Brooklyn car insurance rates among the highest in the nation

With new studies revealing that car insurance rates are at an all-time high in the U.S., Brooklynites have extra reason to complain — their rates are the highest in New York state, where auto insurance rates have gone up, over the last year, 62.7 percent more than the national average.

New York rates have risen 7.9 percent in the last year, according to the newly released 2019 State of Auto Insurance Report from the Zebra, an insurance search engine and the largest car insurance comparison marketplace in the U.S.

Brooklyn is the most expensive borough for car insurance. Drivers here pay an average of $3,501 annually for insurance — 18 percent more than the city’s average and 141 percent higher than the state mean.

But, even within the borough, the pain is not evenly split.

Stuyvesant Heights (zip code 11233) has the highest car insurance rates in Brooklyn at $4,075 annually, followed by Brower Park/Crown Heights (11213) at $4,055, Crown Heights (11225) at $4,036, East New York (11207) at $4,026 and Bedford-Stuyvesant (11216) at $4,009.

Residents living in Bay Ridge’s 11209 area code pay an average of $3,528 annually for car insurance according to carinsurance , not quite the highest premiums in the borough but certainly in the higher range.

Contrast this with the insurance rates drivers pay in other parts of New York state, such as Dutchess County, where the average cost is approximately $1,600 a year.

Brooklyn is home to more than 2.6 million residents, making it the most populated borough in the city. About a third of Brooklyn’s working population commutes to work, a possible reason contributing to the borough’s higher costs.

Drivers in the other boroughs pay more than the statewide average, but still quite a lot less than Brooklyn drivers do. Queens comes in second with an annual rate of $2,995, while drivers in the Bronx fork over $2,897, those in Manhattan pay $2,650 and those in Staten Island pay $2,560. The city average is approximately double the statewide average — $2,973 compared to $1,450, respectively.

There’s a reason New York rates are so high, according to Alyssa Connolly, director of market insights at the Zebra.

“As population continues to climb, traffic congestion worsens, leading to more collisions, claims and higher rates for everyone,” Connolly said. “The state also experiences just about every kind of weather event — ice and snow, hail, wind, flooding — all of which can damage cars and cause accidents. Rates have also been impacted nationally by accidents caused by distracted driving (driving while handling a phone or other device) and technology updates making cars more expensive to repair after a crash.”

The Zebra’s national study explored 61 million car insurance premiums across every zip code as impacted by common variables, such as driver age, gender, driving record, financial behaviors and the cars themselves.

The New York metro area data includes 568 zip codes and 359 cities. According to the Zebra, there are 1.4 million drivers in New York City.