500 not $35,000. But yea, not sure what that covers. Like I said, I go with Costco, but I’ve had wawanesa and their good too.
Whatever you do, do not lower the coverage below 100/300/50 and absolutely do not try the bond idea, it’s a stupid idea and will bankrupt you if anything happens.
First of all, the 100/300/50 is liability and is usually pretty cheap. It’s comp and collision that get expensive. Your car will be covered no matter what the liability limits are if you have comp and collision. So you can have 15/30/10 liability and comp and collision and if you hit another car, your car will be fixed. However, if the damages are greater than your limit, they or their insurance co will go after you personally and you can potentially lose your house, bank accounts, etc.
The bond idea has to be the stupidest idea I’ve heard of in a long time. Only do this if your rates are terrible high and you have millions of dollars laying around just in case. The only people that should do this are car collectors (Like Jay Leno) who want to insure expensive cars when he drives them once a year or whatever. That being said, if his warehouse catches fire, he loses all the cars and doesn’t have insurance to pay to replace them or fix them, so I doubt he does that. He probably has some sort of dealer license or something similar where he can switch the plate to whatever he’s driving at the time and it’s insured for road use and has insurance for the value of the cars while they sit.
Corporations (like dealerships) sometimes do this, it’s called self insurance and can work out well in a big enough dealer group when you have 200+ employees and 5000+ cars to insure. It’s all about risk and actuarial tables. These corporations usually have millions in an account set aside just in case something happens.
Just get insurance, and the minimum that the leasing company requires, and call it a day. Shop around, if you’re young, your rates will be higher. Such is life. Maybe see if you have a parent or relative that wouldn’t mind going on the car as primary driver and you’re just the secondary.
If you don’t get the minimum required liability or insurance coverage, the leasing company will find out and purchase their own policy for the car and bill you. This usually costs 3 or 4 times what most companies quote you.
Happened to visit Jay Leno’s garage last weekend! Saw that his cars each have their own registration cards, license plates, and insurance cards. Must be a pain to keep up with renewing registration on ~180 cars and motorcycles each year!
What I did was I was with Geico and they raised my rates after 2 years so I went to progressive for few months and reapplied for Geico…saved $35 a month
@305Hackr Every six months GEICO raised my insurance rate a little bit and I never bothered to get a re-quote from them or any other company. Finally I got fed up with paying more each year.
I knew that USAA gives really good rates, so I called GEICO up and told them that I was cancelling my policy because USAA had given me a much better rate. They really wanted to know what the rate was that I had gotten and I just said ‘It is significantly less’ and to my pleasant surprise GEICO dropped my rate by more than 50 percent.
I have 300/300/300 coverage and on top of that I bought 2 million dollars worth of umbrella coverage for $400/yr for our cars and our boat.
That’s interesting. Car insurance rates are based on a strict set of formulas that are approved by regulators, so they must have found some discount that you qualified for, or some inaccuracy on your history, etc. It’s not possible to “negotiate” insurance rates outside the bounds of the pre-approved formulas.
Those were my thoughts exactly. Then again, I can’t think of “some discount” that equates to 50% they just “found”. I believe @davewade but I can’t explain how they did it just knowing how they work.
I guess the real question is: does anybody qualify for USAA insurance and if yes, maybe worth getting a quote? I know some of their products are only reserved for people or family members who have actually served. @davewade do you know who qualifies?
My dad was in the military for a bit. From my understanding, as long as he is/was a full member of USAA, spouses and children can be granted access to membership as well. I haven’t had any issues.
