Disclaimer

This blog contains some simple tips and advice from two regular guys. We're not accountants, financial advisors, or brokers, so follow, ignore, or discuss our ideas as you see fit.

Monday, November 5, 2007

The diminishing returns of comprehensive auto insurance coverage

Posted by Matt

My car is paid for, but I still carry comprehensive coverage for it because it is relatively new. As the car ages and its value drops, however, paying to maintain the coverage is going to make less and less sense.

Luckily, I found this quick rule of thumb:

Drop your collision and comprehensive coverage when the car is worth less than 10 times what you pay for the insurance.
I'm assuming they mean "10 times what you pay for the insurance annually." I've had many cars in the past that fell into this category, and I always just maintained liability insurance (as required in our state).

Thanks to Money Magazine for the helpful tip, although it looks like I won't be saving any money on auto insurance for awhile. They did also recommend deductible increases (save up to 30%) and searching insweb.com, an easy-to-navigate comparison site for finding low rates.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool. Any suggestions for ways to determine how much your car is worth?

Matt said...

Yeah, that would have been great to include, huh?

I'd recommend the appraisal pages on either of the following websites:

Kelley Blue Book (www.kbb.com)
Edmunds (http://www.edmunds.com/)