Called Ameriprise, Got Auto & Home Insurance Quotes Plus a Hard Credit Pull

By Sun on Nov 21, 2006 in Insurance, Personal finance
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Last Tuesday, I got an estimate of auto insurance premium from Ameriprise after receiving an email from them. Since I didn't give them my social, the quote was only an rough number, plus it was for auto only, not auto and home. Even so, the price was still lover then what I am paying Liberty Mutual now. A reader later also had some nice words to say about their rates and services.

I waited till last Saturday to give them a call to get a better quote. After the home insurance quote but before the car insurance, the CSR told me I had to provide both my and my wife's SSN for a credit check in order to get an accurate quote. Though the home insurance premium came out better than we paid Liberty Mutual ($207 vs $253 for our townhouse), I wasn't ready for the credit pull before knowing I can really save some meaningful money with them. I asked the CSR to assume the best credit first and let me see how competitive their rate can be before the credit inquiry. With exactly the same coverage as I currently have with Liberty Mutual, the full year premium is $1252, compared to Liberty Mutual's $1516, a good amount of savings that justified a credit check. So I gave her our SSNs and the rate of auto insurance inched a little higher to $1332. Asking the CSR what caused the increase, she said it could be a number of factors and wasn't give me anything specific. Later on I suspected it could the high balance on my credit cards due to 0% BT. Though I paid off two of the three offers last week, the balance won't be cleared until sometime next month the earliest. When the CSR ran the credit check, she still saw some $32,000 balance on my credit cards. There could be other reasons, but this definitely affected the price, more or less. The home insurance, however, didn't change after the inquiry.

The quote was for full coverage for both cars. If I only insure my 2000 Honda Accord with liability, the premium dropped to $1118, more than $200 lower. I still haven't decided whether to keep the comprehensive for my car. It's 6 and half years old and has more than 82,000 miles on it already and I only drive the car to work every day on local roads. The chance of having an accident is much lower than two years ago when I had to commute nearly 120 miles round trip every day to work. Of course, people can have accident anywhere.

I have asked a hard copy of the quotes and other related information being mailed to me and I have till the end of January to make a decision on whether to keep the comprehensive coverage for both cars. But I'll definitely switch from Liberty Mutual to Ameriprise if nothing happens between now and next January that makes me change my mind.

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