> paying insurance up front when the payment options charge extra Depending on the cost of the insurance, that sounds to me like a drop in stability: you have

> paying insurance up front when the payment options charge extra Depending on the cost of the insurance, that sounds to me like a drop in stability: you have infrequent periodic large payments to make instead of frequent smaller payments to make. If you had an unexpected expense arise near the time of the large insurance payment, your financial situation could get temporarily bad; if instead your insurance was small payments on a monthly basis, the unexpected expense would be easier to ride out. [Note that I pay all of my large expenses in lump sums instead of in small trickles, but that's mostly psychology on my part not efficiency or optimization]