The 10 most and least expensive states for car accident repairs

Most people know that their location matters when it comes to their car insurance rates, but you might be surprised to learn that drivers in some states pay way more for collision repairs, too. The Dolman Law Group’s recent research found that drivers in Rhode Island pay almost five times the amount for repairs than people in Hawaii, the cheapest state.

The 10 most expensive states for collision repairs:

Rhode Island: $1,987 per capita
Georgia: $1,761
Connecticut: $1,712
New Jersey: $1,577
Delaware: $1,518
Tennessee: $1,472
Wyoming: $1,457
Louisiana: $1,413
Maine: $1,396
Kentucky: $1,378

Why are costs so high in Rhode Island? One of the biggest reasons is the state’s low percentage of licensed drivers, with just 68.8 percent of the population holding a license. That causes the per capita costs to increase, while states with higher license percentages can spread those repair costs across more of the population. It’s worth noting that Rhode Island has the lowest fatality rate of any state in the study.

That said, Rhode Island lawmakers also passed a new bill that extends the age of vehicles that insurers can refuse to pay for non-OEM parts during repairs. They can now refuse non-OEM parts on cars up to 72 months old, which may further increase repair costs in the state.

On the other end of the spectrum, many states have average repair costs that fall well below the $1,000 mark:

Hawaii: $410
Pennsylvania: $520
Oregon: $669
Minnesota: $674
California: $736
Virginia: $756
Idaho: $758
West Virginia: $815
Arizona: $817
Washington: $832

Earlier this year, Autoblog covered a similar topic from NetCredit, which used data from RepairPal. Dolman Law Group analyzed the number of licensed drivers, the financial impacts of crashes, and the number of fatal accidents in each state to come up with its list. The NetCredit study ranked California as the most expensive and West Virginia as the least expensive.