Where the Car Sleeps

A quote asks for an address, and most people give the one on their mail. The question the carrier is actually asking is narrower: where is this vehicle parked overnight, most nights? That is the garaging address, and it is not always the same thing.

Why it is asked separately

Risk is geographic. Theft rates, claim frequency, repair costs and the density of traffic all vary from place to place, and California's rating rules allow location to be weighed among the factors an insurer may use. The location that matters is where the car is exposed, not where the bills are sent.

The situations where the two come apart

• A student. The car lives at school nine months a year and at home three. Which address governs depends on the carrier's rules — ask, and describe the real pattern rather than picking one.
• Two homes. A weekday address and a weekend one. The carrier wants the majority.
• A car kept at a relative's house. Common, entirely legitimate, and worth disclosing rather than smoothing over.
• A recent move. If you moved and the policy still shows the old address, the policy is describing a car that isn't there.
• A P.O. box. It is a mailing address and cannot be a garaging address.

The thing people get wrong on purpose

Using a different address to get a better price has a name in the industry — rate evasion — and it is the kind of misstatement that gives a carrier grounds to act after a claim. It is also easier to detect than people assume, because a carrier can compare the address on the application against the DMV registration, the license, the claims history and, after a loss, where the car actually was.

Our view is unfashionably simple: the saving is small, the exposure is your entire claim, and the arithmetic never works.

When your address genuinely changes

Tell your agent when it happens, not at renewal. The price may go up, it may go down, and either way the policy needs to be accurate for it to pay cleanly. Remember that the DMV expects to hear about an address change too, and the two notifications are separate — telling one does not tell the other.

How to answer it honestly when it is genuinely ambiguous

Describe the pattern in one sentence and let the agent apply the rules: the car is at my apartment in the city Sunday night through Thursday and at my parents' place most weekends. That is a real answer. Picking one address because the form only has one box is how you end up with a policy that does not match your life.

Tell us where the car actually parks and we'll quote it correctly the first time.