The Ticket To Keeping Your Insurance Rates Lower
If you own a car, you probably already know that getting a speeding ticket is going to cause an increase in your car insurance premiums. What you may not know is that those increases can vary wildly depending on where you live.
According to InsuranceQuotes.com, if you get a ticket for reckless driving in Utah, you will likely get hit with a 40 percent increase in your premiums. But if you do the same thing in Hawaii, you will see those rates rise by a staggering 287 percent.
[one_fourth]
[/one_fourth][three_fourth_last]Meanwhile, back in Utah, driving under the influence is easily the second most expensive infraction. A DUI will usually raise your car insurance rates by 38 percent in Utah, while in North Carolina it would mean a 337 percent rate increase to auto insurance.
But in Maryland, a DUI would only raise rates by 15 percent. .
So does that mean North Carolina is that much tougher than Utah or Maryland on drunk drivers? Not necessarily.
Consumer advocates say it has a lot to do with how states regulate insurers. In Utah, insurers can use a variety of factors to calculate rates, including your credit score.
“If you’re heavily extended and in debt, and you have way too much debt for your income, there’s something — we don’t know why — but they’re something about that correlation that those kind of people tend to have more insurance claims,” explained David Platt, owner and manager of Platt Insurance.
Age and gender are also factors in Utah, as well as the area you call home.
“In Utah, it’s easy to figure people who drive I-15 every day are more likely to have a wreck than people who live in Vernal, Utah, and drive two or three minutes to get to work,” Platt said.
In states like California, credit scores and other factors can’t be used to base auto insurance premiums. So, tickets like DUI or reckless driving have a much bigger impact on insurance.
You May Also Like
|
|
|
|
