Georgia ranks 8th highest in auto insurance rates, study says

Or New Mexico or Missouri or Oregon.

Those are some of the states that Insure.com says have lower auto insurance rates on average.

Georgia, on the other hand, ranks 8th highest in this annual ranking. Drivers in the Peach state pay on average, $1,751.42 a year in premiums, Insure.com says. The national average $1,429.26.

Where do drivers pay the most on average? Louisiana, where average annual premiums are $2,510.87. In Maine, they are the lowest, averaging $902.85.

A number of factors can play into why average rates vary per state.

Insure.com is a publicly traded company that lists rate quotes and information on a range of insurance policies, including auto, health, life and disability.

And Insure.com warns that its numbers should not be compared to those of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which measures what people actually spend each year regardless of whether a state's average policy is expensive or not.

It’s the NAIC figures that are the “gold standard that everyone follows,” Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine said. When using those figures – the most recent of which are from 2007 – Georgia “has consistently been in the middle of the pack,” he said, with the average cost per policy holder being $782.

Comparing the top 10 populated states, Georgia ranks in the bottom three. And, there are several factors that play into why rates are higher here. Compared to Illinois, for example, which has an average insurance cost per policy holder of $723, you are more likely to die in an auto accident, have your car stolen or broken into in Georgia, he said.

Also, attorneys are more likely to get involved if there’s an auto accident in Georgia than compared to Illinois, Oxendine said.

“You have to compare large states to large states,” Oxendine said, pointing out that using that metric, Georgia is always going to have higher auto insurance rates than states such as Wisconsin, Mississippi and Wyoming.

“Wyoming has more cows than people,” he said.

To come up with the figures for its study, Insure.com took average insurance rates for more than 2,400 vehicles based on 10 ZIP codes in each state. The group then took rate quotes from six large providers of auto insurance to calculate national figures as well as an average breakdown for each state.

A couple of key things that also played into the numbers: The rates were based on a 40-year-old man who drives 12 miles to work in a 2010 model car, according to Insure.com. The sample policies had a $500 deductible on collision and comprehensive coverage.