Non-Driving Factors Set Insurance Rates

Ask most people how car insurance rates should be figured and they’ll point to the driver’s history. Careless drivers should pay more, the thinking goes, and careful ones should pay less.

But the insurance industry sees it a little differently. Certainly, a string of accidents will push your rate up. But insurers want to identify the costlier customers ahead of time, so they look at factors like the customer’s age and address. Young drivers are riskier, and people who live in congested or crime-prone areas are more likely to file claims than people who don’t.

One of the biggest issues insurers address is the likelihood they will have to pay out claims, and they’ve spent fortunes unearthing factors that identify that risk. To the irritation of many consumer advocates, some of these factors seem to have nothing to do with whether one is a good driver or not.

Such factors include the customer’s credit score, education, income and occupation. While insurers consider the details to be business secrets, it’s pretty clear all four of these factors can bear on a customer’s financial security. People in a weaker financial position are not necessarily poorer drivers, but they are more likely to file claims than the well-to-do.

As an example, a prosperous driver is more likely to fix a dented fender out of his own pocket, especially as it’s well known that filing a claim can lead to a rate hike. People with less money, however, may not have this option.

According to The Wall Street Journal, a Florida study found that education and occupation could cause rates to vary by as much as 30%, while a New Jersey study found that lower-income drivers were less likely to get the cheapest rates than people with professional-level incomes.