If you live in Michigan, your auto insurance costs an average $1,720 more than if you lived in Virginia. Those two states showed up in a recently released compilation of the most and least costly states, by the insurance-shopping website Insure.com.
The differences aren’t just related to the density of traffic or frequency of accidents. Rather, a mix of state laws, competition by insurance companies and frequency of fraud add into the computation of insurance rates, according to CBS news reports.
To check your own state, Insure.com also has state-by-state rundown and an interactive map with more info for each state.
These are the 10 least expensive:
- Maine $808
- Ohio $900
- Wisconsin $912
- Idaho $935
- New Hampshire $941
- Vermont $942
- North Carolina $987
- Iowa $989
- Virginia $1,020
- Illinois $1,035
Companies in Virginia do tend to charge young men higher rates than young women, according to aggredate data collected from the state departments of insurance and directly from insurance companies. In Virginia young men pay about $24 more per month, or $288 per year.
However, this bias virtually disappears by the time drivers reach their late 20s.
As drivers in Virginia get older, their rates tend to drop quite a bit, saving them as much as $50 per month, or $600 per year, according to aggregate data.
In Virginia, adding a teen driver to a policy could, on average, increase your premium by as much as 78%.
Some car insurance companies use credit score to determine insurance rate, according to online data. Drivers in Virginia should expect to pay around $33 more for their monthly rate if their credit is between 620 and 679, that’s a 39% percent increase from Virginia’s base rate of $84.
And car insurance does increase significantly post-accident in Virginia.
