Glad you mentioned insurance...

My homeowners went up 50% from last year! Between that and last year's increase it was 86%. In two years!

We went to this insurance because the manager of the branch is a friend of my wife. Thankfully my wife told me from the outset that she has no problem shopping around if this happened. The friend never even conversed or attempted to personally keep us once she was cc'ed after I asked the desk jockey what was going on.

Shopping around I found one considerably cheaper but doing the math, it's 13.3% higher than what I had 3 years ago. Hmmmm... 4.5% per year.

What a coinky dink.