The average Garden State occupant paying 4 percent less in automobile insurance premiums in 2007 than the earlier year — and 9 percent less than the peak year of 2004, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners described this week. Nationally, rates fell by only 5.6 percent between 2004 and 2007.
That’s the great news. Despite the downward trend, New Jersey drivers continued to commit the highest premiums of any state in the nation — $1,103 per vehicle.
Part of New Jersey’s decline in premiums is attributable to legislative reforms in 2003 that assisted lure firms that wouldn’t do business here. The state established changes to its specified risk pool of drivers and granted companies to provide bare-bones polices.
In 2002 alone, 7 auto insurance companies bailed out of New Jersey, bringing the total number of companies that had fled the state in the earlier decade to 25. The insurance regulations made it impossible for some people to get insurance at all. For those who could, the specific competition resulted in escalating premiums.
Today, 8 out of the top 10 biggest firms write policies in New Jersey. Unluckily, the policies aren’t cheap. Only three other states had common per-vehicle premium costs in excess of $1,000 in 2007 — Louisiana, New York and Florida. The cheapest rates in the nation were in North Dakota, where the average premium was $511. Some explanations are provided by automobile insurers for why New Jersey has the tightest rates: large medical reimbursements, higher automobile repair costs, a higher proportionality of luxury cars and heavily loaded roads. Those elements aren’t likely to change any time soon.
For now, the greatest thing to do to hold your premiums down is to shop around, search the discounts provided by several insurers and keep your caR driving record clean.
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