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How Car Thefts Affect Auto Insurance in California

There is no way to completely protect your vehicle from being stolen. While new features, such as automatic locking doors and alarm systems  have led to vehicle theft to drop by 35 percent in California alone, there is still no way to completely ensure that your car never gets stolen.

While the number of vehicle thefts has dropped dramatically over the past few years, most Californians think the opposite is true. Three out of every four people in California think that the number of vehicle thefts has either gone up, or stayed the same in recent years. Older people and women are more likely to think that the number of car thefts per year has gone up compared to men and people who are younger.

The number of vehicle thefts in California in 2012 dropped to only 168,608, compared to the 257,543 just a few years before in 2005. Nationally, the number of vehicles that were stolen in 2012 was only 721,053, compared to 1.2 million that were stolen in 2005.

Even though the overall number of cars that were stolen in California went down, the state still has eight of the top 10 worst vehicle theft hot spots. Where you park your car in California makes a huge difference in the likelihood of it getting stolen. There were only three cars stolen in Sierra, Mono, and Modoc counties combined in 2012, while there were 30,402 cars that were stolen in Los Angeles County.

The auto insurance rates in California are the only ones that have decreased in the past two decades, going down by 0.3 percent. This decrease of auto insurance premiums in California is due to Prop. 103, which allowed insurance companies to base auto insurance policies mostly on a person’s driving record, type of vehicle, number of miles that are driven annually, and the years of driving experience, as opposed to the area in which they lived.

For the best auto insurance policy at the best price in Northern California, contact Agers Insurance Services in Oakley.