9 Tips To Save On Car Insurance In Michigan Ranked By An Agent

How's it going? Thanks for tuning in. If you are watching this video, you are probably a resident driver here in Michigan and looking to cut your costs on auto insurance. You came to the right place. My name is Brian. I'm an independent insurance agent based here in the state of Michigan, Metro Detroit specifically. Today I ran into an article about how to save nine tips on how to cut costs for auto insurance. It was done by a local news station here and the tips are actually from an attorney. I wanted to just run through them, give my thoughts on these tips as someone who works in the business and sees and talks to a lot of different clients every day and helps them save on their insurance costs. First tip number one, check your current policy 100% agree, eight out of 10 on this tip. Always make sure, it's always good to do the exercise of checking your policy every year when it renews or every six months. Make sure that you don't have any vehicles on there that you no longer own. You would be surprised. There are some people out there who do forget to take vehicles off. And then if you have maybe a situation where you no longer have any sort of financing on your car, maybe you don't have a loan or a lease on it and it's not very valuable and you want to maybe look at reducing certain coverages like your comprehensive and collision and you maybe only want to have just your liability and your medical coverage, sometimes commonly referred to as PLPD. That can definitely be an option that can always be worth looking into. Never lower your bodily injury liability or uninsured, underinsured motorist coverage and never lower your PIP coverage to cut costs. But if you do want to maybe look at reducing your comprehensive or collision or changing the deductibles, that can definitely be a good option. Tip number two, I will not agree with this one. Personally, I would put this on the bottom of the scale, one out of 10, don't always bundle your home and car insurance. The reason is just about every insurance company out there will give a significant discount if you do bundle your home and auto insurance with them. It is almost always worth it. And if you don't own a home, having a renter's policy can also make a big difference. It's very rare that you'll run into a circumstance where it's cheaper and less expensive to have your car and home separate with two different insurance companies. So I never recommend it, not only for the cost, but then also if you ever have a claim situation where that involves both your home and vehicle, the last thing you want is two different insurance companies involved pointing fingers at each other on who pays what. It just creates a mess. So overall, I would say that this tip is very low on my scale, one out of 10. Tip three, if it makes sense to raise your deductible, I kind of mentioned that earlier. I wouldn't say that this is a huge cost saving tip. It can definitely make a difference, but it might not move the needle as much as you hope in terms of cost savings. It can definitely help lower your premium, but going from 500 to 1,000 just might not make the biggest difference. I would rank this tip probably a five or six out of 10. Not a bad idea, but again, might not move the needle like you would like. Tip number four. Again, this is a mid-range tip. Understand if your rates change paying monthly or annually or in full, so either annually or every six months, depending on the insurance company. This can definitely make sense. The only reason I'm going to put it mid-tier is because not every company out there gives a significant discount for it. Companies like auto owners, Progressive, they do give actually pretty significant discounts when it comes to paying in full versus monthly. In those situations, definitely worth it, but if you are with a company where it doesn't make a huge difference, then it's really just personal preference. That's why I'd kind of rank that mid-tier again, probably a five or a six out of 10. Tip five, definitely going to agree with this one. I would say that this tip is eight, nine or a 10 out of 10. Shop around. I will always recommend to work with an agent that does have multiple insurance company options just so they can shop your insurance for you. That's one of the easiest ways to save on your auto insurance is to work with somebody that does have access to those multiple company options because a driver, a vehicle with the same coverage can have wildly different insurance rates depending on the company they're with. So again, definitely work with somebody who does have more than one company option available. Tip six, this one's kind of odd because it's not really a tip, but be mindful of teen drivers. So yes, when you add a teenager to your policy, your cost is going to increase no matter what, no matter their driving record, no matter how clean it is, whatever's going on, your costs are going to increase. So with that, depending on the insurance company that you're working with, sometimes they do have certain discounts available, like a good student discount if they have a certain grade point average in school, or some insurance companies offer discounts if they take a certain driver safety course. So definitely ask your agent and the company that you're working with if any of those options and discounts are available because they can make a big difference if you take advantage of them if you do have a teen driver. So not necessarily a tip, but if you have teen drivers, definitely be aware of those potential saving opportunities when you're adding them to the policy. Okay, kind of related, tip seven, ask for other available discounts. This is a great one. I'm going to rank this on the higher scale, probably a seven or eight out of 10. If you are an alumni of a college, a lot of times you can get an alumni discount. If you are an older driver, you can get a mature discount. Depends on the insurance company and where their threshold is. But another common one is if you have a professional designation. So if you're a nurse, a teacher, a CPA, a lot of times you will be able to get discounts for things like that, for professional designations. So definitely worth asking your agent what discounts can be available. Again, the most common ones are alumni, professional designations, things like that. Tip number eight, this isn't necessarily a tip, so I'll kind of rank this mid-tier. But as a reminder, your driving record can cost you. Unfortunately, if you have a bad driving record, there's nothing you can do today to save except drive safer in the future. So that's kind of why I'm ranking this tip like mid-tier. It's more so just be conscious that you are, while you're on the road, drive safer because it will have a huge impact on your rates if you have a bad driving record. So again, there's nothing really you can do today to save if you have a poor driving record. But in the future, definitely be cognizant of it. The last tip, don't lower your coverage just to save. I highly agree with this tip. This tip is 10 out of 10. As I mentioned, for your bodily injury liability coverage, your uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, your PIP coverage here in Michigan, never lower these amounts just to save money because these are the claims that can impact you the most financially if you're ever in an accident and there's a bad claim situation. So overall, these tips are solid. Some of them better than others, obviously. If you are looking for help with your auto insurance, you want to work with somebody who does have multiple company options, like an independent agent like myself, feel free to reach out. I would love the opportunity to help. All my contact info should be in the description below. Again, feel free to reach out. I'm pretty easy to get a hold of. And if you have any other questions about insurance, feel free to leave them in the comments. Feel free to reach out directly. Text, call, email, whatever's easiest. I'm pretty easy to get a hold of, and I look forward to seeing if we can help. Thanks a lot.