Auto Insurance
- Thread starter RodTrojan
- Start date
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2023
- Messages
- 396
- Location
- Arizona & Washington
- Cars
- Pure AWD 19" No Aeros
- Referral Code
- CVXJ7QLE
You're looking for a good rate and fair support? I think you may be residing on the wrong planet! I'm guessing your renewal reflected what just about everyone has groused to me about lately... which is a huge rate increase with no associated change to your risk profile. That seems to be the case not only with autos, but also with homeowners insurance and personal liability insurance... assuming you're lucky enough not to have been dropped entirely. It seems like insurance companies no longer seem to be in the risk management business. Go figure!
Insurance on EVs in general and the Lucid in particular has gone through the roof!
While there are still some insurers who would write policies for EVs and Lucids, many have increased their EV rates to almost 2X of an equivalent ICE car.
Some added premia are "legitimate" because many EVs that encountered even minor accidents are "totaled". Part of this is legitimate (e.g., the battery pack is compromised). Some of it is an infrastructural problem. Specifically,
> EVs in the US amount to ~1% of the vehicles in the US. While EV sales have increased year-on-year, this phenomenon is only 3-4 years old.
> Because most US EVs are still "under warranty", most (all?) of the repairs are done by factory shops. There are few if any, 3rd party shops around.
> Replacement parts are hard to get. There are no after-market parts. You have to get it from the manufacturer. that means long wait times and high costs.
> Insurance adjusters are not trained to properly assess the damages. Often they default to just totaling the car, hence the high cost and premium.
> With EVs at only 1% of the total vehicles on the road, there is little incentive for the insurers to make their EV insurance rates "competitive".
I am not an expert on insurance and car repairs. I think it will take a while to get the EV-repair ecosystem developed; perhaps years!
That said, there might be a niche market for some insurers who can become an expert/first-mover in the EV insurance marketplace. We can only hope!
Meanwhile, insurance costs will be high!
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2022
- Messages
- 3,365
- Cars
- Air GT Black/Tahoe/19"
The insurance rates for my Volvo V60 Polestar plug in hybrid are $50/month more than the XC40 EV I had before, so the PHEV is more than the EV. The Lucid’s rates actually didn’t increase at all on my renewal, this is with Geico.
Mine went up to about $200/m
Yeah, if I stayed with the same insurance company, mine would have gone up by about the same amount. I am insuring two EVs, the Lucid and the Rivian R1S. the R1S is about 1/2 the rate of the Lucid.
Not every insurance company is charging a higher premium for EVs. But more and more of the big guys are doing that.
My sense it, it will get worse before getting better.
Key is getting the insurance adjusters trained and getting 3rd party repair shops on line. I think the many laid-off Tesla workers will be a great asset to get this 3rd party stuff going!
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2022
- Messages
- 1,079
- Location
- Carlsbad, CA
- Cars
- ZR Grand Touring
- Referral Code
- U9GRC6K9
Dream on!
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2024
- Messages
- 134
- Location
- Orange County, CA
- Cars
- '23 Lucid Air GT
- Referral Code
- QRLDUSC5
Just got my 6 month renewal with Geico and my Lucid went up $40 a month so $240 extra every 6...
Shopped around to Allstate, State Farm and they had higher prices.
Meanwhile a bunch of other companies dont serve SoCal/California in general or request you to call for more info etc
It is awful.
Shopped around to Allstate, State Farm and they had higher prices.
Meanwhile a bunch of other companies dont serve SoCal/California in general or request you to call for more info etc
It is awful.
I think EV insurance rates will stay high as it is an immature segment of the auto market. Replacement parts to fix damaged cars are hard to get and expensive. Only a limited number of shops can perform the repairs. The tight integration of the battery pack, the undercarriage, and the rest of the car makes it challenging to repair. Insurance adjusters are not well-trained in accessing the damages and repairability rand often defaulting to unnecessarily totaling the entire EV.
With low-volume EVs like the Lucid, these problems are much worse.
Similar threads
