Progressive Insurance

Getting Aggressive with Progressive

Feeling the pinch on your wallet every time your motorcycle insurance bill shows up? Finding it hard to scrape together money for prime rib because your insurance rates might be a wee too high? You're not alone. While it's not easy to find motorcycle insurance in the Northwest there is one company a lot of us use and they make it simple to sign on. If you spend an hour or so doing your homework you may be able to significantly cut your bill. If you find this story helpful in doing so send us a note and let us know what you saved. Although we talk specifically about Progressive Insurance Company here, many of these tricks can be applied to other companies, as well.

Our story began with insuring two bikes earlier this year, a '97 Honda 250 and a '97 Honda Pacific Coast 800. To insure these vehicles we contacted an automotive insurance company, Pemco, and were referred by them to Progresssive since Pemco does not cover bikes. Our owner has one speeding ticket and lives in Seattle proper. The owner also has no medical insurance. Progressive called back and quickly got the bikes insured to the tune of $875 a year. This sounded kind of high and when a friend insured similar bikes for $350 the alarm went off. Here's how we dropped the rate.

Agents - Because the bikes were referred to Progressive through Pemco, the Progressive agent refused to discuss changing coverage's and rates because of their loyalty to agents who account for 75% of their business. We took the clue and called back another rep to cancel the policy. Frankly, Pemco has nothing to do with the policy once it's sold, but continues to reap a benefit from their referral. If you're using an agent you may want to cancel your policy and reinsure directly as this will probably save you some money. If you do be sure your cancellation and startup dates are in alignment.

Coverage types - When you insure your bikes Progressive asks you what coverage's you want, but not what level. By default they assign the highest. You need to know what the minimum and maximums are for each coverage and specify them to the representative. If you don't know, ask. This becomes real important,  quickly.

Brownie Points - You get discounts at Progressive if you are an AMA member, have a Motorcycle Safety Foundation certification in the last three years and have a lot of riding time under your belt. Be sure to include this information when getting your new quote. These can add up to a 25% saving on your liability coverage.

Use the Internet - After canceling the policy we called back and attempted to reinsure the bikes. This time the quote came back higher than what was being paid the first time. We knew Progressive had a web site so we went there. This time we did online quotes and were very surprised. Getting online quotes dropped the rate 25% right off the bat. But there was no options for level of coverage per category? Once you complete your quote print it out and call Progressive at the 800 number they provide on the last screen.

While you're on the site remember you will need to do one quote at a time per bike. Once we had all quotes printed out we gave them a call. The agent had our quotes there with him using our last name and zip code which we provided on the site. He was ready to take our credit card number right there but this is when we were ready to save a few more bucks. We started knocking the minimum/maximums on a few of the coverage's since the option to do so was not available on the site. For example, the $50,000 collision got dropped to $25,000 since we probably won't be running into the presidential limousine anytime soon. We kept the uninsured motorist medical coverage's up since the owner doesn't have medical insurance himself.

After all was said and done we had dropped the rate down $346, 40% lower, from the original $875 to only $529!!!! We'll be celebrating with a leisurely ride to a steak house.

There's probably a number of riders out there who could save some significant money on their policy. It's worth an hour or so on the phone and internet. If you do save money feel free to invite us out for some Prime Rib while you're at it.

Patrick Thomas