Online Auto Insurance Discusses How Vehicle Type Affects Coverage Costs

Los Angeles, CA, May 02, 2011 --(PR.com)-- There are five main variables that affect a driver’s cost to insure a car: the driver him or herself, the coverage purchased, the insurance company writing the coverage, state laws and the type of car to be insured. In a new FAQ, the writers at OnlineAutoInsurance.com discuss which cars are the most expensive to protect financially.

It’s hard to say just how cheap car insurance will be for a particular vehicle, because a lot is dependent on insurers’ internal claims data. But it’s pretty safe to say the vehicles that have the largest insurance payments will be those that 1. have the largest repair costs and 2. are insured for physical damage coverage.

The second part of that last statement is key. Average basic liability prices tend to not fluctuate too widely based on the insured car. That’s because these rates are dependent on the injury and repair damages sustained by other drivers and other cars.

Insuring against physical damage through collision and comprehensive coverage, on the other hand, can fluctuate widely based on vehicle type. That’s because these policies cover repair bills for the insured car. And since more expensive cars are generally more expensive to repair, autos with bigger price tags tend to have larger comp and collision premiums.

To see how these liability and physical damage costs fluctuate between different vehicle types, see the PDF with results of an OnlineAutoInsurance.com California premium analysis attached to this release. (PDF will only be accessible for readers viewing the original PR.com release.)

As the analysis showed, the five-company average cost of a six-month policy fluctuated by only $200 between the vehicle that was cheapest to insure and the one that was most expensive to insure through a liability-only policy.

But when comprehensive and collision are added on top of liability coverage, the average cost fluctuated by about $640.

Consumers who would like to see which particular models have higher than average claims sizes can access the latest report on this topic published by the U.S. Department of Transportation at http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/administration/program_development/2011_Comparison_Insurance_Costs.pdf

To learn more about how to find insurance coverage at affordable rates, readers can go to http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com/cheap/ where visitors will find informative resource pages and a quote-comparison generator that can be used to find the best price for a policy.

To access the full FAQ, follow the “Questions” link located at the top of any page on the site.

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