What Drives Your Car Insurance Bill
Is your car insurance costing a bundle?

Sure, you can blame the speeding tickets, the fender benders and that teenage son for the giant car insurance bill. But you might be surprised to learn that policymakers in your state also influence how big a sting that car insurance bill brings.

Possibly the only thing worse than trying to read your own car policy is trying to understand how states regulate them. Regulation can be a complex issue, and is made even more complicated because each state sets its own rules.

Two recent studies that examined state insurance regulation came to very different conclusions about which states are the best for consumers, but both pointed to regulation as being key to how much consumers end up paying for car insurance.
One study lauded California as the top performing state in protecting consumers when it comes to car insurance, while another report gave the Golden State a failing grade.
California, a relatively strict regulatory state, was a success story because from 1989 to 2005, it had the smallest percentage increase in the average car insurance rates of any state, just 13%, compared with the national average of 50%, according to the Consumer Federation of America.

However, as the Competitive Enterprise Institute pointed out, drivers in California still pay more than the national average for car insurance. The average cost of car Page 1  |  Page 2