In the early days after discovering FIRE, I read some articles on insurance. Cuz I’m cool like that. Topics covered included the merits (or lack thereof) of various types of insurance and of various coverages for essential insurance. The stuff that Hollywood blockbusters are made of I think you, Dear Reader, will agree.
Luckily, we weren’t total idiots had no insurance policies I now believe are unnecessary for us. But the idea of (regularly) questioning our coverages was a new and welcome one.
You better think (THINK!)
And so I put on my thinking cap which had gathered much . . . much dust. I started with our car insurance policy, for which we had all coverages offered, at the insurance company-suggested levels.
I concluded that we could and would cover most damage to our car and that some other coverage was unnecessary because of our existing health care insurance coverage. So I saw an opportunity to lower coverage/costs.
But one other line item stood out to me: an approximately $5 charge for emergency road service. I called our agent and asked for clarification as to what that covered. The agent explained that it covered towing in the event that that service was needed. “Anytime?” I asked. “Yep,” said the agent. “Wait, I said. “I joined AAA, specifically for its emergency road service benefit. And that costs me $59/year. Are you saying that the “emergency road service” line item covers that same service?” “Yep,” the agent aid matter-of-factly.
This was a facepalm moment of a high order enlightening. I felt like a total moron inspired. By the end of the call, I had adjusted or dropped several coverage line items, which would save us several hundred dollars a year. I did not drop the emergency road service item.
Time to fix AAA problem
What I did next, however, I found most satisfying. That was to call AAA and cancel our membership. For what it’s worth, the charge for emergency road service in our new state is even cheaper than in our old state.
Was this “win” earth shaking? Not so much. Unless you count the not so subdued happy dance I did after all was said and done. But it did increase the spread between our expenses and income, allowed us to deploy the savings to more desirable purposes (Dear Reader, I hope you will indulge me when I say that I do not consider padding a giant insurance company’s coffers a “desirable purpose”), and lowered our FI number. All as a result of a little curiosity and research, some low-level thinking and simple math, and a few short phone calls.
So, Dear Reader, as I’ve expressed before, learning how not to be a sheep and to adopt a constantly questioning mindset can be a valuable practice. If you’re not already doing so, you could do worse than to start.
Drive safely, my friends.
