They may be on your side, but what you pay in Nationwide car insurance prices will vary from state to state
In 1925, a group of businessmen and farmers located in central Ohio formed a group to help provide farmers with reasonable insurance for their cars, trucks and farm equipment. Eventually that enterprise would become the nation’s eighth largest car insurance company, Nationwide. Thanks to some aggressive marketing campaigns and some innovations in discounts and coverage, Nationwide continues to expand its reach and competitiveness. Current and prospective customers find that the options available with Nationwide can be impressive and the rates competitive. It’s also true that what you will be quoted for Nationwide’s car insurance prices will vary from state to state and even from city to city in a given state.
To give you some sense of what the range of differences in Nationwide car insurance prices can be, we’ve put together a relatively common driver profile, assigned some cars to that profile and then gone shopping for Nationwide car insurance. To make the comparison a little more meaningful and specific, we went shopping for car insurance in three separate markets that accurately reflect expensive, mid-range and less expensive marketplaces for car insurance costs (as measured by a number of annual surveys and consumer price indices.)
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While each state sets specific requirements for the types of car insurance coverage options and levels necessary for licensed drivers to stay in compliance with state law, most insurance experts will tell you that it really pays to put coverage levels in place that exceed just these bare minimums required by the state. In all of the scenarios you’ll see below, we’ve done just that.
While your specific options and costs will be different than the following scenarios, these sample plans should give you some idea of what you can expect to pay (from state to state) when you take a closer look at Nationwide car insurance.
Driver profile
To start the process, we created a driver profile to take shopping for Nationwide auto insurance coverage in our three targeted markets. Our mystery car insurance shopper is a 28-year old single male we’re calling Rob. Rob is a recently licensed doctor and he works in general practice and family medicine. Rob has been continuously insured since first getting his license at age 17. Rob’s a homeowner and has a clean driving record. While he still does have some fairly substantial student loan and medical school debts, he’s maintained a very clean credit record and logs an impressive credit score.
Rob is looking to insure two cars with Nationwide. The first is a 2012 Toyota Landcruiser he is carrying a car loan on. The Landcruiser is Rob’s primary commuting car and it comes equipped with a number of factory-installed safety and anti-theft features. Rob has logged just over 37,000 miles on the Landcruiser since purchasing it brand new.
The second car Rob hopes to insure with Nationwide is a 2009 Dodge Charger (4D, AWD) that he owns free and clear. This car also comes equipped with several factory-installed safety and anti-theft devices. It’s Rob’s fun car as reflected in the fact that it only has 53,000 miles on it and remains in immaculate condition.
Both cars are regularly garaged when not being used by Rob in one capacity or another. Rob’s commuter car (the Landcruiser) is also garaged at work on the days when he does commute.
The target insurance markets
To get a more full picture of what the differences can be from state to state and even city to city in a state, we’re taking our hypothetical driver Rob and his two cars to three separate markets. According to a number of annual surveys and some national and regional consumer price indices, these markets represent communities that are ranked expensive, average and less expensive for car insurance costs. In this way, we can get a stark picture of how where you live and drive can really impact what you pay for car insurance. The markets where we’re taking Rob shopping for Nationwide car insurance are: Wheeling, West Virginia (expensive); Spokane, Washington (average); and Asheville, North Carolina (less expensive). By using the online plan building and quoting tools available with Nationwide, here’s what we found in these three markets:
(Note: the coverage options and prices detailed in these following scenarios are the result of online queries conducted with Nationwide in late March of 2014.)
West Virginia
The state is a consistent presence on annual lists for states presenting high costs for car insurance. One reason is the large patches of mostly rural settings for the state. Drivers in West Virginia are also hurt by the large number of coal mining operations in the state and the propensity for industry-related accidents involving drivers that drive up rates for everybody. The state also holds the dubious distinction of having the highest rate (per-capita) of drivers hitting deer in the nation. (In fact, according to several sources, the odds of a driver hitting or being hit by a deer in West Virginia are about 1 in 40.)
For licensed drivers to remain in compliance with West Virginia laws regarding car insurance, they must at least have the following options and levels in place:
- $20,000 in bodily injury liability coverage for a single person per accident
- $40,000 in total bodily injury liability coverage per accident
- $10,000 in total property damage liability coverage per accident
- $20,000 in uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage for a single person per accident
- $40,000 in total uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage per accident
- $10,000 in total uninsured motorist property damage coverage per accident
To more than properly cover Rob and his two cars, we plugged in some additional coverage options and higher levels when we used the Nationwide online plan building feature. Here’s the Nationwide car insurance coverage package we put in place for Rob in West Virginia:
- Liability coverage at 100/300/100 levels
- Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage at 100/300/100 levels
- Medical payments coverage at $2,000
- Collision coverage (for the Toyota only) with a $500 deductible
- Comprehensive coverage (for both) with separate $1,000 deductibles
- Rental reimbursement coverage in place
- Roadside assistance/towing coverage in place
In West Virginia, Nationwide is able to extend a number of discounts to Rob. He gets a discount on his premium for having safety and anti-theft devices on his car(s), for insuring more than one vehicle, for being a safe driver and for conducting his transactions online. The result is that Rob can insure both of his cars through Nationwide in West Virginia for $240 - $255 per month in premium.
Washington
Washington falls very near the national median when measured by what drivers there are expected to pay for car insurance coverage. One reason may be due to the moderate requirements imposed on drivers for coverage types and levels. One thing of note in our scenario is that by putting Rob in Spokane, we’ve placed him in a city with one of the highest per-capita rates for car theft in the country. Licensed drivers in Washington are faced with the following minimum requirements for car insurance coverage:
- $25,000 in bodily injury liability coverage for a single person per accident
- $50,000 in total bodily injury liability coverage per accident
- $10,000 in total property damage liability coverage per accident
Following the pattern established for Rob in West Virginia of adding more coverage options and levels than the legal minimum for the state, here’s the Nationwide car insurance plan we built for Rob in Washington:
- Liability coverage at 100/300/100 levels
- Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage at 100/300/100 levels
- Medical payments coverage at $2,000
- Collision coverage (for the Toyota only) with a $500 deductible
- Comprehensive coverage with separate $1,000 deductibles for each car
- Rental car reimbursement coverage in place
- Roadside assistance/towing coverage in place
In Washington, Nationwide is able to extend Rob a discount on his premium for having safety and anti-theft devices on his car(s), for being a safe driver and for conducting his business online. The result is a monthly premium for Washington Nationwide car insurance of $120 - $135.
North Carolina
While its First in Flight designation has recently been challenged, nobody has challenged North Carolina as one of the least expensive states for car insurance costs. One reason may be the state’s higher levels of required coverage. A licensed driver in the state of North Carolina must have the following auto insurance options and levels in place:
- $30,000 in bodily injury liability coverage for a single person per accident
- $60,000 in total bodily injury liability coverage per accident
- $25,000 in total property damage liability coverage per accident
- $30,000 in uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage for a single person per accident
- $60,000 in total uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage per accident
- $25,000 in total uninsured motorist property damage coverage (with a minimum $100 deductible) per accident
Keeping these limits in mind, we built a policy that exceeds even these higher levels. The North Carolina Nationwide car insurance coverage plan we built for Rob includes:
- Liability coverage at 100/300/100 levels
- Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage at 100/300/100 levels (with a property damage deductible of $100)
- Medical payments coverage at $2,000
- Collision coverage (for the Toyota only) with a $500 deductible
- Comprehensive coverage with separate $1,000 deductibles for each car
- Rental reimbursement coverage in place
- Roadside assistance/towing coverage in place
In addition to the same car insurance premium discounts Rob was eligible for in West Virginia and Washington, Nationwide can offer North Carolina discounts to Rob because he is a homeowner and because he plans to overlap his new coverage with Nationwide for a couple days with his coverage from a previous insurer. The result is a Nationwide North Carolina car insurance premium of $95 - $110 per month.
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Some additional notes
In each of the above scenarios, Rob would have access to some additional car insurance premium discounts if he choses to add other Nationwide products. For example, if Rob took out a homeowner policy through Nationwide, he could be eligible for discounts on the premium for that policy and his coverage of both cars. Nationwide also has some additional financial tools and products that, if Rob took advantage of them, would lower his car insurance premium costs.
Nationwide also has a couple products in each of the three states that could benefit Rob in his coverage of the newer car (the Toyota) that still carries a loan balance. Nationwide offers reasonable GAP car insurance coverage in all three target markets. Rob may also want to look into Nationwide’s Vanishing Deductible feature, especially for the collision coverage he hopes to put in place on both cars.
Of course, the best way to be sure that Rob is getting all the coverage he needs for the states where he lives and drives is to connect him with a licensed car insurance agent with access to leading companies like Nationwide. An experienced agent will be able to answer all of Rob’s questions (or yours for that matter), help him/you pursue all the available discounts out there, and even craft some additional coverage scenarios that could save money in the long run. Reply! can serve as an excellent resource in this regard as we can connect you to local car insurance professionals more than willing to help you build just the right car insurance coverage plan.