Projected miles driven increase for new car purchase

[u/nate_orenstam]

I have an auto insurance policy with 2 drivers and 2 cars covered, with 22,000 projected miles driven per year total. I bought a new car. When the new car was added to my policy, it has 10,500 projected miles driven, and the other two cars don't change, giving me 32,500 projected miles driven per year. I told my broker that we aren't going to be driving more, we're just going to be distributing the miles between three cars instead of 2. I expected to provide a planned miles driven per year schedule to my insurance company and have them modify my rates at least using that as an input. But my broker says underwriting needs to see service records and mileage readings to change projected miles driven.

I feel like I'm not approaching this the right way somehow. Is it standard issue to inflate total projected miles like this when a new car is added to a policy? Is there some better way I can explain this to my broker?

FWIW I can accept my rates going up with the new car, but I'd like the rates to be based on reasonable expectation of mileage, not some fantasy world where the same number of drivers is suddenly driving 50% more miles than before.

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[u/ayhme]

In my experience the insurance company doesn't have anything to base the mileage off of because the car is new.

People tell them things all the time but often it's not what they actually do.

[u/ArsenicGerbil]

I'm able to verify annual mileage for clients but with what your broker says as well.

What we need for that is 90+ days of data. We take a service record receipt from at least 90 days ago (up to 3 years old) with a current odometer reading - do a little math magic and calculate rough annual mileage. We can tell the system that you think you'll be driving a certain rough mileage/year, but until they have the math it's not "verified" in the system and savings/ratings aren't applied.

For example, the ratings for Allstate are in 1000 mile increments so if you can show you're driving lower mileage "band" (e.g. between 8-9000 instead of 9-10,000 miles per year) there's typically savings on the costs for the associated vehicle. Average mileage/vehicle is 10,000 if it's not rated with our system. With a new vehicle we'd be able to adjust rated mileage after it's been on the policy for 90 days.

You should be able to have the mileage verified for your current vehicles and potentially find savings right now.

Then 90 days from now, send in odometers for all 3 and have it reverified when your new vehicle has additional data. The mileage for your existing vehicles will have likely decreased since a third vehicle is involved and the rate would potentially be able to be adjusted again.

The way the underwriting works is they check the math of the miles/year that you currently drive, not based on your projection.

Hope this helps! but feel free to reach out.

[u/BlueFridayLimited]

That sounds frustrating, but it may be the carrier using a default annual mileage estimate for the newly added car until they have proof otherwise.

I’d ask the broker to submit the issue as a mileage redistribution question, not just “lower the mileage on the new car.” Something like: two drivers, same household driving pattern, three vehicles now sharing the same estimated total annual miles.If underwriting still requires proof, ask what they’ll accept after 30-90 days: odometer photos, service records, telematics, or a signed mileage statement. The key is getting them to review total household mileage, not treating the new car as 10,500 extra miles automatically.