Anamarie Waite, Car Insurance Writer
@anamarie.waite
Geico’s rates increase when drivers add more coverage, get into an accident, receive a speeding ticket, or file a claim. Certain life events, like adding a teenage driver to your policy, can also increase your rates. Plus, it’s possible to lose discounts, which could increase your premium. Your teen might lose a good student discount, for instance, or a speeding ticket could cancel your good driver discount.
Certain large-scale trends contribute to Geico and other insurance companies raising rates, too. Geico increases premiums as the cost of medical care rises, for example, because it makes bodily injury claims more expensive to pay out. Unpredictable, severe weather also causes prices to go up since insurers are hit with large numbers of expensive claims at once.
That helps to explain why Geico may continue to raise your rate even if you haven’t had any accidents or made any policy changes. Geico sets premiums based on how much they predict claims will cost. If those predicted costs increase, so will your premiums.
The bottom line is that there are a lot of factors affecting your insurance premium, and not all of them are within your control. But it’s still important to pinpoint the most likely causes of insurance rate hikes, so you can understand them better, at the very least, and hopefully make money-saving adjustments.
Why does Geico keep raising my rates?
- You got a high-tech car with more features, which is more expensive to insure and repair.
- Car accidents are on the rise, with 36,560 deadly crashes and 33,654 collisions in 2018—an 11% increase from five years earlier, despite safety improvements.
- The cost of healthcare rises by about 6% each year, which makes it more expensive to pay medical claims.
- Catastrophic weather is becoming much more common. In 2018, there were 55 weather catastrophes—the most in over a decade.
Those are some of the most common reasons why Geico may repeatedly raise a customer’s premium. And, as you can see, increases in insurance costs won’t always be about you in particular. The premiums we have to pay can also rise if the cost of providing car insurance goes up on the whole.
Does Geico increase rates after a claim?
Geico doesn’t always increase your premium if you file a claim. They consider your driving history, the number of claims you’ve had in the past, the payout amount and type of claim, and whether you qualify for accident forgiveness before raising your rate.
This is also true for speeding tickets and other moving violations. If you’re a loyal customer with a single incident, your premiums may not go up at all.
If your insurance rate is going to be affected by a claim or incident, you’ll get a new policy payment amount 30 days prior to renewal, so you’ll have time to shop around and compare rates if you want.
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