Why Where You Live Affects Your Car Insurance Rates

Liability, collision, and comprehensive coverage are the three basic components of auto insurance that most people are familiar with. In the event that you cause an accident, your liability coverage covers personal harm and property damage to others. Your collision coverage aids in the repair of your car following an accident, while comprehensive coverage aids in the repair of damage not caused by colliding with another vehicle or immovable object.

Collision coverage is the element of your insurance that where you reside affects most because it deals with “environmental” damage. Here are the reasons why where you live affects your car insurance rates.

Accident Rates and Auto Insurance Rates

Vehicle accidents occur at different rates in different places. The roadways themselves can cause accidents in some circumstances, so cities with narrow, congested roads; numerous blind curves; and poorly placed traffic signals are fundamentally more dangerous than those with wide streets that follow a straight grid. Furthermore, drivers in some cities are more aggressive than those in other ones. From city to city, county to county, and state to state, differing liquor laws also contribute to different patterns of drunk driving.

Patterns of Crime

Insurance companies also pay close attention to reported crime statistics, especially those that point to higher-than-average insurance claims. Some of these include auto theft, burglaries, and vandalism as well as insurance fraud. If you happen to live in an area with low rates of property crime, you’ll probably enjoy the benefit of lower insurance rates. On the other hand, if vehicle-related crimes are higher than average in your neighborhood, you’ll likely pay more than residents in other parts of town.

Also, since the average ZIP code is about 90 square miles, it’s possible that your relatively safe neighborhood is lumped in with the statistics of an area with higher crime. And unfortunately, that means your insurance rate may be higher.

Natural Disasters

Mother Nature rages more in certain locations than in others. For example, hurricanes and tsunamis aren’t things Denver locals are used to, while Milwaukee hasn’t had an earthquake in… forever. When a tornado struck downtown Salt Lake City in 1999, it overturned automobiles and ripped roofs off houses. In Oklahoma, that kind of stuff happens all the time, but it’s a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence in Utah. Aside from natural disasters, even the amount of rain and snow that falls in a given area might also affect accident rates.

We hope our article on why where you live affects your car insurance rates has proven useful. If you’re looking for SR-22 insurance quotes in Washington, be sure to reach out to Serenity Group today.