Trying to drive down my insurance cost and calculating my miles/ year. I added on the 1,848 miles, but I really don't even think I use that many. I don't leave the house for anything not listed besides maybe going out to eat. I haven't accounted for holidays so it technically exceeds the actual milage. I am aware my commute is ridiculously short – I live in a very hot climate with poor public transportation and don't like walking a mile after an 8 hour shift in 100 degree weather.
Community College – 1.5 miles 2x/week = 312 mi/yr
Work – 1 mile 4x/week = 416 mi/yr
Therapy – 7.7 miles 1x/week = 800 mi/yr
Groceries – 1 mile 1x/week = 104 mi/year
Extra – 10 miles 1x/week = 520 mi/year
Rounding up – +1,848 mi/year
= 4,000 miles per year.
Does this seem reasonable? Will there be consequences if I end up exceeding this number?
Check my math, is 4,000 miles/ year crazy low?
byu/bugspraybites inInsurance
Posted by bugspraybites
21 Comments
The coverage of insurance, the cost of deductibles, vehicle choice, area you live, prior driving record all make up the majority of your coverage cost. If someone who drove 3k miles annually compared to 8k miles would have anything more than a negligible difference in insurance cost, I’d be shocked.
No.
The average person drives 12-15k miles per year.
The average person also significantly underestimates their mileage when talking to their insurer.
That’s about what I drive. My 2018 (that I got in Sept 2017) just hit 35k miles. I didn’t request a low mileage quote though . How much does it save?
That is low, usually it’s around 12k a year. If you truly do drive that little then you should look into programs that rate you based on annual mileage. There are some programs that track how you drive as well but if you had to pick one, a mileage one is more beneficial for you.
It happens. I’ve had my car for two weeks short of two years, and it has 5,372 miles.
I work from home and estimated my mileage at 5,000/year. Got my car one year ago and hit 5,400 miles so I don’t think your estimate is wildly low if you know you don’t drive much. It will not make a difference if you go over mileage, you’ll just need to increase your annual mileage at renewal and your rates may go up a little.
My 2019 just hit 9000 miles.
I wouldn’t say thats unreasonably low. Like, yes the avg is around 10k+ but 5k-10k is perfectly reasonable too. I’ve been driving for about 9 years with the same vehicle, got it at 55k and it’s currently at 132k. That’s 8.5k a year. Some years, I was driving around 5k miles.
I drive 3 miles one way to work and my husband and I use our car as our “distance” car… I bought it in December of 2023 and I’ve put about 10k miles on it? It’s a 2015 Mitsubishi lancer and I bought it in really good condition with 146k for $6k. I think I can get a solid 5 years out of it….maybe 10! I think having a short commute to work is a total game changer and because I’m a hs teacher, my summer job is from home. 4k miles a year sounds great to me!
Using that on an application would stick out like a sore thumb in 2018, but post work from home being normalized, it’s a lot more common.
Will there be consequences if you exceed that number? Ask your insurance carrier. The company I work for, no, but if you do more than you thought, you’d want to push it up the following year to reflect how much you actually drive, but you’re not going to have a claim denied because you drove too much, at least as far as I’m aware. However, I only work for one company, so check with your carrier to see how they handle that.
It’s low, so you might have to prove it.
I drive an average of 5500 miles a year. My car is 15 years old and has 83,000 miles on it. Every 6 months, every insurance company I’ve had has made me prove my milage before they renew me, otherwise they change it to 12k/year.
Track for 1 month. Easiest way. Or if you have a state inspection with a date a mileage you can do the math that way.
My personal vehicle gets driven less than 5k miles/yr.
Not crazy to me.
I also average about another 5k miles on a work vehicle.
I drive 12k a year on average.
Ive been telling my insurance company I drive 3k miles a year for the last 15 years and I always do about 12-15k.
I have two cars. Drive each about 1800 per year.
Keep in mind that not all carriers rate on annual mileage in that way. Mainly because people would try to lower their premium by calling in low ball mileage to save money.
Insurance companies have brackets for mileage driven when calculating rates. It’s a determining factor but not a major one. They can be pretty broad.
This is me. I have a 10-year old car that just hit 36K.
My car only goes 30 miles a day 2 times a week as I only goto office twice a week and I dont use it for pleasure. Last year I only had 4100ish miles