With evidence growing that sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks and large vans are causing disproportionate harm to cars and their occupants in collisions, two insurers that together cover nearly 25 million vehicles have quietly begun making drivers of the bigger vehicles pay more for liability insurance.
Allstate Insurance Co. and the Progressive Insurance Group, the nation's second- and fourth-largest insurers, said this week that they had begun raising the cost of liability insurance for many big, high-riding vehicles while lowering premiums for the cars that are owned by most Americans.
Farmers Insurance Group, the third-biggest insurer, plans to adopt similar pricing next year.
"People with standard sedans and smaller cars today are subsidizing people with sports utilities and vans and pickups," said Kevin Kelso, who is in charge of auto insurance at Farmers, a unit of Zurich Financial Services Group.
Out of concern that they would lose some of their best customers, insurers until recently have hesitated to adopt pricing plans that shift costs to owners of the biggest vehicles.
Indeed, State Farm, the nation's largest auto insurer, announced a new pricing plan on Tuesday that would do just the opposite, reducing the cost to drivers of many larger vehicles for the personal injury portion of their coverage.
What the otherwise contradictory moves have in common is that they reflect aspects, at least, of reality on the road.
When big, high-riding vehicles collide with smaller ones, the smaller car often is left severely damaged and its occupants with severe injuries, while the larger vehicle better protects its occupants from serious harm. Yet insurance premiums have ignored that pattern.
Instead, two drivers with similar records have paid the same for liability coverage (for damage and injuries to others) and personal injury coverage (for injuries in the policyholder's vehicle), whether they are driving a Chevrolet Suburban or a Ford Escort.
Now, though, accident data are persuading the industry to make changes that, officials say, better assign costs to the responsible parties.
For consumers, premiums are likely to rise or fall by $150 or less a year, insurance executives say. For the industry as a whole, premium income should be little changed, although individual companies' fortunes could be affected as customers respond to shifts in pricing