Thanks to all who participated in our first newsletter quiz! We received a lot of responses, but only 10% got the right answer: “how long you’ve owned your car.” Keep reading to learn more.
Which of the following has an impact on your auto insurance rates? Results:
Why does the length of ownership impact your auto insurance rates?
If you’re scratching your head about this, don’t worry! As you can see, most people thought it was how new your car is. This may seem like it has an impact on your premiums, but it is more of a correlation. Newer cars typically cost more, but the “newness” of your car has no impact on premiums. For example, if you have two 2020 Toyota Camrys, they could both cost you different amounts depending on how you drive it, who drives it most often, whether it’s salvage or not, etc. How new a car is does not have an impact on your premiums, it’s really about how much it costs to repair and how likely it is to be damaged.
Most of you knew that color also has no impact on your rates. There used to be a widely held idea, that red cars are more expensive to insure. We’re glad to see that this myth is falling out of style. So go ahead and buy that red car if you like it!
How much you paid for your car doesn’t have a direct impact on your rates either. The cost to fix or replace your car does impact your rates though. If you got a great deal on a car, that doesn’t mean that you will pay less for insurance than if you paid more for the same vehicle.
Length of ownership may seem like a strange thing to base insurance rates on. If you’ve owned the same car for 5 years you are probably more comfortable driving it than a car you just bought last week. If you’re more comfortable driving it, you’re less likely to hit other cars while parking, side-swiping another car, etc. If you are someone who buys cars every few years, you’re never going to have the absolute best rates when it comes to your car insurance.
What can impact your car insurance rate?
Here are some of the rating factors most carriers use:
- Credit score
- Age
- How long you’ve been licensed
- Marital status
- Occupation
- Homeownership vs renting
- Claims history
- Accident and violation history
- Cost to repair/replace
- The safety rating of the vehicle
- Zip Code
- Usage (pleasure, commuting, business, etc.)
- Insurance history
What does not impact your car insurance rate?
Here are some factors that do NOT impact your car insurance rates:
- Ethnicity
- Religion
- Sexual orientation
What discounts are available for car insurance?
- Home owner discount
- Accident-free discount
- Multi-policy discount
- Multi-car discount
- Multi-driver discount
- Good student discount (3.0 GPA or higher as a full-time student)
- Paid in full discount
- Advanced quote discount (varies by carrier, but typically getting a quote 8 days ahead of time)
- Telematics discount (driving monitoring app)
As you can see, there are a lot of factors that impact your car insurance rates in North Carolina and in most other states. If you’d like to speak with one of us about your policy, feel free to contact us.
That’s all for this month’s newsletter quiz. Check back again next month for November’s quiz! Until then, we hope you have a happy Halloween.
