By Dr. Jim Dahle, WCI Founder

When 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?

Understanding Homeowners Insurance Endorsements and Riders: What Additional Protections Are Worth It?

 

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.