So we all faced this problem, we are all looking for a cheap comprehensive insurance in our sate nowadays, specially after the incrase of this year, in most cases it looks like a legal robbery from part of our car insurers, but the real question is could be this [remium increase related to the location we live? The short answer is yes, but you must be aware of some other factors related to the location we live such as, whether you live in a rural or urabn area, your zip code, and the state you live.
Everything will have a strong impact in your comprehensive insurance premium. In this article, we will explore how location affects your comprehensive insurance premium and what factors you need to consider when selecting your insurance policy.
Understanding Comprehensive Insurance
In a nutshell, comprehensive insurance is a coverage option that will protect your car against non-collision damages like theft, vandalism, fire, flood, natural disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes, hails, earthquakes), falling objects (trees, rocks, debris), animal-related damages (hitting a deer, rodent damage), among others.
Something you must keep in mind not everything is covered by comprehensive insurance, some non-collision damages such as, arson, racing, staged accidents, and so on won't be covered. In addition, some specific details in the declaration page of your policy would also exclude some damages. For example, your comprehensive insurance policy would cover water damage coming from floods, but it may exclude water damage coming from a broken pipe.
Note: lenders will always request you to add comprehensive insurance along with collision coverage.
You can read more about comprehensive insurance in the following post:
How to Get the Most Out of Your Comprehensive Coverage Policy
Factors that Affect Your Comprehensive Insurance Premium
As we mentioned above, location is one of the most important factors that will affect on your comprehensive insurance premiums. However, many other factors will also affect it like your driving records, your claim history, the car you’re going to insure or you gender and age, among others. But we’re going to focus on all the important factors related to the location you live:
Location
The place you live is one of the most important factors to determine how much will you pay for your comprehensive insurance policy. If you live in an urban area, you will pay more than someone who lives in rural areas. The main reason why is urban areas have higher crime rates, and of course, more traffic, that will increase the risk while driving, increasing your premiums. In addition, your zip code will also affect significantly in your premiums.
Crime Rate
Perhaps you live in a zip code with higher criminal rate than other nearby zip codes, that would also increase more your premiums. Just putting this in an example, let’s say you live in the zip code XXX12 and the criminal rate based in your zip code is higher than the nearby XXX11 due the amount of car theft and acts of vandalism. You may live in the border of XXX12’s zip code, but your car insurance won’t look the fact you’re in the border, they only look at the zip code and will verify the criminal rate.
Weather and Natural Disasters
We all know we can’t control the acts of God, but that is another important factor that will impact on your comprehensive insurance premiums. Let’s say you live in Florida, as we all know Florida is the Sunshine state, but it’s also the state that suffers hurricanes each year.
As mentioned before, if you live in Miami Beach, you will also pay even more premiums than the same person who live in West Miami, the main reason is someone who live in the beachfront will suffer stronger direct impact of the hurricanes than the one who live in West Miami, once the hurrican reaches the coast, its destruction power also decrease.
You may be intersted to know more about this topic in this post:
How comprehensive coverage can protect you from natural disasters
Traffic Density
Your car insurer will look closely how the traffic density is in your area, the heavier traffic in your area, the more your will pay for your comprehensive insurance. That always happens along the I-405 in California, the heavy traffic there every day cause many accidents, and all car insurers know that.
Age and Gender
We all know teen drviers have less experience than 40-year-old driver, so that will also affect in your comprehensive insurance premium. Statistically, male drivers pay 12% more than female one. It happens the same with your marital status, married drivers also pay less than single, divorced or widow drivers.
How Location Affects Your Comprehensive Insurance Premium
Now that we have discussed the factors that affect your comprehensive insurance premium let's take a closer look at how location impacts your insurance premium.
Urban vs. Rural Areas
As mentioned above, your car insurer will look closely the risk to give you a comprehensive insurance. Urban areas tend set higher premiums for their comprehensive insurance premium. That’s quite obvious, urban areas have higher population density, so their criminal rate, and their traffic density will be higher.
If we look at the rural areas, their criminal rate as same as their traffic density will be lower than ruban areas, so you will less likely to suffer an accident. Your car insurer knows it, that’s why they will decrease your comprehensive insurance premium.
Zip Code and State
Each state have their own car insurance laws, they may have especial car insurance regulations depending on your location, so that will also impact your comprehensive insurance premium along with your zip code.
As you already know, those states that suffer natural disasters like hurricanes or earthquakes will have higher comprehensive insurance premiums. Your car insurer knows that, and so they will increase their premiums because of this. Furthermore, depending on the zip code within a state may have higher theft or vandalism rates, so that will also increase your premiums even more.
Regional Differences
When we talk about the regional differences can also impact your comprehensive insurance premium, we’re refering to the diffences between the Northeast and Midwest states of the USA, As you know, comprehensive insurance rates tend to be higher in the Northeast states due to the higher population density, their harsh winters, and their car theft rates than Midwest states of the country.
Tips to Lower Your Comprehensive Insurance Premium
We already know why your location will have that big impact in your comprehensvie insurance premium. Now let’s talk about sveral tips to reduce your comprehensive insurance costs:
Increase Your Deductible
Increasing your deductibles will be like something you must balance before setting it up. It’s true that if you increase your deductibles, your car insurer will consider you won’t file a claim that lightly, so they will reduce your comprehensive insurance premiums. However, you must be aware that the higher your dedutiles are, the more you will have to pay out-of-pocket, and depending on your finances, that won’t be an option.
You may be interested to read this related post:
How to Choose the Right Comprehensive Coverage Insurance Deductible
Drive Safely
If you’re a safe driver, you will not only lower your comprehensive insurance premium, but also may help you apply for accident forgiveness from your car insurer. Remember, car insurers will only look for the last 3 to 5 years of your driving records, so that would be a mid or long term for you.
Install Safety Devices
When you install safety devices in your car, you’re helping to decrease the possibility to suffer a serious accident, something like anti-lock break, anti-theft alarm or a driver assist will help you lower your comprehensive insurance premiums.
You may be interested to read this posts:
How does driver assist technology affect car insurance premiums?
Bundle Your Insurance Policies
If you have rneter/homeowner’s insurance or maybe you have 2 vehicles, you may consider bundling your car insurance policies, that will help you obtain up to 25% discount on your premiums.
Conclusion
The area you live will be one of the main factors to determine how much you will pay for your comprehensive insurance. Urban areas have heavier traffic density and criminal rate than rural areas. Depending on your zip code, the state you live, or the state of the country you live will impact directly on your premium. We all know we can’t change our location for obvious reasons (our job is near our homes, we’ve been living for many years in that neighborhood, and so on). However, we can lower our comprehensive insurance premiums by increasing the deductibles, installing safety devices or bundling your policies into a single one.
Other readers were also interested in the following posts
Comprehensive Insurance for Older Vehicles: Is It Worth It?
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How can I Lower My Comprehensive Insurance Cost? 8 Practical Tips
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