Ask Liz Weston

Get smart with your money

insurance premiums

Q&A: Rising insurance premiums

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Dear Liz: I’m an insurance agent specializing in long-term-care policies and just read your advice to the woman who was upset about how much her premiums had risen. Her premiums were $2,400 annually starting when she was 55 but are $4,470 now that she’s 77. First, thank you for noting that these premium increases are because insurance companies didn’t expect people to live so long and nursing home rates to increase so much. Please also tell your reader that, at her age, her premium for the coverage she has now would be well over $12,000! She bought early and she’s definitely getting a ridiculously low premium for the coverage she has. I’m sorry that she’s on a fixed income, but ask her how she’ll pay for a $60,000-per-year stay in a nursing home. If she can’t afford her premium, she should reduce her amount of time covered, not the amount of dollars covered.

Answer: Let’s be clear about who’s at fault here. It’s not the people who bought long-term-care insurance policies and expected them to remain affordable.

Insurers are supposed to be experts at predicting risk, but they made incorrect assumptions about how many people would drop their policies (known as the lapse rate), how many would file claims and how long those claims would last. Insurers also overestimated the returns they could get on their bond investments, which also help determine premiums.

All these stumbles have led to repeated premium increases that have threatened to make coverage unaffordable right when people need their coverage the most.

This woman is well aware of the high costs of long-term care; that’s why she bought the policy in the first place and kept paying it all these years. Her premium might seem “ridiculously low” to you, but anyone with an ounce of empathy could understand that $4,470 is a huge chunk of change for most seniors.

Keeping her coverage means giving up some of the benefits she was promised and had been counting on. Reducing the number of years the policy protects her, for example, could make her premium more affordable but leave her exposed to devastating costs if she needs many years of care.

This is a crappy situation for people who were trying to do the right thing. They don’t deserve to be sneered at for being upset about it.

“Cheap” insurance could cost more in the long run

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Dear Liz: My homeowners insurance just went up 25%. I’ve made no claims and made no changes. I want to get quotes from other providers, but I’m afraid I’m going to get some type of “teaser” rate. I tried changing companies a few years ago and the rate was good, but when it came time for the renewal, they doubled the price! Again, I made no changes nor had any claims. So, now I want to change, but I’m afraid of falling into the same trap. Any suggestions?

Answer: You can’t assume you’re locking in a low rate for life when you buy homeowners insurance. Companies that want to expand their market share may lower their prices awhile to lure customers away from their competitors, then raise premiums when their claims costs go up or they simply want to cut their risk.

The company’s reputation for customer service should be at least as important a factor as price in your decision-making. Check the complaint surveys that many state insurance departments maintain on their websites to see which companies have the best (and worst) reputations.

One way to reduce your homeowner premium is to increase your deductible. Raising the amount you pay out of pocket from $250 to $1,000 can lower your premiums 25%. You should be paying small damages out of pocket anyway, since filing small claims can cause your rates to rise.

You also should shop around every few years, even if a company doesn’t dramatically raise your rates, to make sure you’re getting a decent deal. But again, chasing the lowest-cost insurance could be only a short-term win — an insurer that charges slightly more could be the more stable, and consumer-friendly, choice.

Save money. Don’t multi-task.

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The barista had to ask three times for her order before the woman finally responded. She’d been so busy nattering away to her friend in line that she didn’t notice she was now at the front.

And the fun wasn’t over. When it was time to pay, the woman pulled out her wallet and dug fruitlessly inside, opening the same compartments over and over, all the while keeping up the nonstop chatter.

As the seconds ticked passed and the line grew, what started out as vaguely annoying became absolutely absurd. The barista looked at me, the next person in line, and widened her eyes in exasperation.

I shrugged. I was just grateful I’d encountered this person in a coffee shop rather than on the road, where she probably thinks she can drive while talking on the phone just fine.

Obviously, she can’t. None of us can. Multi-tasking is a myth, and only works when both the things you’re trying to do are brain-dead simple–like folding laundry and watching TV. Anything more complicated, and you’re likely to do one or both things far worse than if you’d concentrated on a single task.

But multi-tasking isn’t just stupid. It can be expensive. Consider:

  • Talking on a cell phone while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk. You’re four times as likely to be in an accident.
  • Texting while driving raises your chances of an accident by 20 times.
  • Not only are you risking injury and death–and the injury and death of others–but you’re just begging for a nice juicy lawsuit. As Nolo Press puts it, “plaintiffs have argued (and some courts have agreed) that a driver was legally at fault for the accident (“negligent,” in legalese) because the driver used a cell phone immediately before or during the collision.”
  • If a plaintiff’s attorney can successfully argue that a phone call is distracting, think how much easier his or her case will be if you were texting–which any idiot knows you shouldn’t do in a car.
  • Even if everybody walks away without stunning medical bills, you can bet your life your auto insurance rates will skyrocket.

It’s not that hard to turn off the phone and put it away when you drive. You’ll drive better, and you could save yourself a fortune.