Auto Insurance Rate -- How Your Home Affects It
Does your zip code affect your auto insurance rate? Yes, it does affect it. It's just that most people don't know this.Getting this clear is important especially when you're about to buy or rent a new home. What you might save in buying a home in a certain location might become totally insignificant when compared with the extra you pay for an auto policy. Let's see why...
1. We all know that your annual mileage partly determines the risk an insurer carries by insuring you. If you live far from places you drive to daily, your mileage will be a lot higher than if you lived a lot closer.
Consider Who will have a more mileage: A person who lives just 2km from his/her office and another who lives 12km away (If both of them drive to work daily)?
Furthermore, living in a city that does NOT have a standard mass transit system will force you to drive more often. Apart from the fact that this will raise your mileage, it will also increase wear and tear which in turn will have an impact on your auto insurance rate (at least in the near future).
2. What do you think an insurer would do if police records show that your area is prone to crimes like car theft and vandalism? They'll certainly factor this in when calculating your car insurance rate.
This simply means that taking some time to calculate the effect of house A and B on your auto insurance rate is very important if you're about buying a new home. You might save a few hundred dollars on a house only to pay a lot more in auto insurance premium dollars over 20 or more years.
Even if you've already bought a home, you can find a better rate if you get and compare quotes from a wide range of insurers. They all attach difference relevancy scores to the various factors used to calculate your auto insurance rate.
To avoid wasting thousands of dollars in auto insurance premiums over many years, get and compare quotes with zip codes of neighborhoods you're interested in. The results will help you make a more informed choice.
Start getting and comparing quotes. The box below is a good place to start. It's free and will take you just a few minutes...
