Why is Louisiana so expensive? It's a veritable vortex of all the factors that increase the number of accidents and drive up rates: drunk drivers, heavy traffic, poor roads, and a lot of wet weather, to be specific. As well, it's got a greater frequency of claims than many other states - drivers in Louisiana are happy to see each other in court.
How much do these factors really affect local drivers? Here are some examples:
- Drunk Driving: Louisiana has drive-through liquor stores, and a culture that celebrates excess drinking.
- Wet weather: Louisiana is home to four of the ten rainiest cities in the US (New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and Lake Charles).
- Poor Roads: Ask any trucker, Louisiana's highways are the worst in the country
- Personal Behavior: Residents of Louisiana aren't significantly worse drivers than people in other parts of the country, but they are less likely to wear seatbelts.
Other elements that make Louisiana's car insurance the most expensive include high insurance taxes, and the number of automobiles that were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina more than two years ago. As well, there's the classification of Louisiana as an "urban driving" state, despite the fact that most of the cities are not particularly large, and many of the roads are two-lane streets.
Of all of these factors, however, it's the high number of claims that has the most impact. State Farm, for example, reports that in 2006 Louisiana had more than double the bodily injury claims and a third more property damage claims than the company-wide total, and the highest number of claims of the five-state zone that also includes Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
