How Your Auto Insurance Rates Are Determined

by: A. Chris Tijerina

Your auto insurance rates are determined by a number of factors:

• driving record
• usage, how you are using the vehicle, work, pleasure, business
• how many drivers you have and their ages
• how many vehicles you have
• what kind of coverage limits you want
• what area you live in
• your payment history
• what color car you drive
• your insurance credit score
• your claims history
• your occupation and how many years you have lived at your current residence
• how fast you can solve a Rubix cube
• your daily, weekly, annual mileage

There is a lot of information about you that is used to determine your rates. You are grouped or pooled together with similar drives of the same background that way you are not paying for drivers that are much worse than you.

Similar risks will pay similar rates.

Your usage affects your rates because if you are driving to and from work or school 5 days a week, 15 miles one way you have a higher chance of getting in a accident than someone who only drives 1 mile 1 way 3 days a week or someone who works from home and only drives to get groceries. So business, work, and school usage is higher than pleasure usage.

The area you live in affects your rates due to the fact that one area or town may have a higher incidence of claims than another area. One area may have higher lawsuit payouts or higher theft rates than another area. Even if you live in a affulent area your rates may be higher due to the higher value vehicles in your area cost more to fix than in an area with lower value vehicles.

Although you may have heard that if you drive a red car you will pay higher rates but this is not true. It is a myth. GEICO, USAA (For Military Only), and Allstate, to name a few, don’t even ask what color car you drive when you apply for a quote. And your VIN number doesn’t give this info either.

If you have one car and three drivers you will pay more because that car will get used alot more than if you had only 1 driver and 1 car.

If you have had a poor payment history or your policy has cancelled due to non payment you will have higher rates when you try to reapply for insurance.

The higher your insurance credit score the better. The insurance credit score is similar to your FICO credit score such that the higher your FICO score the lower your interest rate and the higher your insurance credit score the lower your insurance premium.

Your claims history will affect you for a minimum of 3 years. If you have filed a claimed or if you even mentioned a claim to your insurance company it can and most likely will affect your rates.