We all know how you drive affects your insurance. Your experience, your driving record, your past number of accidents, all contribute to how much you pay for insurance. But, there are also a number of other factors that affect your insurance. Most of these seem to make sense: your gender (guys are more likely to get into accidents than women), your marital status (fewer accidents for married people), your age (we get in fewer accidents after 25, or so the thinking goes). We can all think about these and find a reason that they make sense.
But a new study from the Consumer Federation of America revealed that your education can have a huge impact on your insurance rates. That’s right, people with an advanced degree pay about 45% less for insurance than those with a high school degree. From the article “One of the biggest differentials the CFA found: A Geico policy for a factory worker in Seattle with a high-school diploma versus a college-educated plant supervisor in the same city cost 45% more ($870 versus $599).”
This is one of those things that makes you go hmmmm……… If the only difference is education, then there should not be a rate difference. I have never seen a study that correlates accidents to education. The insurance industry, of course, defends this practice, but doesn’t really point to a study that supports this contention.
This is just one more reason you need to shop your auto insurance with a broker, or, if you prefer, with several insurance companies. You simply don’t know where you will get the best deal on your insurance.