Hello everyone.
I own a property in upstate New York but live and work in NYC. The financial burden of maintaining both places has become significant, and the high cost of living has started to have adverse consequences. I’m looking for suggestions to help me navigate this decision effectively. One of my main goals is to reduce my auto insurance premium, which takes a significant portion of my monthly budget. However, I’m uncertain about ways to achieve this without moving back upstate (USPS postal address), which could create new issues, such as with the DMV or taxes. While I know this may not be the ideal place to seek professional advice, I would greatly appreciate any insights and recommendations you have. Thank you all.
Have you read through the thread on Auto Insurance Premiums?
And shopped different carriers? Worked with a broker to obtain comparable coverage for less?
Credit score, noisy CLUE report, and what vehicle you are driving can all affect premiums, along with coverage and deductibles.
Leaving the city will probably come with lower rates. Or are you alluding to using the upstate address when you really live in NYC?
Not entirely even though everything can fit into one category, I believe each situation can be really different.
Credit score 680-700 margin, '21 Q8, standard coverage/deductibles.
Although the alluding part may be considered dishonest, I am curious to explore its depths as long as we don’t violate any rules. Let’s say for educational purposes only.
You can’t insure your car in your Upstate NY address and park and drive in Manhattan. There is no way around this. So move on from this idea.
Volvo had subscription insurance included. Idk if it’s still a thing but you can check that out.
NY allows insurance companies to consider credit score when rating individual insurance policies. Bringing your credit score up 40 points may help at your next renewal.
WRT the Q8 - I just ran a quick sim using a 2021 Q5 and it was $400 less/yr. An XC90 was similarly less. I can understand not wanting to switch cars for a number of reasons but yours isn’t especially cheap to insure and the cost decay curve looks more logarithmic than exponential as it ages. I recognize that tax, tags, transaction cost alone will eat any insurance savings for many years, so it’s not necessarily the solution, but it’s certainly a factor.
Hypothetically: asserting to one’s insurance carrier they live in Lake Placid when they spend more than 50% of their time — and most importantly the vehicle’s time — parked/garaged in one of the 5 boroughs would be fraud. Do people do it? Sure. Do they get away with it? Until they don’t.
Many insurance companies will pull the information from one’s drivers license and registration, in not intermittently then when the policy renews. Eventually they may catch a mismatch. Assuming one updates their drivers license and registration and car insurance to the upstate address, as long as they don’t run afoul of parking enforcement in the city (e.g. zoned parking that requires a decal that requires one prove residency) and keeps their tags and inspection current 
1 Like
You can take a defensive driving course and get 10% off in NY
2 Likes
Ohh, I did that, but the cost for my daily coffee is more that the difference I got from that particular “saving”.
Thank you for your input. Some will agree, while others will disagree. The question is what it takes…
People or bots who sign up just to spam all the threads on one subject should be banned @admins
