What Influences Car Insurance Rates?
Before checking out free car insurance quotes online, you may need to know what exactly influences car insurance rates. The insurance market being diverse and complex as it is, getting to know it from the perspective of your own insurance needs is anything but a bad idea. After all, we all want to make rational decisions when it comes to our financial future. With that in mind, we will discuss in brief about the factors that influence auto insurance rates.
Where this is possible, your car insurance company may be looking into your credit history to determine how much your auto insurance will cost. Although 46 states are legally able to check your three-digit credit score into their rate assignment decisions, California, Massachusetts, Hawaii and Maryland are currently the only exceptions.
Insurance agencies use credit scores to correlate a policy holder’s likelihood of getting in an accident or filing a claim, those with high credit scores being for all purposes considered as low risk policy holders.
Your auto insurance rates are also calculated based on your driving record. Most US states work on a point system, which are determined by the state you live in and the nature of your infraction. Just as your credit rating determines how long some points remain on your driving record is also based on the state and nature of the item. Either way, in all states, any tickets, accidents and parking violations can all increase the cost of your car dramatically.
Other seemingly unlikely factors such as age, gender and marital status can raise or lower your car insurance rate, as well. A driver who is new to the road is viewed as a higher risk than someone who has racked up years behind the wheel. Also, married women have the tendency of catch a break on car insurance rates while single men pay the highest premiums.
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