Monday, 15 October 2012

Fewer injury claims can mean lower auto insurance premiums ...

We cannot think of a single person we know who is not looking for ways to save money. Even the fabled 1 percent looks for deals, if only to maintain their 1 percent status. And one bill that makes most people gasp is the auto insurance premium. South Carolina is no exception: It's expensive to keep a car.

We usually talk about accidents and personal injury stories, though, so why are we talking about auto insurance all of a sudden? Because insurance companies take all sorts of things into account when underwriting an auto policy, and one of those things is the number of car accidents the insured has had.

Smart shoppers look at safety ratings and mileage when they're thinking about buying a new car. What they may not realize is that some cars are statistically more likely to be in an accident than others. If you buy one of those cars, you may never be in a crash or get a ticket, but your insurance could still be higher than it would have been if you'd just gone to the lot across the highway.

According to the Highway Loss Data Institute, the Toyota Yaris, a subcompact, was the car associated with the most personal injury claims filed from 2009 to 2011. The Yaris outpaced all other vehicles. Second on the list was the Suzuki SX4. Other vehicles near the top of the list were the Chevrolet Aveo, Dodge Avenger, Hyundai Accent, Kia Rio, Mitsubishi Galant and Nissan's Sentra and Versa.

More importantly, perhaps, are the vehicles at the bottom of the list, the sedans and SUVs that were listed less often than the rest in personal injury claims. The Cadillac Escalade, Chevrolet's Corvette and Silverado, the Ford F-150, Land Rover and Range Rover, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, the Lexus LX 570 and the Mercedes-Benz SL-Class Convertible are actually safer bets than some of the smaller economy cars.

Best of all, though, the car with the lowest number of claims, at just 4.5 claims per 1,000 vehicles, is the Porsche 911. The classic sports car is not only a mid-life crisis dream, it's not nearly as expensive to insure as it could be.

Source: Los Angeles Times, "Toyota Yaris ranked worst among injury claims in insurance study," Jerry Hirsch, Sept. 21, 2012

Source: http://www.charlestonpersonalinjurylawblog.com/2012/10/fewer-injury-claims-can-mean-lower-auto-insurance-premiums.shtml

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