Clark, the review Written by Ruthe Hall | March 28th, 2024 - was the best and most complete review I think I have
ever read! She is a keeper! I always look at the names of the writers to determine if they are consistent. Give this gal a gold star! --RedMan
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Wow…! Good stuff. I read many of her articles. Thanks…!
After reading her review I got a quote from them but they were $30/month higher than my Allstate Milewise policy which has better coverage and I only drive 1800 miles/year.
Hi @RedMan,
Ruthe here! Thank you so much for the kind feedback! It’s truly appreciated.
I love the Clark Howard website and the consumer knowledge it shares. I read this MileAuto article with great interest since just 2 days ago, we received our auto insurance renewal, and our one year premium increased from $3,000 to $4,000. I gathered all that would be needed and called to compare our exact coverage “donuts to donuts”. We are in Florida and read a couple months ago our insurer was pulling out of Florida, so I really wanted MileAuto to work.
Before I get started, I called our insurance and was told they operate as several names in Florida, and ours is STAYING in Florida; hence the renewal notice & bill.
OK, we have 2 cars, mine is a mid size sedan,14 years old, purchased new in 2010 and now has 205,000 miles(drove a lot before retiring). My wife’s is a 4Series BMW “Tin Top” we got in 2020. I wanted accurate monthly mileage estimates, which was easy for the BMW, by taking the odometer and dividing by 40 months of ownership. Mine too was easy because we roadtripped last October and have accurate odometer readings from repair records. I spent a lot of $ for piece of mind by replacing all front end components, all new brakes, 4 new tires, serpentine belt(my 3rd), synthetic oil change, as well as coolant replacement and draining/replacing the transmission fluid(NOT a flush); both previously done at 100K. Yup, spent $4,000 on a car worth $3,000, but I know my car and it runs great because it’s been maintained and it has never needed a repair.
MileAuto quoted me a monthly Base of $185, plus $0.169/mile for my car and $0.172 for my wife. This, and the two $5 fees but not the $3 “convenience” fee, that isn’t charged in Florida. Based on our monthly milage estimates of 438 for my wife & 714 for me(including the roadtrip), MileAuto quoted us $381/month total for both cars. Our current insurance at just over $4,000 per year worked out to $337/month. Darn, a no brainer to stay with our current insurance, paying once a year; not paying a monthly bill along with submitting monthly odometer photos.
Since insurance rates take all kinds of things into consideration, here is a little too much about us. We are early 70s, debt free, own our home & small vacation home with no mortgages and no car loans. We typically charge $5-$6K, but pay in full, timely every month. In the last 15+ years, our credit scores have never been <800. We both have “Safe Driver” designation on our driver’s licenses, with no accidents or tickets in the last 5 years. This is why I was shocked by the $185 monthly base rate. BTW, we tweeked our renewal policy, staying with $100K/$300K for bodily injury & property damage, but raised our deductible from $500 to $1,000, dropping collision & comprehensive on my 14 year old car. This actually got us close to the $3,000 we paid last year, and <$300/month for comparison, so a win for us just by being motivated to review in consideration of switching insurance.
Bottom line is MileAuto won’t work for everyone, but it is an interesting concept, so I encourage people to see if it works for them.
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We have always took Clark Howard’s advice, but after getting such low quotes from Mile Auto I checked their BBB rating and reviews. I hope you never have an accident while insured by this company, the BBB says they are no longer in business and their complaints are awful! Not just on the BBB website either, all over the internet, people are complaining about this company not holding up their end of the insurance contracts and basically leaving people paying out of pocket or without a vehicle period. I’m glad I did some further research before I decided to drop my current insurance carrier and purchase a fraudulent carrier.
I enjoyed the review and decided to contact Mile Auto over the phone. I received a quote for the same coverage as what I currently have. I received an email shortly after the call, with it detailing what we talked about in coverage, and an attached quote. The numbers in the email looked good and I was ready to proceed, until I looked at the attached quote. The levels of insurance were 1/2 of what we discussed and what was put into the email. I sent a reply back to customer service politely asking for a revised quote with the numbers we talked about and as shown in the email. That was over a week ago. Apparently they are not interested in my business. Anyways, that level of customer service does not interest me. Just today before writing this I looked up their rating with the BBB and it’s an F. I think I dodged a bullet and will look at other insurance carriers.