Auto Insurance
- Thread starter RodTrojan
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- Joined
- Nov 23, 2023
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- Arizona & Washington
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- Pure AWD 19" No Aeros
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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
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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!
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Dream on!
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