Car insurance prices continue to rise in Albany NY as well as the rest of the state in 2021. The major contributing factors to bloating premiums are attributed to a continued increase in the rate and severity of accidents, costlier bodily injury liability claims, fraud, increased medical costs, rising costs to repair vehicles, and natural disasters.
If there’s one bit of frustration that we hear from prospective new clients at our agency, it’s the question, “why do my premiums keep going up each term when I’ve had no accidents or tickets”? Most would agree that this seems unfair for people who don’t file claims and pay their premiums term after term. Unfortunately, even good drivers who are not causing insurer payouts share in the overall claims expense of the company they are insured with. Most folks in Albany are okay with and even expect a relatively small incremental increase on their renewals each term to account for inflation, but large price swings can be tough to swallow.
Company by Company Experience Ratings
Every insurer pays close attention to their “experience ratings”. An experience rating is simply the total amount of money being paid out in claims divided by the total amount of premiums collected. The higher this percentage goes, the worse for the insurer, especially if it rises above 100%, which means that a deficit is created and a premium hike may be in the works. At any given time, one company may have a low experience percentage while another one is over 100%. Depending on which one you’re with can determine whether your renewal bill bloats or remains stable.
How Can I Save on my Albany NY Car Insurance Premium?
Besides taking advantage of eligible discounts such as bundles, defensive driving course, good student, going paperless or using automatic monthly payment options, your real savings opportunity will most likely come by shopping with an independent insurance agency that has direct appointments and broker access to the best national and regional carriers.
One thing most people don’t realize is that insurance company premium rates cycle up and down over time and within those cycles introduce new programs that rate fantastic, especially for people with good credit and good driving history. Utilizing an agency that has these companies and also manually quotes with the right ones while maximizing available discounts is the way to go for your Albany NY car insurance quote.
I Changed To a New Carrier, Now What?
Many of our agency’s new customers, especially those who have saved a significant amount on their insurance, will ask if their rates are going to go up on renewal. Our answer is always honest and the reply is that we don’t know. We can only assess the pricing history of any particular insurer as to whether renewals have been stable or not stable in pricing. But the other thing we promise is that in the event their insurer begins to increase price on a scale that’s above the norm from others in the Albany area, we can run new quotes for our client to determine whether or not they still have the best overall policy for them. If we find a better policy option with a different insurer, we can simply switch our customer to that new company.
That’s one of the advantages of working with an independent agency as opposed to a captive one. With a captive agency, you only get one option unless they happen to come out with a new program and allow their clients to change their existing policy to the new program policy. With only one option, more times than not, you are stuck in your policy unless you decide to make a move.
Please let us know if you’d like an assessment of your current policy. We’ll be happy to assist you with your Albany car insurance quote or any questions you may have.