Look for Senior Insurance Discounts

Because senior people are better risks, several big insurance companies make premium discounts available to people smart enough and aggressive enough to ask for them. More and more insurance companies are offering senior insurance discounts like auto insurance discounts, car insurance discounts, health insurance discounts, homeowners insurance discounts, etc.

Washington, D.C.-based GEICO Insurance takes a leading position in offering these breaks. Policyholders over 50 who are retired receive a discount of five to 25 percent on homeowner and automobile insurance premiums, depending on the policy. Retirees are loosely defined as people working fewer than 20 hours a week.

An additional ten percent off auto premiums is given to older people willing to take an accredited defensive driving course.

The only downside: All of GEICO’s auto discounts end at age 74.

Throughout the late 1980s, a number of other property/casualty insurance companies followed GEICO’s lead. Farmers Insurance Group, lowered its homeowners rates around the country for policyholders age 50 and older. The move came on the heels of its auto insurance rate drop for 50-and-older policyholders.

State Farm also reduced its property/casualty rates for older people about the same time. “An improved loss experience with policyholders over 50 years of age led to the rate decreases,” reported the Tulsa World in 1988, after Farmers cut auto and home rates for people over 50 in Oklahoma.

About the same time, Prudential Property and Casualty Insurance Company (PRUPAC) implemented a five percent premium discount for homeowners 55 or older in several key states.

According to a spokesman with PRUPAC’s Eastern Regional Service Office in New York, “This program was designed to recognize the overall favorable loss experience of the mature homeowner. We’re constantly striving to offer the best products at the most competitive price. This mature homeowner discount is just another example of that.