That's a tremendous discount on your homeowners insurance! If it were me I would jump on that, but ONLY if the coverage as stated in the contract (not just what the advertisements and the agent selling, tells you, is identical. This might be a stupid question also, but was the 785 an annual premium and the 385 a 6 month premium? Sometimes insurance companies quote one or the other and they can be pretty coy about not making it obvious
I've had my homeowner's policy (and agent) for 20 years and have literally had a dozen attempts to lure me away to another company, dangling this very attractive rate, but of the one's that were actually significantly lower, the level of coverage was far less. Sometimes unbelievably so. My agent has always been very up front and several times he told me to pull my policy packet and highlight several numbers and ask the competing company what their equivalent was and lo and behold the awesome rate they quoted me suddenly became more expensive than what I was paying when they matched coverage line by line. Another thing to be careful about is that they will match your coverage but your deductibles will be triple and several other features can be omitted like personal property. (i.e. if your car get stolen your homeowners will pay for personal items that were in the car at the time; gifts, clothing, electronics, jewelry etc.) When I had my motorcycle accident, my homeowners paid for my helmet, leathers, boots, riding armor, backpack and gloves which was over $2300 dollars minus $200 deductible.
Chances are AAA is on the up and up and are quoting you like for like, but other things to be wary of are that its not uncommon for even a large insurers to drop you if you make 2 moderate claims, total, to which they pay out, and my neighbor was dropped from AAA after the payout for making one large claim (tree fell on house). At which point you're known to every insurer to have been dropped and your rates, if you can find another large carrier that will take you, increase accordingly (kind of like big traffic tickets and trying to get a low auto premium). The most "lenient" an insurer can be in this regard is to drop you if you make 3 claims in 1 year (which is some pretty bad luck
) and after the year is over it resets. Fireman's fund does this, but its not written in the contract or in anyone's actually, you find this out the hard way normally.
Anyhow, there is LOTS to consider besides the price. Check reviews and keep in mind also if you find an awesome agent, stick with them, they make life SO much easier and actually do have some leeway to bend rules and make decisions that fall in your favor that otherwise might not if left to the corporate office.
