By Dr. Jim Dahle, WCI FounderWhen was the last time you shopped around for your auto or homeowner's insurance? In my case, it has literally been decades. Since we recently added a new “product line” here at WCI (referrals for property and casualty insurance), I figured I better lead the way and see if my fears were true. I feared that I was paying dramatically more in insurance than I should be simply because I hadn't shopped it around in basically forever.
Even if you're only overpaying by $200 a month, multiply that by years and it could easily add up to five figures or more. If you can “make” $10,000 after tax with an hour on the phone, why not? We should probably all do this every few years.
What Is Property and Casualty Insurance?
Property and Casualty (P&C) Insurance is insurance that protects your property like your home (homeowners and renters), rental properties, automobiles, boats, airplanes, ATVs, landlord insurance, and umbrella insurance. It protects you from the loss of your stuff and the damage done with your stuff.
P&C insurance is something required by all white coat investors so we can have the protections we need. Since rates seem to rapidly increase every year, it's well worth making sure that what we are paying is competitive.
Who Is the New Partner?
We've partnered with Farmers Insurance Choice, which basically functions like an insurance broker to shop your insurance needs around with some of the best companies out there. These include insurance companies like Bristol West, Dairyland, Farmers, Nationwide, Progressive, Safeco, and Stillwater. Farmers has found that people can save an average of $509* a year on auto and home insurance by switching, so it's at least worth getting a quote online or giving them a call at 888-805-2001.
As WCI set up this new relationship to make sure we are all getting the best rates possible, I realized I needed to do something I hadn't done in 25 years but have always known I should. I needed to shop our insurance around. Why had I not done so? Inertia mostly. But part of it is that I have mostly had good claims experiences with my current insurers. And I only get the motivation to shop things around when I get mistreated. That happened with my boat insurance on my second boat claim, so I shopped it around and ended up with a different company.
But I haven't gotten around to doing it with auto, homeowners, or umbrella coverages. And frankly, I might be getting ripped off because I haven't done that. Maybe you are, too. Let's find out.
More information here:
What to Do When Your Insurance Rates Go Up: A Guide for Physicians
What Is Our Current Coverage?
I figured the place to start was with my current coverage. What do I have and how much I am paying for it? Let's dive into it. When we got married 25+ years ago, I had just become a commissioned officer, and I was eligible for USAA insurance. It came highly recommended by family members, so that's what we used. We're still there with most of our coverage.
Auto Insurance
Let's start with the auto coverage. We have three vehicles and four drivers, including the one on a learner's permit for a couple of more months (no charge for him). Here's what we're paying:
- 2023 Ford F-250 driven by me 9,000 miles per year: $725 every six months
- 2016 Toyota Sequoia driven by Katie 11,000 miles per year: $530 every six months
- 2009 Honda Civic driven by our 18-year-old daughter $851 every six months
The total is $2,106 every six months or $4,212 per year. It's not too bad considering our 20-year-old daughter is paying 3/4 of that just for her 2023 Nissan Rogue. Ours is surely going to go up in two months when our 16-year-old boy gets his license. What does the coverage look like?
There is a $1,000 deductible on comprehensive and collision. We have no uninsured motorist coverage, car replacement assistance coverage, or rental reimbursement; just a little bit of personal injury and towing and labor coverage; and lots and lots of liability coverage ($300,000/$500,000).
Homeowners Insurance
I'm told by a contractor friend that if my house burned to the ground, it would cost something like $2.1 million to rebuild. What do we pay to insure that? After some significant discounts, we pay $1,528 a year. What do we get for that?
- Dwelling coverage: $1.7 million + 25% (which gets me to that $2.1 million figure)
- Contents coverage: $865,000
- Unlimited loss of use coverage
- Personal liability: $300,000
- Medical payments to others: $5,000
- Deductible: $34,580
Boat Insurance
Our boat coverage is not by USAA, because it doesn't cover boats. We're currently with Allstate. It costs $382 per year. It's super cheap, considering we've had two five-figure claims in the last decade and with what I do with that boat and trailer. I guess most people just rub their boats with a diaper in the garage or something.
Umbrella Coverage
We have a large ($5 million) umbrella policy from USAA where we currently pay $2,439 a year. The teenage drivers aren't helping this (80% of umbrella claims are auto-related).
The total we're paying for personal P&C coverage is $4,212 + $1,528 + $382 + $2,439 = $8,561. That's a lot of money. But we also have a lot of expensive stuff and a lot of liability coverage.
Getting a Quote from Farmers Insurance Choice
I started with the online process you can find at https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/save and filled out the online forms. No surprise, my insurance situation is very complicated, and I couldn't get a quote online. I had to call. If you want to skip that step and just get on the phone with someone who can get you an accurate quote right away, dial 888-805-2001. After letting Farmers know I was coming from “White Coat Insurance,” it found the data I had entered and it reduced the amount of time I had on the call, although I still had to confirm a fair amount of the previously entered data. But the idea is that we (the white coat investors) are a big group of people and so we qualify for discounts that you might not get if you were just doing this on your own.
It started with auto. I just got quotes for my current coverage with USAA, and the three cheapest were Progressive, Safeco, and Nationwide. Only Progressive was cheaper than USAA for our situation. The six-month prices were:
- Progressive $1,512
- USAA $2,106
- Safeco $2,196
- Nationwide $2,454
There was a potential savings of $1,188 a year if we switched our auto coverage to Progressive. Because I had a bad experience with a boat claim years ago with that company, I threw that one off the list. We continued with the process using Safeco. Obviously, there wasn't much savings here compared to USAA, but perhaps there would be on the other policies.
The homeowner's policy quote for Safeco was $2,538 per year, over $1,000 more than what I'm paying now. The computer algorithm also estimated the home would cost less to rebuild ($1.6 million) than USAA or my contractor friend thought it would. That wasn't particularly appealing.
I moved on to the boat insurance. This part was very surprising to me. The quote came back at $198. I thought that was for the year. It was for the month. That's over six times as expensive as I'm paying now with Allstate. Yeah, I wasn't going to do that either. Maybe Safeco realized how I actually use my boat!
Maybe there would be some savings on the umbrella policy. Unfortunately, I couldn't be offered a $5 million policy because of an auto claim in 2021. I would have to wait until a five-year period had passed. But I could get a $2 million policy. I wasn't really interested in changing coverage that dramatically so I passed on that offer.
Overall, I was pretty pleased with the results of my insurance shopping. Despite having four pretty complicated policies (multiple vehicles and multiple drivers), the whole process only took about an hour, and it was done from the comfort of my own home. I was pleased to learn I had not been dramatically overpaying for the last several decades, and since my claims experience has been excellent (except for that boat claim), I figured we would just stick with what we have for now.
More information here:
What Happens If You Can’t Get Homeowner’s Insurance in Your State?
How Much Umbrella Insurance Coverage Do Doctors Need?
Whitney's Experience
I also asked our college-age daughter Whitney to shop her car insurance around. To reduce liability and promote independence, her 2023 Nissan Rogue is not on our insurance policy. That's likely a pretty expensive decision, as she is currently paying $256 for her full coverage insurance. Per month. And that's with USAA. So, she shopped hers around as well. The good news is that she could do hers completely online without having to call since her situation is relatively straightforward. The bad news is that she didn't save any money. Her three best quotes were:
- Progressive: $351 per month
- Nationwide: $459 per month
- Dairyland: $540 per month
At least she should get cheaper insurance every year from now until age 25. Interestingly, it cost $290 a month when she first bought it because she was living at our house at the time and had to be covered by our umbrella (and so needed the same high liability coverage we have on our autos). But once she actually went to college, she could get the cost down a bit.
The Bottom Line
I'm a bit of an anomaly. Our insurance situation is complicated and expensive, and we are fortunate enough to have access to USAA, given my military service. I suspect most WCIers are far more likely to find savings if they go through this process.
Our new insurance partner makes it easy to compare options, and Farmers' knowledgeable agents can help customize coverage to fit your specific needs. They can show how adjusting deductibles, bundling policies, or finding hidden discounts can potentially save you money. Getting a quote and then having a quick call could mean significant long-term savings.
Find yourself a half-hour or an hour and shop around using Farmers Insurance Choice. You might save thousands of dollars over the years while supporting the WCI mission (you can use that link or mention White Coat Insurance when you call). At worst, you'll trade a little bit of time for the reassurance that you're not getting ripped off.
What do you think? Have you tried getting quotes through our new partner? What was your experience like and how can we improve it?
*Based on average nationwide annual savings of new Farmers GroupSelect® customers surveyed from 2/1/2023 to 9/19/2024 who switched their home insurance policies to Farmers GroupSelect branded policies, responded to the survey, and realized savings. Potential savings vary by customer and may vary by state and product.
The White Coat Investor may receive compensation from White Coat Insurance Services, LLC; licensed in all states including MA and DC; CA license #6009217; NY license #1758759 (exp. 6/2025); Registered address: 10610 S. Jordan Gateway, #200 South Jordan, UT 84095. This does not affect the cost or coverage of insurance.
I find insurance rates quite interesting. I’ve never shopped around for insurance. I’m glad to have inherited eligibility to USAA so that’s been our go to for insurance, excluding life and disability. The time cost of the hour phone call has yet to be worth it given what anecdotally seem like consistently good rates from USAA, not to mention the positive experience with the actual product. It is interesting to me that we pay nearly half of what you and Katie pay for similar age and value of vehicles yet nearly double for homeowners insurance for a house that would cost less than half the cost to rebuild (Midwest). I wish I could get a glimpse into the data they use. It’s also a nice glimpse into a future reality. I’m planning for FI, I do consider the gain from not necessarily needing life and disability insurance but hadn’t considered we would probably want to increase our umbrella policy. And, in 15 years, I don’t want to think what we’ll pay for a new male driver.
WM claims made local to you has a great effect. Aside from how many tornadoes etc an area has had, how many insured made claims after the storms vs otehr similar disasters elsewhere? Anyway that’s a theory I believe.
Great post! I agree with WM’s comment about how inexpensive your home premium is. I’m sure moving up to a 2% deductible made a big difference. Do you know how much vs 1%? Premiums much higher here in North Texas, but hail storms (and roof claims) are a frequent occurrence. Thanks for all you do!
What “significant” or “hidden” discounts should I or my agent be looking for when shopping insurance?
The main one is buying auto/home/umbrella all from the same company.
Hopefully there aren’t any discounts hidden from the agent.
I find it interesting that you are having such great rates with USAA. From a product standpoint, they are excellent and I miss being with them but I saved 40-50% switching and I regularly get quotes from them and they are so high. Not sure if it’s the market I’m in but our homeowners policy is almost double what you pay (for a less expensive house). I wonder if keeping a policy for a long time shields you from market increases even with the rate adjustments that come. Wish I could get some of my rates down as my soon to be teenage drivers will be added.
Same. USAA is double the rate that I pay for homeowners, and has been since I moved here over a decade ago.
Not sure. I am sure that our very high home deductible is part of the reason for the low rates. We don’t need to be able to replace a stolen bike. We just need the house rebuilt if it burns to the ground.
I also have had USAA for years. One thing to be aware of is that other insurance companies often require a higher amount of auto liability coverage–$500K instead of $300K–to qualify for umbrella insurance. In my research USAA was cheaper for my family to qualify for the $5M umbrella coverage because of the lower$300K auto liability requirement. USAA would not cover us for homeowners for quite a few years due to the location of our home in a high wildfire area. Despite this, they were willing to let us have umbrella coverage because they could not cover our home. Normally USAA would not sell you umbrella coverage unless your home and autos were all covered by them. In 2022, after the Caldor Fire, they started offering us coverage for our home again. We were within 1 mile of total devastation and luckily did not suffer damage.
Some require less, sometimes only $250,000. You just have to ask.
Does your USAA umbrella policy cover above-policy-limits claims from your boat, even though the boat is covered by Allstate?
Yes.
Great article and I’ll surely check out the affiliate. My question is in regards to you passing on uninsured/underinsured motorists coverage. My son turned 16 in November and we live in Florida. Lots of billboards for car accident attorneys and lots of uninsured/underinsured motorists. Our rates tripled for the autos despite driving older cars. I shopped for auto/umbrella pretty aggressively when we added my son, but stuck with USAA because of it having accident forgiveness (the only cheaper policy did not). Would love to hear your thinking on the uninsured/underinsured coverage since that would save me nearly $3k annually. I also read Allan Roth skip comprehensive and collision on an older car but that cost was minimal in comparison so I kept it even on the 2007 Honda Pilot my son drives.
Lots of people asking about this today. I guess I’ll have to write a post about why we don’t carry what I view as very optional insurance in states that don’t require it. Bottom line is that I don’t see a risk that either isn’t already covered by the policies I have or that I can’t afford to self-insure.
Odd I went through the online choices for auto/home (no option for umbrella) and the only result I received was for Farmers. There does not appear to be any additional options as explained in the article?
I’m not sure why that happened but would be interested to hear if it happened to a lot of people. I wonder if there’s something unique about your situation or location or something.
I had the same experience.
You must call the correct number to get Farmer’s Insurance CHOICE, not just regular Farmer’s. I called 855-766-4363 which was on the webpage with WCI, and talked to 5 different people before I finally got to the Choice department. Even though I mentioned the White Coat Investor to all of them, most didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. I think you need to call 888-805-2001 and make sure again that you want a quote through Farmer’s CHOICE.
Thank you for that important clarification!
Katie should buy herself a nicer car.
I’ll let her know. It was the most expensive car we had ever bought and the first we ever bought brand new until I got my truck. What do you think she should be driving?
I hadn’t shopped for insurance for fifteen years, and apparently, I am the one who could have been saving thousands every year! Thanks so much for your post, Dr. Dahle! You helped save us over $4000 on our yearly insurance premiums! It wasn’t through Farmers Insurance Choice though, it was by raising our homeowners insurance deductible with USAA.
Since you recommended it, I used the Farmers Insurance Choice link on your website to shop for insurance, and it gave me a total quote for our homeowners insurance plus auto insurance for $9,381.23 a year. On the Farmers Insurance Choice website, the highest homeowners insurance deductible I could choose was $5,000. Since we currently have homeowners and auto insurance with USAA, I went to USAA’s website to get a quote with a $5,000 homeowners insurance deductible, which came to $6,707.39 for both homeowners insurance, plus auto insurance. So USAA was $2.673.84 cheaper with a $5,000 homeowners insurance deductible, and identical auto insurance.
While I was on USAA’s website, I noticed we had a $1,000 deductible on our existing USAA homeowners policy and were paying a total of $8.347.01 for both homeowners and auto insurance. I was curious how high of a deductible we could get, so I adjusted our homeowners insurance deductible up to $35,250, which brought our premiums down to $4,008.52 total for both homeowners and auto insurance, so we decided to go with this option with USAA.
Thanks to your post reminding us to evaluate our insurance policies, we will be saving $4,338.49 on our homeowners insurance premiums this year!
Our pleasure.
Thanks for the nudge to review insurance coverage; it had been 5-6 years since I last looked around. Apples to apples comparison of home, auto, and umbrella coverage through your Farmers link came out to $4600 – $9500 compared to our current total of $3900. Holding tight for now, but will definitely re-evaluate as teenage drivers join the ranks in the future…
Glad you’re getting a good deal!
After 42 years with the GEICO, I just changed all of mine to State Farm. I probably shopped around 5 or 6 times over those 42 years and never found anything anywhere close to what we paid and like you, we were happy with their service. For comparisons sake, we have the same coverage on our vehicles as you with only 2 drivers, but instead of 3 vehicles, we have 6. Yes 6, down from 9 in the last year. We paid $1818 every 6 months on the cars and $3350/yr for our $1.5mln home. State farm came just a few dollars under on the auto and a little over $1k under for our home. The difference on the Umbrella was negligible. We could have saved 10% on the auto policy if we were willing to let them monitor our driving but sports car and big brother don’t go together well so we chose to forego the discount.
Full disclosure: Agent/owner is a former colleague, which may or may not have helped with the rates but I don’t believe they did.
What are your opinions on UI/UIM coverage add on for Umbrella insurance?
Big fan of personal liability/umbrella. You can get a lot of coverage for not very much money to protect against this finanical catastrophe.
I buy what the state or the umbrella policy requires as far as UI/UIM coverage. It’s mostly coverage one already has through health/disability coverage. No sense in buying coverage twice IMHO.
Hi – I tried out the farmers Choice home insurance quote using the WCI link. I gotta say, I was very underwhelmed with the whole experience. I put in all my information on their site. It gave me a small table with the amount quoted – monthly insurance premium and a yearly premium. I was ok that it showed me the quote from only 1 insurance carrier (I’m in IL). However it gave no other information on what are the endorsements as well as limits on the policy – which is kinda crucial to an homeowner’s quote. I thought that maybe its a just a very basic website that they havent really built out the functionality yet. I thought if I call I might get hold of a knowledgeable insurance agent that might be able to explain what was being quoted and what the particulars of this policy were. Ah no such luck. Called on July 2 and connected with an insurance “agent”. Confirmed twice that it was the Farmers Choice insurance agency I was speaking to. For some reason, the agent would just be quiet and I kept on getting the feeling that they just wanted me to finish the call. No interest in providing clarity on the policy (claimed that she was able to see the quote) but could not explain what the particular endorsements/limitations on the policy was. Just very little interest in getting new business. Didnt care that I came from WCI. After a few minutes of me trying to get information, I gave up and decided it wasnt worth my time trying to pursue buying a policy if the agent was not interested in selling the policy. Not sure if this stacks up to the WCI quality that is exhibited by other WCI partner tie-ups.
Thought I would share the experience with readers. btw this was July 2 2025.
Cheers,
Jay
Thanks for the feedback. We’ll see if we can create a better experience for you and others in the future. Or drop the partnership. This partnership takes a lot to get up and running for sure, but at some point it’s gotta be awesome or there’s little point to doing it.
I wanted to increase my umbrella policy limits and my current policy underwriter, RLI would not increase. Travis and Jim suggested going through Farmers. They were able to increase the policy amount.
Glad to hear about your positive experience.