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How your Address Affects your Car Insurance

If you drive a car and have ever moved home, you may have noticed that the change of address can have a (sometimes quite significant) impact on your ability to get cheap car insurance. Sometimes this is great as moving works in your favor, meaning you can get cheaper insurance more easily. Other times it isn’t so great, as moving from one zip code to another can add as much as $1000 to the cost of your premium. But why does this happen? How does your address have such a big impact on the cost of your car insurance? Read on to find out.

The neighborhood

Where you live affects your insurance costs partly because of levels of crime. Bluntly put, if you live in a safe area where there is very little crime and the streets are considered to be safe, this should be beneficially reflected in your car insurance. However, if you live in an area that your car insurance company considers to be risky in terms of the amount of crime – particularly if there is a lot of vehicle crime – this can have a detrimental impact on your ability to get cheap car insurance quotes.

Your house

Issues relating to your house can also impact on your car insurance. For instance, if your old house had a garage but your new one just has on-street parking, this is likely to push up the cost of the insurance as parking on the street isn’t considered as safe as parking your car in the garage or even just on the drive. This means that even moving from one area to another, comparable area can impact on your insurance if it means you have to park your car in a different place.

The traffic and roads

Many car accidents happen within just a couple of miles of the home, so if your address is located in an area that is known to be an accident hotspot, this is something else that will come across in the cost of your insurance policy. This can be especially true if the area you live in is fairly busy as it can make accidents more likely to happen. Conversely, if you were to move to a quieter area with a well-managed traffic system, you could well benefit in terms of car insurance costs.

Distances traveled

Moving home often also has an impact on how much you drive. If you move to a location that is further away from your place of employment, this means you’ll be driving more as a result. The more you drive, the more you usually have to pay for your car insurance. However, if you move to a place closer to your job then you should hopefully be driving less, which will be good news for you to tell your insurance company.

Overall, where you live can have a significant impact on how much you pay for car insurance. However, good car security and safe driving habits should minimize any increase in your policy in the event of you moving to a costlier area – and you never know, a change of address could also work in your favor.

Post by James

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9 COMMENTS

  1. Insurance companies assess risk based on a lot of criteria. Residence is one of them particularly for theft. I hope the way we drive is more important.

  2. Too true – I left downtown for a place with single family homes. I had parked my convertible in a public parking garage (2 times the roof was cut, 3 times it was hit and run). It’s now in a garage.

    I saved $7 on my 6 month premium. Yes, my zip code has a lot more accidents than the one I came from – craziness.

  3. I never even considered where you park your car would impact auto insurance rates. I’m not sure the difference would be large enough to influence where I live, but it’s good to know either way.

  4. I live in Phoenix and am required by law to carry uninsured coverage. I also carry underinsured coverage for my own protection. Amazing how many people will drive with no insurance!

  5. That’s really interesting stuff. I’d always wondered why our rates would change whenever we moved. Thanks for the info. 🙂

  6. If you move closer to where you work and can take local transportation, you can change your insurance setting to “pleasure car” and save money that way.

  7. I’ve always thought the “most accidents occur near home” line is kind of silly.

    You simply spend more time coming and going from your home and shopping within that vicinty. But everyone lives somewhere so they will have the same chance of having an accident wherever they start from.

    Rates should be based on ones driving record and number of tickets/accidents. It’s still to biased by many factors especially by your gender. The GF still pays 1/2 of what I do same age, same address, I have 15 years more driving experience and one minor claim in over 30 years.

  8. It’s amazing that even different zip codes within the same city can produce a different insurance rate… I moved once within the same city and saw an increase…i was shocked.

  9. I have lived in PA, MD, FL, and now Texas. Fortunately I haven’t seen wild swings in my insurance rates. A lot of that is probably based on the fact that I drive beater cars (or at least older cars).

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