I've been a long-time resident of Oakland, CA (M29). To save a lot of money on school and living conditions (or not depending on how ppl think), I've been an add-on on my sister's AAA insurance policy and I paid a flat $700/yr since 2015 with liability only and a couple other options (bodily injury liability is $50-100k; $0 medpay; uninsured motorist bodily cov is $50-100k; etc. pretty much all sensible rates).
However, my old car that I've been driving has been driving me nuts (no pun intended) because it's an old '96 Honda and it was originally bought from an abusive driver who didn't give a damn about car maintenance for dirt cheap. I bought the parts and everything and the car worked fine after a lot of money involving fixings. Since then, it's been having hiccups and I've been paying extra to keep it going. That's why I want to move on to a new car (2016 Toyota bought from my mother which she kept in pretty good condition) and buy a brand new insurance policy on that Toyota. Her family members can still use my old car if they wish since it's still on her policy but I'm not really interested in trying to use it again after all the troubles I went thru with it.
I've been looking around for AAA, Geico, Allstate, etc. and so far, every other insurance company provides much cheaper rates than AAA and with similar options for FULL COVERAGE (ex: AAA offers $220/mo with already a discount that I'm a good driver and been a long-time customer while GEICO offers online for $145/mo for those same options and so on for other companies with even lower rates). I know that Oakland (or Bay Area) drivers are very reckless and I've been victim to many hit-n-runs along with random car collisions even when I parked my car in a parking lot near a supermarket so I'm asking for some honest opinions before I go forward with any other companies besides AAA. Thanks for reading this long paragraph.
However, my old car that I've been driving has been driving me nuts (no pun intended) because it's an old '96 Honda and it was originally bought from an abusive driver who didn't give a damn about car maintenance for dirt cheap. I bought the parts and everything and the car worked fine after a lot of money involving fixings. Since then, it's been having hiccups and I've been paying extra to keep it going. That's why I want to move on to a new car (2016 Toyota bought from my mother which she kept in pretty good condition) and buy a brand new insurance policy on that Toyota. Her family members can still use my old car if they wish since it's still on her policy but I'm not really interested in trying to use it again after all the troubles I went thru with it.
I've been looking around for AAA, Geico, Allstate, etc. and so far, every other insurance company provides much cheaper rates than AAA and with similar options for FULL COVERAGE (ex: AAA offers $220/mo with already a discount that I'm a good driver and been a long-time customer while GEICO offers online for $145/mo for those same options and so on for other companies with even lower rates). I know that Oakland (or Bay Area) drivers are very reckless and I've been victim to many hit-n-runs along with random car collisions even when I parked my car in a parking lot near a supermarket so I'm asking for some honest opinions before I go forward with any other companies besides AAA. Thanks for reading this long paragraph.