The premium any of you pay is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT unless OP is the exact same age, lives on the same street, drives the same car, has the exact same driving record you have and chooses the exact same coverage. When I moved from Tennessee to Louisiana, my rate more than doubled, just because Louisiana has higher claims. A driver in another state with another insurer paying less than you pay tells you absolutely nothing about what your rate would be if you switched.
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Originally Posted by HeartbeaT91
The thing I'm curious about though with everyone saying they have 'full coverage' - how much coverage do you guys actually have? minimum 'Fullcoverage' is actually really gambling pretty hard, at least for Washington state as we only require like 10k across almost all things.
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Usually when people mention "full coverage," they mean comprehensive. The state minimums are for liability coverage only, which covers your actions that affect other people. Comprehensive includes liability coverage but covers you as well. Examples:
If you have state minimum liability coverage, run a red light and hit another car, your insurance will pay that person's claim but not yours (up to the limits on your policy).
If you have state minimum liability coverage and run off the road, hitting no other cars but damaging yours, your insurance pays nothing.
If you have comprehensive coverage and run off the road, hitting no other cars but damaging yours, you can file a claim.
If you have comprehensive coverage, run a red light and hit another car, your insurance will pay the other person's claim (under the liability portion) and your claim (under the comprehensive portion).
There's also an "in-between" level of coverage, liability with uninsured motorist coverage. If you just have liability, and an uninsured driver runs a red light and hits you, your insurance pays nothing because they're only covering
your liability for damage
you cause. If you add uninsured motorist coverage, your insurer will pay out to you in that situation, but NOT if you run off the road yourself.
The state minimums are just a minimum level of liability coverage the state says you must carry to pay out to other people if you cause an accident. If you just carry the state minimum, and the other guy's expenses are higher than that, he can usually sue you for the difference. Sometimes it's a good idea to increase your limits above the minimum (which costs you more in premiums) to avoid getting yourself sued.
A lot of people don't understand any of this because they just take the insurance their lender requires when they finance a car. Lenders usually require comprehensive. So if you call up Geico or State Farm or any other and tell them you're financing a new car, they'll usually just quote you the cost of comprehensive, since they know that's what you're going to need, without explaining the difference between the liability and comprehensive portions of the policy.