Tom in Austin

Surprised me to realize that insurance is the second most costly part about owning my S-class. Depreciation of course is far and away the biggest cost, but insurance runs about 50 cents a mile, more than gas or maintenance.

Lou B

I'm surprised you were surprised. Perhaps your insurance is folded into a finance payment? Since I pay the premium directly to the insurer I''m immediately aware of its impact. Same with the annual property tax, but this varies widely from one jurisdiction to another.
What had you thought it might be? Or, where did you think insurance might fall in the scheme of things?
Of course, as your S Class depreciates, your insurance premium will go down as well.
Minimizing expensive and gimmicky options and longevity of ownership are the best ways I know of to reduce the impact of both depreciation and insurance premiums.

Mitch Alsup

You need to drive more miles.

Tom in Austin

Hah! Good point, cost per mile. I wish I could declare it a 'collector car' ... with my Porsche I paid something like $400 a year for agreed value coverage and could actually drive the car, just not regular commuting to work.

badq45t

What I just found this year is that the insurance costs are very different based on what state and what provider you have. I had Farmers Insuarnce for a long time (40 years) and over last 3 renewals they jacked me up big time in CA. The last one was sort of my last straw, they were asking 5k for my 16" S-Class, 21 nissan leaf and 2005 Nissan Xterra, it was about 2x what I was paying and this is 300/600/300 coverage. I shopped around and AAA was more, State Farm isn't writing new policies but a new agent got me Mercury same coverage for $1,800 annual! Shop it

Lou B

Insurance is a business in which the proprietors/investors expect to make money - just like any other business, including publishing a newspaper. There's no other reason for a business's existence. Why do you think Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway's recent gigantic investment in Chubb, another insurance company in which he invested, was made? To make money.
Rates (selling prices) are always set to produce an acceptable level of profit to be distributed to the business's ownership. There's nothing bad or wrong about this - it's called private enterprise. As an uncle of mine was fond of saying, "The priceless ingredient in any transaction is always the profit."
There's also nothing wrong with shopping around for cover at an affordable price. The more cover you need - home, cars, personalty, life, etc, etc, the more money you will spend. The choices are always yours.

Crito

I don't need any cover. But unfortunately I have no choice. I must pay our corporate masters. They'll put me in jail if I don't.