Our auto insurance went up $200 to around $1600 this year. Even though our cars are a year older and more time has passed since our last accident and we’re a year older and so on.
So DH (my hero) called up the auto company and asked what happened. After some lengthy conversation about how medical claims going up can’t possibly be the reason for vehicular damage costs going up, the person on the other end asked if we wanted to do a 20 min survey to get some underwriting done. (She didn’t put it quite like that.)
DH said sure, because he called at 7pm and the kids were watching a show.
Less than 20 min later, he’d cut the bill by $600 (to just under $1000).
20 min = $600. That’s a better hourly rate than Mr. Money Moustache’s latest post about the benefits of credit card churning.
If it’s been a while since you asked your regular providers for a discount… give them a call today! You might be surprised at what they have to offer.
Do it! And report back to us. :)
Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 
October 20, 2014 at 3:49 am
I have not called lately, but several years ago it took less than five minutes in the office to get a $200 reduction. I was paying with a check and forgot to mail it. Since I drive by the office almost every day, I rushed there right at closing time. The owner of the local office/agency was there, so I offered a disgruntled complaint about high insurance costs. He said, “Let me see what I can do.” Immediately, he told me what the reduction and new cost would be. I was shocked at the offer and shocked at the reduction. I do need to try this again.
October 20, 2014 at 5:36 am
Why not try today?
October 20, 2014 at 6:25 am
That is amazing and scary at the same time. So many people would just pay the bill and move on. Good job, guys =)
October 20, 2014 at 1:16 pm
Obviously we should have called a whole lot earlier– being able to drop $600 is a pretty sizable drop.
October 20, 2014 at 8:39 am
I should have hubby call when he gets back from his work trip. He recently called about cable (it’s in his name) and they refused to so anything even after we said we’d cancel. I want to see if I can get a better deal on renters insurance too.
October 20, 2014 at 1:37 pm
Monopolies suck so badly.
October 20, 2014 at 9:10 am
You reminded me and I called about my cable and internet. I got a free upgrade on internet for six months but I had to downgrade my cable and might end up downgrading again even more.
October 20, 2014 at 1:38 pm
:) :/
October 20, 2014 at 10:10 am
My cable bill doubled this summer after my first-year rate expired (it went from 45 to 85). I called and said I was going to have to cancel if they couldn’t find me something cheaper. They got me a rate at about $58.
My insurance actually lets me manage the underwriting process online. Since I’m taking public transportation and driving a lot less these days, I went and changed my milage online, and it dropped my 6mo insurance bill by about 40 bucks.
October 20, 2014 at 11:18 am
That is super cool.
October 20, 2014 at 11:25 am
I called Comcast and got a $20/month reduction provided that I sign on for 2 years of “improved” Comcast. As long as I count no information about movies and the most awful search feature ever as an improvement (Comcast does), and as long as I don’t mind that I can’t watch Netflix for more than an hour a day without encountering a mysterious “no internet” problem, it was a success. On the up side, though, it’s become so difficult to find programs through On Demand that we hardly watch TV any more. Thanks for the productivity boost, Comcast!
October 20, 2014 at 11:30 am
Sometimes we only get 20 minutes of Netflix before the whole thing stalls and we’re done for the night. No, I’m not going to call them because (1) they’ll just bounce me back and forth blaming each other and (2) I’m afraid that they’ll give us even worse service, if that’s possible.
But on the upside: I had to buy Sherlock since Netflix wouldn’t play it for more than 20 minutes at a time, so now I have it whenever I want. So thanks, Comcast!
October 20, 2014 at 12:24 pm
Monopolies suck.
October 20, 2014 at 9:06 pm
We’re stuck with our cable (actually, satellite) provider because there is only one option that includes rugby, and that is frankly the only reason we have any sort of TV provider at all anymore. On the plus side, this makes it easy to get rid of the competitors when they show up trying to get us to switch. If it weren’t for the rugby, we’d ditch cable/satellite altogether and just rely on Amazon Prime and our Roku (plus a couple of other Roku channels- Acorn is a favorite).
To make himself feel better about the amount of money we pay each month just so that we can watch rugby, my husband switched us to Ooma for our phone. We’ve had a few issues, but they’re resolved and I can’t argue with the price.
October 21, 2014 at 6:58 am
My car insurance went up $10/mo last year, so I called to find out why. They did not give me any opportunities to reduce the bill, besides reducing coverage. I don’t seem to be able to get service providers to offer me discounts ever…
October 21, 2014 at 7:04 am
It took a lot of arguing from DH and patience to be kicked to someone who could adjust the bill. Often the first-line person can’t do anything and you have to ask to be bumped up to someone who can.