Car insurance premiums are a calculation of risk involving a number of factors. These can range from the obvious such as your age, car make and model, and your driving history to the slightly more obtuse such as your line of work and where you live. Essentially anything that affects the odds of you making a claim will impact your premium. Find out more about how your address may affect your car insurance premium.
Though not obvious at first, where you live has a major impact on your car insurance rates.
Urban areas are more densely populated than rural ones, with busier roads, more car accidents overall and a generally higher likelihood of making claims of any kind. This increases premiums in cities.
However, living in rural areas means you typically need to drive longer distances on every commute, the roads can be in worse condition and you may be more likely to lose a car to bushfires or other hazards than someone living in the city.
In addition, statistically, 90% of all car accidents occur within miles of the driver’s home and insurance providers know this.
Your address is used to apply very specific loadings based on location, and risk factors vary between neighbourhoods the same way they can vary between states. This is based on the odds of making a claim, and might be affected by countless factors such as how narrow or wide your road is, whether it turns onto an unusually dangerous intersection and many others.
| Response | Yorkshire and the Humber | West Midlands | Wales | South West | South East | Scotland | Northern Ireland | North West | North East | Greater London | East of England | East Midlands |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not very confident | 35.29% | 40% | 31.82% | 31.88% | 35.76% | 30.26% | 45.83% | 27.27% | 26.19% | 28.7% | 45.98% | 26.14% |
| Somewhat confident | 30.59% | 23.48% | 37.88% | 36.23% | 37.75% | 28.95% | 25% | 37.19% | 40.48% | 41.67% | 29.89% | 39.77% |
| Not confident at all | 29.41% | 18.26% | 21.21% | 23.19% | 17.88% | 23.68% | 16.67% | 25.62% | 23.81% | 15.74% | 12.64% | 23.86% |
| Very confident | 4.71% | 18.26% | 9.09% | 8.7% | 8.61% | 17.11% | 12.5% | 9.92% | 9.52% | 13.89% | 11.49% | 10.23% |
The golden rule of car insurance prices is that your odds of making a claim determine your premiums. Fortunately, you don’t need to move house to reduce location-dependent factors. Instead, try finding a policy that matches your situation and needs.
There are three different types of car insurance to choose from. The more at-risk your area is for certain hazards, the more important it is to get covered against it, but it will typically cost more.
There are many other factors which affect car insurance prices besides location. It can be worth looking over them for other ways to cut your car insurance premiums. Once you’ve done that, getting low prices is largely about comparing policies side by side.
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