When you buy auto insurance, you have to balance between your budget restrictions and the risks you face for liability, injury, and property damage. This can sometimes be difficult, but by becoming familiar with average auto insurance claims, you can make the process easy.
It’s impossible to know the future may hold for you and your automobile. By looking at the average claims of other drivers, you can at least gain a sense of what the norms for the country are. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Highway Loss Data Institute recently released data about average claims, both number of claims and amounts, for drivers. They show the data by category. Average claims for collision, theft, comprehensive, property damage liability, personal injury protection, medical payments and bodily injury liability. They break the numbers down further by vehicle class, size and model year, and also offer data by driver age.
These numbers give you a starting point for designing your own auto insurance policy. For example, did you know that overall bodily injury liability losses for pickup trucks and luxury SUVs manufactured between 2008 and 2010 actually increased along with vehicle size? That means if you go with a large luxury SUV or pickup, you might want to consider lower deductibles (since they are per incident) and higher limits. As for collision losses—for cars manufactured between 2008 and 2010--super large station wagons and minivans had the lowest claim severity, while 4-door cars had an average claim severity with an average claim amount of $4,047.
Using this data will help you set your insurance policy coverages and help you decide on better cars in the future, such as those with lower average claims experience and costs.
If you are overwhelmed by the data, or you want statistics focused on your state of residence, give us a call at 888-751-7511. With this information, we can help you build a Texas auto insurance policy with meaningful benefits and a premium you can afford.