Locale Affects Auto Insurance Rates, Industry Data Confirm
The insurance industry is confirming what some consumers long have suspected: Where you live affects the price of premiums.
In the most comprehensive study of its kind, the industry’s Highway Loss Data Institute examined insurance losses from theft, vandalism or forces of nature, such as floods, for vehicles up to 3 years old in hundreds of cities nationwide over a dozen years. It tracked losses on 3 million passenger vehicles.
The losses vary by as much as $250 a year, on average, per registered vehicle from city to city. That cost is passed on to consumers in higher premiums on the comprehensive portion of their insurance policies, the insurers say.
The dubious distinction of the highest losses in the last three years belonged not to one of the nation’s biggest metropolises but to Grand Forks, N.D., which was ground zero for last year’s massive flooding when the Red River broke its banks. There the comprehensive losses averaged a chart-topping $315.
Ranked second was Miami, a city with a large number of auto theft claims, at $286 per vehicle.
Over the 12-year span, the losses per vehicle skyrocketed in Miami from $69 in 1985, while those in the New York and Newark, N.J., area peaked several years ago but remain generally high at $168.
The losses in San Diego and Los Angeles have declined recently to $97 and $89, respectively.
The comprehensive portion of an auto policy covers non-collision damages. Thefts are the biggest single type of dollar loss.
Law enforcement officers and insurers say cities with large ports are vulnerable to auto theft because stolen vehicles are increasingly being shipped overseas. The cars stolen for shipment are usually luxury vehicles, whereas those going across the U.S.-Mexican border are usually sport-utility vehicles or pickups, officials say.
Only 1% of stolen autos shipped overseas are caught at the port, U.S. officials said. Most are confiscated at the ports of Newark; Miami, Jacksonville and Port Everglades, Fla.; and L.A.-Long Beach.
