SUV Owners Pay More for Insurance

By: Rob Sliver

Hortencia Privett is like thousands of other owners of Sports
Utility Vehicles (SUVs). Privett admits that she loves what she
drives, a silver 2002 Jeep Liberty, but insurance experts
caution that she and other SUV owners have to pay considerably
more for insurance than those tooling around town in smaller
cars.



The cost to insure an SUV is generally 10 to 20 percent more
than a car, depending of course on a driver's location, claims
experience, credit history and other factors, confirms Loretta
L. Worters, vice president of communications for the Insurance
Information Institute, in New York. "Yes auto rates for SUVs are
generally higher than for automobiles," says Worters. "Rates of
course correlate to risk -- and there are a lot of risk factors
with SUVs. Not so much what affects them, but what they do to
other vehicles."



Cutting to specifics, Worters pointed out that an SUV's
"potential for liability and medical payments coverage losses is
a real concern to the industry. Pedestrians hit by SUVs have a
300 percent higher risk of serious injury than if they were
struck by a passenger car. There's also greater injury in cars
that are hit by SUVs than it would be with another car."



Privett acknowledges that she has to pay more for coverage, but
that's okay with her under the circumstances. "I feel safer in
my SUV," explains Privett, an office secretary in Illinois.
"I've had an SUV for three years, and I wouldn't go back. Even
though I have to pay more for insurance, it's worth the added
cost to me."



Privett's SUV sentiments are hardly unique. It's been reported
that SUVs accounted for upwards of 24 percent of all new-vehicle
sales in the United States for 2003 and, with well over 20
million on the road today, SUVs represent almost 12 percent of
all registered vehicles in the U.S.



The safety reputation of an SUV or other vehicle type certainly
has a bearing on insurance costs. On the subject of SUV safety,
a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
(IIHS) brings up what he considers to be a misconception about
SUVs.



"The misconception is that many people think that SUVs are safer
than cars, and they're not," says IIHS's Russ Rader. "Vehicle
crash statistics that we compile each year show that pound for
pound, if you're comparing vehicles of a similar weight, SUVs
tend to be less safe than cars."



Rader says that cost of repair is a big issue from an insurance
standpoint. "SUVs can be costly to repair in minor crashes,
because they don't have to meet the federal government's
standards set for bumpers on cars in terms of withstanding
crashes in commuter traffic or parking lots," explains Rader.



Says Rader: "Most SUVs aren't built like cars and don't drive
like them. Yes, they're higher and you can see the road ahead
better, but that height also gives them a higher center of
gravity, which makes them less balanced than sedans -- and more
likely to flip."



Insurance trade organization officer Dan Kummer focuses on high
liability claims costs involving large SUVs in vehicular
accidents. "If you have a large SUV and you hit a mid-sized or
smaller vehicle, you are likely to pay higher liability costs
when your policy comes up for renewal," says Kummer, director of
personal lines for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of
America, in Des Plaines, Ill.



For more information about auto insurance please go to: Insurance.com