What an Insurer May Ask to Back Up Your Mileage Estimate

Annual mileage is the second of California's three mandatory rating factors, which makes the number you give one of the most consequential answers on an application. The regulation that governs it, 10 CCR 2632.5(c)(2), also sets out what an insurer can do to check that number.

The estimate starts with you

The factor is the estimated number of miles each vehicle will be driven in the twelve months after the policy begins. For a new policy or a newly added car, the applicant provides that estimate. It is a forecast, not a history, which is why the support an insurer can ask for is about making the forecast reasonable.

What the insurer may ask for

To support your estimate, an insurer may ask for:

• your commute: how far, and how many days a week the car is used for it;
• the miles you drive for pleasure;
• the miles the car was driven over a period of up to the previous 24 months;
• the reasons your estimate differs from that recent history; and
• the current odometer reading.

It may also use odometer readings recorded at smog checks.

What it may request but not require

Two kinds of evidence sit in a different category. An insurer may request service records, and it may request that you use a technological device that records mileage, but it may not make either one a requirement for an estimated-mileage policy. Devices belong to separate verified-mileage programs, which have their own rules; our page on mileage devices covers them.

When the insurer picks the number

If you give no estimate, or the information you provide doesn't support the estimate you gave, the regulation lets the insurer issue the policy using a reasonable objective estimate based on that information. If no reasonable estimate can be worked out, it may use a default annual mileage figure that has been filed with and approved by the Insurance Commissioner. Either way, before it rates the policy on that figure, it must tell you which mileage figure it will use.

So a mileage number on your quote that you never gave is worth a question: is it a default or an objective estimate, and what information would let you replace it with your own?

No surprise bill at the end of the term

Because the factor is an estimate, the regulation says premiums may not be adjusted afterwards based on the miles actually driven, unless you were told before the policy took effect. That protection runs alongside a duty: Insurance Code section 661 lists material misrepresentation of annual miles among the grounds on which a policy can be cancelled. Estimate honestly, in both directions.

A measured estimate is one of the simplest improvements a household can make to a quote. When you have yours, request a quote built on it.