Reader comments
Some cars guzzle insurance

The article fails to explain why insurance is higher for certian vehicles. The reason is the cost of repair. More expensive parts. This is also a factor in normal maintanance.

So we are dammed if we do and dammed if we don't sounds like a great monopoly of America corporate greed

good old american greed at its best - get the suckers any way you can

As gasoline pushes past four bucks a gallon people stare down their noses at my 77 buick, and how much I pay for gas yada yada. But the cost of car ownership isn't just gas. True, it does unapologetically use gas. But, I own my buick. The payment and interest is zero every month. It runs well. The wreckers and parts jobbers are full of parts for it that are really inexpensive. There's stuff under the hood I can fix. Basic insurance on the thing is really cheap. And it loves to cruise the highway. The math works for me.

The hybrid myth is as pervasive as the ethanol myth. Just as it takes a greater amount of energy derived from oil to produce the energy equivalent amount of ethanol, the energy put into making a hybrid car is greater than the energy savings throughout the life of the car. Not only do they cost more (both initially and through insurance/repair/etc) they're not doing a thing for the environment. If you want a hybrid to be "cool", great, but don't do it because you think you're saving money or the planet.

We need to understand that every insurance policy
is a written wager between us and the insurance company. We bet the annual premium that we WILL have a crash and the insurance company bets the amount stated in the policy (enough to replace your car, usually) that you won't.

Being uninsured and having a crash is very bad, because the other car and its occupants can sue you for huge amounts if the crash was your fault (usually if you have front end damage)... If you were insured, the insurance company will pay, and you won't have to go to jail.

Guaglione,
What is your source for your hybrid myth claim? Is it the famous a Hummer is better story? That happens to have been an interesting piece of fiction. The assumptions made about the life of the vehicles was pure speculation and the manufacturing energy costs were accounted for very inconsistantly. They carefully counted all the energy costs of the extra hybrid pieces while ignoring many of the energy costs of the standard pieces. I'm not sure of the real answer but I haven't seen an analysis that I think fairly captures the total cradle to grave energy costs of any product.

Matthew and Guaglione,
Matthew claims it is a "myth" but it is actually true. It was a special on PBS last week where it was investigated and discovered that it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen to run the car than it takes to produce and run a regular gas powered car. You really aren't saving any money or the environment. But, they did say that "they" are working on the technology to produce a cleaner, more efficent way to run the hybrids. So, if you get a car to "save the environment", wait a bit, you aren't saving anything right yet. Just using more of this Earth for your own personal pride.

What everyone fails to realize is that they made no mention in the article of the coverages provided when they got their quotes. I can keep the cost real low by going state minimums on insurance 25/50/15 and jacking your deductibles to 1000 but you really think that 15k is going to replace your vehicle when you get in an accident? You really think that you will only have 25k in medical bills when you get in an accident with an SUV in one of these cars?

The point is, the D-News can spout quotes all they want but they didn't report what the coverages were and choosing to put a quality company like Farmers against 2 cut-rate cheap insurers like Geico and Progressive isn't fair. Geico and Progressive don't offer anything above 100/300 because above that, in good coverage land, they can't compete with price becuase they aren't that good of companies and they know that. Get quotes for 250/500/250 from State Farm, Farmers and Allstate and then try again.

Come on D-News, lets play fair here and not slant the reporting to your personal bias. If I wanted biased news I would read the left-wing Trib.

I create HHO (Hydroxy) under my hood on a much cheaper Honda Civic for a one time cost of only a few hundred bucks..the myth about " it can't be done" usually put out there by "experts" who have not done this experiment is alive and well. Well, it can be done..hydrogen on demand, and with electricity provided by my own car's alternator. My last mileage check was 48.3 miles mpg average on a 250 mile trip through Utah. That is 12 mpg better than the EPA rating on this car of 29/36. I suppose someone will come along and try to ban this too. Come on America, we can do better than this. Look at stodgy old Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors going broke while Japan and Germany have been doing it much better for years in conserving on oil. Or, are we too far down the drain with unfunded pension plans, union demands, the EPA, huge trucks and SUV's, Congress, and overpaid car and old company execs. who eat lunch with each other every day. In America, who cares!!!!!!!!!!! I do.

What hydrogen? Priuses don't run on hydrogen. Maybe you should have paid more attention to that PBS special.

Sad to have to agree and break it to folks, but hydrogen is not a source of energy. It takes energy to create it, so its a stupid road to go down to try and save crude oil and lower gas prices.

I have a 1984 Chevette. Bought it new for $4800 cash. Never made a payment. Insurance is $290 a year. When new, it would cross the desert to Reno at 50mpg. Now, at 185K it is still good for 45mpg on the freeway, and 35 around town. The emissions are so low, they barely register because of the catalytic.

Now I don't mean everyone should get one, but I find it rather odd that a 24 year old vehicle that uses a carb, not the more efficient FI, well used and cared for, gets better mileage than $30K hybrids. Is this what people call progress? You must be kidding.

The insurance on my 08 Carerra is $95 per month on a $95,000 car. Now for the qualifying facts-
female, married, high credit score, $1000 ded, secured garage, less 7500 miles per year in driving, no wrecks, last ticket was in 04 Porsche 3 years ago for 5 miles over in my own neighborhood. Valentine R.D. I paid cash for vehicle. Our BMW X5 is $110 per month. I carry very high levels of coverage esp liability on both. I pay both premiums in full at renewal.
Your wonderful hybrid cost x number of dollars more than a standard gas vehicle (mark miller is a nice guy but he is in the business to make $), so you get a 5 or 6 year car loan to pay for this hybrid and it will take you years to ever recoup the savings in gas. Will landfills soon be filling up with this wrecked hybrids and their toxic batteries?
Hybrids are like those CFL light bulbs, I hate them both but I suspect in the future I will have little choice and will own both of them

I traded in my GMC 2500 for a Civic since I got out of the flooring business. Yes it was higher to insure by $23 a month. But I save a lot more than that in gas costs. The really sad thing is that my sisters kid drives a late 80's Honda CRX that gets better milage by far than my are or any car, including hybrids, out there and is dirt cheap to insure since they paid less that $1k.

Makes me wonder just why they make such a big deal with hybrid MPG when the late 80s where giving us cars that got much better mileage?

All insurance is legalized fraud.

Did all of you see BUSH finally end the Executive Ban on Off shore drilling. ONly 6 months left in his term. Nice mr bush.... They should have done it the first month in the white house.... Now Congress has to hold the buck, we will see if they will pull their ban.

Now that oil is almost 150 a barrel Bush is finally moving.... Kinda like all that time he spent on 9/11 doing nothing in front of that School class.

Dang I voted badly in 2000 and 2004... Never again.

i have a 2005 ram 2500 diesel 4x4 quad cab biggest thing i could find and slapped a lift kit of 4" on it to boot. i own it outright. my wallet is not hurting and if i am in an accident with a small hybrid i am going to win every single time. in the winter when the hybrid is stuck in the snow i use my winch to pull em out. the hybrid wont haul my family of 5, plus my camp trailer, or my boat. the hybrid wont allow mw to go hunting in the fall where my truck will.

my point is until the auto makers start to seriously make vehicles that do more than crumple in an accident and can haul more than 4 people why waste money? if my wife and i have another child then what? there is no hybrid that can haul 6 and the gear when we go on vacation or get into the hills.

hybrids are quaint but not realistic.

This is a tempest in a teapot. Go to insure.com yourself to look at the complete list of the 20 best-selling cars. The percentage difference in insurance cost between the 3rd most expensive car to insure (Prius) and the 8th least expensive car to insure (Civic) is less than 5%.

Slow news day.

One thing I didn't understand in the article was what they were saying about relative price increases. When trading a Town & Country for a Prius, your insurance goes up. When trading a Toyata Tundra for a Prius, your insurance goes down. Is this simply a confusing way of saying that a T&C is cheapest to insure, a Prius is next, and a Tundra is the most? Or is there really some weird voodoo where insurance companies actually take your prior car into account in calculating your rates? I wouldn't put it past them, but I can't see the logic.

To those claiming there's a myth related to hybrids, I think you're missing the point. The point of the hybrid is that it saves money FOR ME by saving energy FOR ME. I don't care what energy went into the car's production, or the production of its fuel (gas for a Prius, ethanol, electricity or hydrogen for others).

Also, all those calculations depend on the price of gas. The more expensive gas is, the more of a win a hybrid is. At $2/gallon a hybrid would take 8 years for me to break even. At $4/gallon it's three years.

Way to get to the real point, ave! Most readers of this paper think environmental factors are irrelevant anyway, so why all the boos and hisses? You don't want a Prius? Don't get one! I have one, and I love it! Regardless of what it does or doesn't do! And yeah, it does get great mileage. That is no myth. I have had mine for two years, and I still average 48 mpg. And insurance? Didn't change from my last vehicle, which was a Ford Focus. Maybe I just have a better credit rating/driving record than the reporter?