The $616 Collision Premium on a Truck Worth $8,900
My 2013 F-150 has 148,000 miles and books at $8,900. Full coverage cost $1,620 a year and $616 of that was collision. I dropped collision in March and kept comp. The new premium is $1,002. The truck fund at First Interstate holds $1,150. Deer, hail, and theft stay covered.
One thousand six hundred twenty dollars. That renewal number hung on the fridge under a magnet shaped like a trout, and I stood in front of it at 6:15 in the mornin' with the coffee pot gurgling and read it twice before I poured. The truck underneath the number is a 2013 F-150 XLT with 148,000 miles, a bench seat cracked down the middle, and hay dust no vacuum has ever beaten. One sixty a month, for that truck.
Travis got laid off from the gravel plant in November, and the budget has a hole in it where $3,100 a month usta be. Our place runs on that truck — feed runs, the stock trailer, two hauls a month to the sale barn outside Billings. The insurance bill could move. Property taxes on the 40 acres land November 30 at $2,140, and there is no version of fall where that bill goes unpaid.
Dennis, our agent at the Farm Bureau office in town, told me most people never question full coverage car insurance til somebody prints the payout column for them. Then he printed it. My truck's own payout schedule topped out at $8,900 minus a $1,000 deductible — $7,900 on an awfully good day. The gap between what I pay in and what they would pay out is where this whole decision lived, and it fit on one yellow legal page.
what the truck is worth, per Kelley Blue Book
Kelley Blue Book put private-party value at $10,100 and trade-in at $8,900 in good condition, with the note that dealers around here would start lower. The truck is twelve model years old and loses about $74 of value a month, which is $2.40 a day. Comp and collision together were running $1,004 of the $1,620, with collision alone at $616 — fifty-one dollars a month to protect a $7,900 payout. Full coverage car insurance made sense when the truck was worth $30,000. Somewhere before 120,000 miles, it stopped.
the agent's payout schedule
The schedule Dennis printed had four lines and took him ninety seconds. Total loss at current market: $8,900. Less deductible: $7,900. Annual collision cost: $616. Anticipated payout window, his words: "whenever it dies, if it dies whole." I folded that page into my wallet and carried it around for two weeks like a receipt I was contesting.
the split that surprised me
The split surprised me. Collision alone was $616 a year. Comp was $388. The remaining $616 covered liability, uninsured motorist, and roadside on both vehicles, a coincidence in dollar amounts Dennis spotted before I did. So collision cost $616 a year to insure against a $7,900 event my driving record says I have dodged for thirteen years and 240,000 miles across two states.
the yellow legal page
Four columns: year, premium, payout, and the difference. 2026: $1,620 premium against a $7,900 payout. 2027: closer to $1,500 against a payout that stops shrinking, cuz these old trucks hold value better than anything else in the driveway. 2028: same story, tighter. Three years of the collision line alone would run about $1,850, against a payout I would only ever see if the truck died in one afternoon. I kept that page on the counter for a week and read it with dinner.
the hail claim that kept comp alive
June 2024 hail put 41 dents in the hood and cab roof, and the comp claim paid $3,140 after a $250 deductible, with a rental pickup for four days. That one claim paid for four years of the comp line by itself, and this county is not done throwing ice. Comp stays. Hail, deer, wind, and the theft of a $400 chainsaw — the chainsaw was 2019, comp paid, I still have the receipt. Collision covers what I hit; comp covers what hits me. Out here, the second list is longer.
the $618 I did not send
The new premium is $1,002 a year — $83.50 a month, down from $135. I called Dennis in March, signed one form, and the next bill came in $618 lighter than the year before. GEICO and Progressive had both quoted the collision-free package higher anyway: $1,489 and $1,710 for the same structure when I pulled fresh auto insurance quotes in April. Farm Bureau kept the business.
Travis and the engine fund
Every paycheck, $50 goes into a savings account at First Interstate labeled TRUCK SOMEDAY — $1,150 as of May, aimed at a $14,000 down payment for whenever the F-150 finally quits. Travis calls it the engine fund. He does the math out loud some nights: at 148,000 miles and a 5.0 that has never been opened, we have maybe three years of feed runs left in it. Maybe four. The fund does not care which.
the number under the trout magnet
The renewal notice is still under the trout magnet, but the number on it changed in March. $1,620 became $1,002, collision went away, comp stayed, and the truck keeps hauling feed like nothing happened. I still stop at the fridge some mornings at 6:15, coffee pot goin', and check the number. That is it. That is the whole method.