Does Where You Live Affect Your Driving Insurance Rates

Many of us live where we live because we were either raised there or we landed there somehow and are happy with where we are at. Sometimes someone may not have control over where they live for occupational reasons. Whatever the reason why you live where you do, that fact can actually have an influence on how much you pay for your auto insurance.

Does this mean you should move to pay lower premiums? Well, not unless you want to. But it is important to know how where you live affects your auto insurance rates. First of all, the safety of your neighborhood is something that the insurance company takes into consideration. If there is a high incidence of vandalism and car theft in the area in which you live, you'll pay more in car insurance premiums than someone who lives in a peaceful neighborhood. This is one way in which people lose money in car insurance because of the fact their neighborhood is considered a risky one.

However, how risky a neighborhood is can be rather difficult for the residents to control. Even when a neighborhood is "reformed" and made safer, it may take a while before the insurance company can deem that neighborhood one of lower risk. How the insurance company knows that the area you live in is high risk or not is that the insurance company actually maps out which areas are high risk, medium risk, and low risk. There are even areas that are considered to have no risk at all. And we all know that when something is mapped out that it is going to have boundaries. That is when someone may find out that their neighbor is paying a considerable amount less in car insurance because they may live on the other side of the boundary.

Going to the insurance company and bringing this to their attention doesn't do any good for the fact that they cannot move the boundary. If they do, then other neighbors would be requesting the same treatment and the boundary would move until that risk area would be non-existent. That would completely eliminate the need for the mapping and the insurance company would actually lose money by offering the same rates to everyone, which in turn would raise premiums anyway. Another way in which how you live has an influence on your car insurance is how far you have to drive from home to work. The number of miles that you drive each day has an influence on your risk factor.

Someone who drives 5 miles to work each day is at a lesser risk of being in an accident than someone who drives 25 miles to work each day; therefore the person driving 25 miles to work is going to have to pay a higher premium than the person driving 5 miles to work. It works just the same for the person driving 50 miles to work that is going to have to pay more in insurance than the person driving 25 miles. Basically, what it comes down to is risk factor and that is why it is important to shop around for insurance companies to see which might offer a lower rate for a specific area. Certain insurance companies may map areas differently depending on what their definition of a high risk area is and that can have a considerable influence on the amount of money paid in car insurance.

Shopping around for the best rates can alleviate the desire to move to a low risk or no risk area.

Where you live can definitely play a factor in determining your auto insurance rates. Before you buy any car, be sure to get a quote of what you can expect to pay.