Survey: Louisiana car insurance costs most, Maine least

Fred Meier

USA TODAY

Published 3:49 p.m. UTC March 19, 2013

Insurance shopping website tallies annual list of state average costs to insure a new 2013 vehicle
Cheapest of all to insure is 2013 Toyota pickup in Wyoming
Survey looks at 750 new vehicle models%27 costs to insure in each state

Insurance shopping website Insure.com is out with its annual annual of average new-car insurance costs, and once again Louisiana tops the list, a dubious distinction for a state not typically No. 1 in 50-state lists. No. 2 is the home of the domestic auto industry, Michigan.

Maine drivers have the cheapest average rates in the survey, which calculates the average annual premium for more than 750 new vehicles models in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

“Louisiana can’t catch a break,” said Amy Danise, editorial director of Insure.com, in a statement. “It is consistently at the top of our rankings. One way to mitigate the rate pain is to buy the cheapest car to insure in the state, which is the Jeep Patriot Sport in Louisiana.”

The site says states tend to get to the top of the list based on “frequent and expensive auto insurance claims among residents.” It also says that rural states tend to benefit from a lack of big cities that are fertile ground for accidents and claims, but the list shows that individual state factors can count for more.

Louisiana’s problem, according to Insure.com, is that folks there make big claims and sue each other a lot in front of friendly judges. Says the site: “A high portion of Louisiana drivers who are in accidents file bodily injury claims. Also, car accident lawsuits for less than $50,000 go before elected judges,” who it says tend to side with consumers more than insurers.

It says Michigan residents pay more in part due to “the state’s guarantee of unlimited, lifetime personal injury protection benefits for treatment of injuries from a car accident.” It says insurers pay the first $500,000 and medical expenses above that are paid by a Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association, which adds a fee to everyone’s insurance premium ($175 per vehicle this year).

Neither Louisiana nor Michigan, however, take the crown for the single most expensive insurance bill for any vehicle in any state. That would be for insuring a Mercedes-Benz CL65 AMG coupe in Oregon — a whopping annual premium of $5,867, and that’s for a driver with a clean record, according to the website. M-B AMG does, however, also sell the costliest car to insure in Louisiana, an S65 AMG sedan.

The lucky driver with the cheapest combination of vehicle and state would be someone with a Toyota Tacoma pickup in Wyoming — shelling out on average just $698.

Here are the states, from costliest to cheapest, for car insurance, based on averaging the annual premiums for more than 750 vehicles from the 2013 model year:

1. Louisiana – $2,699
2. Michigan – $2,520
3. Georgia – $2,155
4. Oklahoma – $2,074
5. Washington, D.C. – $2,006
6. Montana – $1,914
7. California – $1,819
8. West Virginia – $1,816
9. Rhode Island – $1,735
10. Kentucky – $1,725
11. Connecticut – $1,723
12. New Jersey – $1,697
13. Alabama – $1,667
14. Missouri – $1,638
15. Massachusetts – $1,625
16. Pennsylvania – $1,604
17. Delaware – $1,586
18. Hawaii – $1,583
19. Texas – $1,545
20. Arkansas – $1,545
21. Maryland – $1,528
National average – $1,510
22. North Dakota – $1,501
23. Wyoming – $1,496
24. Alaska – $1,455
25. Utah – $1,438
26. Kansas – $1,435
27. Minnesota – $1,432
28. New Mexico – $1,431
29. Tennessee – $1,408
30. South Dakota – $1,397
31. Oregon – $1,387
32. Nebraska – $1,384
33. New York – $1,369
34. Florida – $1,364
35. Mississippi – $1,345
36. Nevada – $1,341
37. Virginia – $1,322
38. Illinois – $1,322
39. South Carolina – $1,288
40. Colorado – $1,271
41. Wisconsin – $1,228
42. Arizona – $1,227
43. Washington – $1,226
44. Indiana – $1,183
45. Vermont – $1,176
46. Idaho – $1,133
47. New Hampshire – $1,112
48. Ohio – $1,106
48. North Carolina – $1,085
50. Iowa – $1,028
51. Maine – $934

More details are at the site here. The fine print: Quadrant Information Services provided rates for more than 750 car models from six large carriers (Allstate, Farmers, GEICO, Nationwide, Progressive and State Farm) in 10 ZIP codes per state, which were then averaged. Rates are to insure a single 40-year-old male with a clean record and good health who commutes 12 miles to work each day, with policy limits of $100,000 for injury liability for one person, $300,000 for all injuries and $50,000 for property damage in an accident, a $500 deductible on collision and comprehensive coverage and includes uninsured motorist coverage.