Insuring an Electric Car

Written by Bryan Johannsen

In most US states any car on the road is required to have auto insurance and this doesn't stop with electric cars or neighborhood electric vehicles. Finding information specific to insuring electric cars on the web wasn't easy so we contacted a few of the major insurance providers to see what they had to say.

GEICO

Geico doesn't offer much in the way of coverage for electric car owners. For NEV classed cars they can only be insured with GEICO in California, North Carolina and Rhode Island where they are bound by law to offer coverage. In these cases they will only offer to write a new policy if you are an existing GEICO policy holder. They will not start a new policy on a NEV. I also asked about the Tesla Roadster since it is the only all electric vehicle that is NTSB approved for highway travel. The agent informed me that it just falls under their High Performance category and does not have any differences in coverage to a gas powered high performance car such as a Corvette.

Progressive

Progressive will not insure any vehicle that is not capable of maintaining 55 miles per hour so insuring a neighborhood electric vehicle with progressive isn't possible at this time. I also asked the agent about the Tesla Roadster and, similar to GEICO, they just treat it as a normal high performance car, there are no discounts or differences in coverage due to it being all electric.

State Farm

State Farm will insure neighborhood electric vehicles according to the agent I spoke with. He actually had a policy on a GEM e4 in our local area and gave me a few specifics on it. Without revealing too much on his client he told me she is paying just over $500 every six months to insure the GEM and that is without any collision policy, not exactly cheap but if insurance is required for the vehicle to be on the road then at least State Farm will insure it.

I asked him about the Tesla as well and he, like the others above, said that it would fall into their high performance car category. It receives no special considerations for it's electric power plant.

Allstate

Allstate does offer coverage for neighborhood electric vehicles an it runs about the same as State Farm when it comes to pricing. Of course having existing policies with these companies will help costs when it comes to any insurance and good driver and multi car discounts apply. There isn't any discount for an all electric vehicle.

Like the other companies the Tesla Roadster would be treated as any other high performance gasoline powered car.

When contacting all these companies, except for State Farm since the agent I talked to already had a client with an electric vehicle, I spent a lot of time on hold and got passed around to numerous people. Many of them had no idea what an NEV was or even if they offered coverage. All electric vehicles are new to the insurance companies as well as to consumers so things may change in the future. In the time being you may have to spend quite a bit of time the phone trying to find good affordable coverage for your electric car.

Comments to date: 1. Page 1 of 1.