Hybrid vehicle insurance rate discount

The debate over whether hybrid cars are better to insure or not is raging in the insurance industry. Several insurance company, such as Traveler’s, have started giving discounts for people who insure hybrid vehicles with them. With Traveler’s the discount is around 10%, while with other companies, like Financial Services AG, it equals out to about 5%. Financial Services AG will give a discount for any hybrid car or any car that has any other form of alternative fuel usage for those that it insures in the state of California.

However, there are several other car insurance companies that beg to differ as to whether or not hybrid cars are cheaper to insure. State Farm won’t be offering any discounts for hybrids in the foreseeable future. The reason why? Hybrids are more costly to repair, being rarer and different and thus having more expensive parts. Another reason why State Farm declines to join in on the praise is because hybrid cars are so far untested very much in collisions, and it isn’t sure that the electric components will react so well in the instance of a crash.

Most car insurance premiums have a lot of factors that go into them before the discounts get applied. These factors include credit history and age, as well as claims history and driving records. The same method will apply to the hybrid car discount, which will be calculated into the total price once everything else has been added up and taken out.

One of the reasons that Traveler’s says that it is giving a discount for hybrid cars is that it claims that most of the people that buy hybrid cars are part of a preferred group of drivers who have less risk than all other drivers. These drivers tend to be middle aged, steadily employed, and married, with good credit histories. They usually have good driving records as well and qualify for several other discounts, so the hybrid discount will basically be discounting them twice over for the exact same qualities.

According to the vice president of the Traveler’s vehicle insurance company, they do this in order to attract customers. Many car buyers in the contemporary world are becoming more and more interested in not only ways to protect the environment, but in ways to cut down on their fuel costs. Offering a discount for hybrid drivers will attract these energy conscious drivers.

Hybrids have been gradually selling more and more as they have been marketed more and more. Years ago, there were only two hybrid models on the market, and now there are as many as eleven. While still not very many, those eleven models sell well on the market. The real necessity for having hybrid vehicles wasn’t brought to public attention until after Hurricane Katrina, according to again to the vice president of Traveler’s. Not only are there the environmental implications, but seeing the gas prices rise in the following days just showed the American consumer how volatile the oil market was and how easy it could be to go from one dollar gas to gasoline rationing.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.