The Three Required Factors Apply to Six Coverages at Once

A speeding ticket has nothing obvious to do with a stolen catalytic converter or a cracked windshield. Yet after a ticket, people often find the comprehensive line on their renewal has moved along with everything else. That is not a quirk of one company; it follows from how California's rating rules are written.

The rule

Insurance Code section 1861.02 requires rates to be set by the three mandatory factors in decreasing order of importance. 10 CCR 2632.5(c) then says which coverages that applies to: an insurer's class plan "shall utilize" the mandatory factors "for bodily injury liability, property damage liability, medical payments, uninsured motorist, collision, and comprehensive coverages."

So the three factors are not reserved for the liability part of the policy. They are required for each of those six coverages.

Why it surprises people

Comprehensive pays for losses that are mostly not about how you drive: theft, vandalism, fire, falling objects, animals, glass. It is natural to expect its price to depend on the car and where it is kept, and those optional factors do play a part. But in California the mandatory factors come first for comprehensive too, and the weight order applies: driving record above mileage, mileage above experience, and every optional factor below experience.

What it looks like on a renewal

After a violation is rated, or after a Good Driver policy is lost, expect more than one line to change. The size of each change comes from the company's filed plan, which is why nobody can tell you in advance what a ticket will do to any one coverage. The useful thing to know is that a broad change across the policy is consistent with the rules, not a sign of an error.

It also explains why two drivers with the same car and the same address can see different comprehensive prices. Their records, mileage and years licensed differ, and those differences are required to flow into comprehensive as well as liability.

The same logic works in your favour. A corrected mileage estimate, or a violation ageing out of the record a company rates, reaches all six coverages, not only the liability line.

What it means if you are thinking of cutting coverage

It is tempting to drop comprehensive or collision to offset a ticket. Make that decision on its own merits: what the car is worth, whether a lender requires the coverage, and whether you could replace the car. Our pages on why comprehensive and collision price separately and on coverages that barely move the price walk through that test. Cutting a coverage you need because a ticket made it dearer swaps a temporary cost for a permanent risk.

When a ticket has moved your whole renewal, the useful next step is to see how other companies' plans treat the same record. Request a quote with the violation and its date.