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What Dings Our Cars: Hail, Not Shopping Carts

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An analysis of personal auto insurance claims data from 2014 shows some surprises, as well as things that make common sense.

In an age of distracted driving it makes common sense, for instance, that rear-end collisions were the biggest source of personal auto insurance claims in 2014, according to The Progressive Group of Companies, Mayfield Village, Ohio. Rear-end collisions were also No. 1 in 2013, according to spokesman Steve Kaczynski.

“The goal of this report is to empower people with information so they can avoid accidents,” said Mike Sieger, claims operations leader at Progressive, in a written statement. “For example, when people see that rear-end accidents were the top claim of 2014, maybe they’ll think twice before following the person in front of them too closely.”

In the surprising category, Progressive found that the month of May was the top month for personal auto insurance claims -- not one of the winter months, when you would think snow and ice on the roads make driving most dangerous. Surprisingly, December was the lowest month for claims, the company said.

And the high rate of claims in May isn’t because of heavy travel on Memorial Day Weekend, the company said. It’s because of hail damage in the middle part of the country, Progressive said.

The analysis, Progressive’s 2014 Year in Claims Report, covers Progressive policyholders only. That’s a huge sample, though. Progressive reported on Jan. 28 it had 9.2 million personal auto policies at year-end 2014, up 2 percent from a year ago.

Another surprise was that auto theft was not among the Top Five sources of personal auto claims. After rear-end collisions came single vehicle accidents, damage to parked vehicles, accidents at intersections, and damage caused by objects in the road.

The snapshot of 2014 claims covers the volume of claims, not the size of individual claims. By that standard, auto thefts might have been higher on the list.

Kaczynski said that to come up with meaningful statistics state by state, the company divided the number of claims by the number of policyholders Progessive has in that state. Otherwise, the states with the most policyholders logically would have the most claims.

The District of Columbia won a couple of dubious distinctions in the statistics. The District was where you were most likely to have your car broken into or stolen. The rest of the Top Five were California, Washington, Missouri and Hawaii.

In addition, D.C. led the list of highest states for personal auto claims, followed by Massachusetts, Maryland, New York and South Carolina.