Costco Connect insurance, are you willing to risk it?

[AYAYRON]

I'm currently insured with Nationwide Rivian insurance, first 6 months $1200, 2nd $1400 3rd, I did the driver's app and got 19% discount b/c my wife didn't want to do it I would have had 38% discount and, not shockingly it's still going up even with 19% discount which got me looking to find someone new.


I saw a few owners say they switched to Costco Connect, which prompted me to call, and WOW way way cheaper, but, I'm not looking to save money at the cost of a future headache, so I started looking for reviews and WOW are they horrible.

If you did go with Connect, did you do it after reading the reviews, or did you go solely based on price hoping you'll never need it and have to find out how bad they are with paying claims?

For us, with 2 vehicles we're looking at $2800 / year for Rivian and $1100for wifes vehicle (2 different carriers) And Costco Connect would be $2200 a year for both total, so the savings is $1700 a year. The only thing I tried to get more apples to apples but Connect never replied to my question to raise the rental coverage from $35/ day to $105/ day which is what I have currently.

Part of me really wants to save $1700 a year, but a bigger part of me doesn't want to as the minute I do it, I'm guaranteed to have to use it and then really regret switching due to their poor customer service and how they will fight paying claims, I cannot imagine a Rivian owner not being able to get their Truck fixed b/c Connect refuses to pay the cost of repair which is an extremely likely outcome.

Thoughts?

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[Riv303]

V interested in this as well…

 

[Rivdog]

I wouldn’t risk it considering how few places are able to actually work on Rivians right now. I’m switching insurance too because it’s gone up exponentially for me (Amica - but they’re great, highly recommend if it’s affordable for you). I recently got a quote with Liberty Mutual for about half what I currently pay and they seem to be good enough. I had 2 homeowners claims with Liberty Mutual from 2017-2020 before switching to Amica and they were pretty good both times.

 

[Robotpedlr]

$105 is a pretty high rental coverage... It seems like most insurance companies offer something closer to the costco amount ($35) and may have discounts set up with Enterprise and others for longer rentals. But even if not, $1,700 pays for a lot of rental and stays in your pocket if you don't have a need for the rental.

 

[CrazyOne]

What is the source of this information? I did a quick check on Geico vs Connect and they were all bad. I am sure Amica is good, but is almost 2x.

 

[NY_Rob]

Costco regulars can be um, pretty demanding... I would imagine a high incidence of insurance complaints would cause them to drop Connect as their partner. Just like on these forums.. maybe you are seeing more negative reviews simply because people without complaints frequently don't write reviews?

 

[AYAYRON]

What is the source of this information? I did a quick check on Geico vs Connect and they were all bad. I am sure Amica is good, but is almost 2x.

Of course Geico is bad, I think that's widely known, so if Connect is on par with Geico, that's more evidence to run away.

Costco regulars can be um, pretty demanding... I would imagine a high incidence of insurance complaints would cause them to drop Connect as their partner. Just like on these forums.. maybe you are seeing more negative reviews simply because people without complaints frequently don't write reviews?

Overall I would agree, however, this relationship is simply a discount given to costco members, anyone can get insurance through Connect, but if you order it through costco ,then you get roadside assistance and a few other perks, and I think a discount along with if you're costco membership is the type where you get 2% back every year you'll get that too.

$105 is a pretty high rental coverage... It seems like most insurance companies offer something closer to the costco amount ($35) and may have discounts set up with Enterprise and others for longer rentals. But even if not, $1,700 pays for a lot of rental and stays in your pocket if you don't have a need for the rental.

Yes $105 is high, but it cost me like $8 every 6 months so why not!

The concern is much more about, for example, The body shop says the repairs cost $12k and Connect (or any insurance company) says we've determined the cost should be $5k, you will have to pay the difference if you want your repairs, and they cannot come to an agreement..................and this is where you ( and I ) would say, does that really happen, and according to the body shop it happens all the time.

The body shop has a R1T with a ton of hail damage that the insurance company won't agree to pay for it's been there for months sitting and waiting for the insurance to agree. During this time the customer's rental coverage maxed out, I would rather pay the extra money annually to avoid this type of problem......and I think I'm being extra conservative simply because I can, I can thankfully afford either policy so while I would love to save money, unless I saw multiple Rivian owners comment here that they had great experiences with Connect during an accident claim I won't risk it.

 

[DTown3011]

What are the other coverage limits? I literally JUST went through insurance renewal and it was a huge hassle/process. Your location matters as well, I'm in Colorado but looks like you are in Texas. Your rates should be better than here but it's all up to the computers these days. We just insured the Rivian and a 2019 Ford Explorer for very high coverage amounts ($500k/$500K) and I'm paying ~$2,700/year for both vehicles after discount.

 

[zymolysis]

$105 is a pretty high rental coverage... It seems like most insurance companies offer something closer to the costco amount ($35) and may have discounts set up with Enterprise and others for longer rentals. But even if not, $1,700 pays for a lot of rental and stays in your pocket if you don't have a need for the rental.

But Rivian repairs, from what I've seen, can often take a looong time.

 

[AYAYRON]

What are the other coverage limits? I literally JUST went through insurance renewal and it was a huge hassle/process. Your location matters as well, I'm in Colorado but looks like you are in Texas. Your rates should be better than here but it's all up to the computers these days. We just insured the Rivian and a 2019 Ford Explorer for very high coverage amounts ($500k/$500K) and I'm paying ~$2,700/year for both vehicles after discount.

connect quote
bodily $250/$500k
property $100k
medical $5k
$500ded

Texas is one of the more expensive states to insure with all the hail damage, plus the insurance companies got crushed with the 2021 winter storm, most of them are pulling out of Texas all together, OR, not writing new policies until 2024.

For our home for example we bought in 2017, new home $1600/ annual policy, that policy is now renewing for $5600 with the same carrier and the other carriers (I use a broker) cost more or only offer 2 % wind / hail deductible which is the most common reason you'll have a claim, it's extremely common in Texas for a new roof to get put on every 3-5 years due to hail, and the worst part is, I'm south of Dallas we haven't had 1 hail storm since we moved in, they're all north of Dallas but we're all lumped into the same bucket paying for other peoples claims by increasing our premiums


I just remembered I did not mention something vitally important, my business bought my truck it has the business name and my name on it, and some insurance companies refuse to write a consumer policy on the Rivian, thankfully nationwide did, but the comapny covering our homes and other car won't (Travelers)

 

[AYAYRON]

But Rivian repairs, from what I've seen, can often take a looong time.

Yes, the body shop told me to expect it to take a month for 2 reasons
1: fighting with the ladies insurance who hit me because there's no standardized labor rates and parts pricing is not public so the insurance will require an invoice before agreeing
2: parts shortages

I think so far I'm lucky, the insurance agreed to almost everything and the parts ETA which was ordered no earlier than 8/25 is arriving 8/31, I may get extremely lucky and be out in under 2 weeks.

 

[Killer95Stang]

No issues with Connect so far, but we were customers when it was still called Ameriprise. The only claims we had were, my wife was party #2, so not at fault. We opted to use Ameriprise, rather than go through the at fault insurance carrier, because we were getting a little bit of a runaround.

As far as Cost, we switched to Costco Ameriprise, when AAA prices got out of hand. We pay about $1600 for a newer F150 and the Rivian R1S. We insure 3 other cars seperately through Hagerty Classic car insurance.

 

[AYAYRON]

No issues with Connect so far, but we were customers when it was still called Ameriprise. The only claims we had were, my wife was party #2, so not at fault. We opted to use Ameriprise, rather than go through the at fault insurance carrier, because we were getting a little bit of a runaround.

As far as Cost, we switched to Costco Ameriprise, when AAA prices got out of hand. We pay about $1600 for a newer F150 and the Rivian R1S. We insure 3 other cars seperately through Hagerty Classic car insurance.

Awesome good to hear 1 positive vote, and I hate saying this, but I'd love to hear real world feedback of an actual Rivian claim because that's really the outlier here, with an older vehicle that's already in the insurance databases I am / wouldn't be too concerned.

 

[Killer95Stang]

Awesome good to hear 1 positive vote, and I hate saying this, but I'd love to hear real world feedback of an actual Rivian claim because that's really the outlier here, with an older vehicle that's already in the insurance databases I am / wouldn't be too concerned.

As a side note, we have 300K/300K coverage on our policy. We went from a 2016 Ford Flex to the 2023 R1S. The price went up $55 per six months, so $110 for the year. I was kind surprised and expected it to be way higher.

 

[DTown3011]

connect quote
bodily $250/$500k
property $100k
medical $5k
$500ded

Texas is one of the more expensive states to insure with all the hail damage, plus the insurance companies got crushed with the 2021 winter storm, most of them are pulling out of Texas all together, OR, not writing new policies until 2024.

For our home for example we bought in 2017, new home $1600/ annual policy, that policy is now renewing for $5600 with the same carrier and the other carriers (I use a broker) cost more or only offer 2 % wind / hail deductible which is the most common reason you'll have a claim, it's extremely common in Texas for a new roof to get put on every 3-5 years due to hail, and the worst part is, I'm south of Dallas we haven't had 1 hail storm since we moved in, they're all north of Dallas but we're all lumped into the same bucket paying for other peoples claims by increasing our premiums


I just remembered I did not mention something vitally important, my business bought my truck it has the business name and my name on it, and some insurance companies refuse to write a consumer policy on the Rivian, thankfully nationwide did, but the comapny covering our homes and other car won't (Travelers)

My advice would be to shop around - fine a broker and get some independent quotes from places like Safeco, Progressive, Chubb, Pure. Get quotes from some of the big box providers like Allstate, Farmers, State Farm and see what comes out. All my quotes were wildly different as were the coverage amounts. At this point it really has nothing to do with the providers, it's all computerized - they plug your information in, it spits out a number, and thats about it.

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