Per-mile Premiums for Auto Insurance

Per-mile Premiums for Auto Insurance
Author: Aaron S. Edlin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 40
Release: 1999
Genre: Automobile insurance
ISBN:

Americans drive 2,360,000,000,000 miles each year, far outstripping other nations. Every time a driver takes to the road, and with each mile she drives, she exposes herself and others to the risk of accident. Insurance premiums are only weakly linked to mileage, however, and have largely lump-sum characteristics. The result is too much driving and too many accidents. This paper begins by developing a model of the relationship between driving and accidents that formalizes Vickrey's [1968] central insights about the accident externalities of driving. We use this model to estimate the driving, accident, and congestion reductions that could be expected from switching to other insurance pricing systems. Under a competitive system of per-mile premiums, in which insurance companies quote risk-classified per-mile rates, we estimate that the reduction in insured accident costs net of lost driving benefits would be $9.8 -$12.7 billion nationally, or $58 -$75 per insured vehicle. When uninsured accident cost savings and congestion reductions are considered, the net benefits rise to $25 -$29 billion, exclusive of monitoring costs. The total benefits of uniform per-gallon insurance charge could be $1.3 -$2.3 billion less due to heterogeneity in fuel efficiency. The total benefits of optimal' per-mile premiums in which premiums are taxed to account for accident externalities would be $32 -$43 billion, or $187 - $254 per vehicle, exclusive of monitoring costs. One reason that insurance companies may have not switched to per-mile premiums on their own is that most of the benefits are external and the transaction costs to the company and its customers of checking odometers could exceed the $31 per vehicle of gains that a single company could temporarily realize on its existing base of customers

Pay-as-you-drive Auto Insurance

Pay-as-you-drive Auto Insurance
Author: Jason E. Bordoff
Publisher:
Total Pages: 55
Release: 2008
Genre: Automobile insurance
ISBN:

The current lump-sum pricing of auto insurance is inefficient and inequitable. Drivers who are similar in other respects--age, gender, location, driving safety record--pay nearly the same premiums if they drive five thousand or fifty thousand miles a year. Just as an all-you-can-eat restaurant encourages more eating, all-you-can-drive insurance pricing encourages more driving. That means more accidents, congestion, carbon emissions, local pollution, and dependence on oil. This pricing system is inequitable because low-mileage drivers subsidize insurance costs for high-mileage drivers, and low-income people drive fewer miles on average. In this discussion paper, we propose and evaluate a simple alternative: pay-as-you-drive (PAYD) auto insurance. If all motorists paid for accident insurance per mile rather than in a lump sum, they would have an extra incentive to drive less. We estimate driving would decline by 8 percent nationwide, netting society the equivalent of about 50 billion to 60 billion [dollars] a year by reducing driving-related harms. This driving reduction would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2 percent and oil consumption by about 4 percent. To put it in perspective, it would take a 1 [dollar]-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax to achieve the same reduction in driving. Unlike an increase in the gas tax, PAYD would save most drivers money regardless of where they live. We estimate almost two-thirds of households would pay less for auto insurance, with each of those households saving an average of 270 [dollars] per car -- Abstract