Expert New York City Car Insurance Advice (Compare Costs & Companies)

New York, New York, is famous for Broadway, Times Square, and dozens of other reasons. Its densely packed city limits host millions of people — and millions of cars.

If you would rather drive around New York yourself than use public transit, the first thing you’ll need to do is get car insurance. You’re probably looking to save money on car insurance, though.

It can be hard to find the right provider without wasting hours, combing websites and quotes.

To help you out, our guide to New York car insurance covers everything from car insurance rates to driving laws.

So keep reading to learn about New York’s driving and lifestyle culture. If you want to jump right into comparing rates, check out our free online tool above.

The Cost of Car Insurance in New York

New York’s high living costs means saving some money on car insurance is always a good thing. It can be hard to know where to start when looking for car insurance, though. Without spending hours applying for quotes, how do you know which companies have the best rates? And what makes your rates change so drastically?

We will answer these questions and more in this section. We’ve partnered with Quadrant to bring you the best information on New York car insurance.

Take a look at how state minimum car insurance rates vary from state to state.

Let’s begin.

Average Monthly Car Insurance Rates by Age & Gender in NY

Age is a very important factor to insurers, as age is directly related to experience.

Data USA lists the median age in New York as 36.6 years.

This means that most New Yorkers will be paying the average rate for a 35-year-old driver. If you take a look at the average rates by age below, you will see that rates for 35-year-olds are the second-cheapest.

While age makes sense as a pricing factor, most people are surprised to learn gender is a factor that all insurers look at. Insurers use their accident data to determine which gender is riskier to insure, and it’s usually males.

• Male Average Premium: $7,482
• Female Average Premium:$7,049

As you can see, males pay about $400 more than females in New York. However, this gender price gap can widen or close depending on age.

While there is less than a $100 difference between 60-year-old males and females, 17-year-old males pay an average of $3,000 more than 17-year-old females.

So as drivers age, the price difference between genders nearly disappears.

Your average monthly car insurance rates may not increase as much as you might think by adding additional coverage like comprehensive car insurance. Review rates for auto insurance coverage below:

Cheapest ZIP Codes in City

Those who live in New York know there are certain areas of the city to avoid. Insurers are also well aware of these areas.

If you live in a part of the city prone to crime and violence, insurers will charge you more, as there is a higher risk of your car being stolen, vandalized, or crashed into. With this in mind, let’s take a look at the cost of car insurance by New York zip codes.

There is over a $4,000 difference between the most and least expensive ZIP codes on the list, showing that where you live in the city matters to your insurer.

What’s the best car insurance company in New York?

To answer this question, we are going to go through detailed rate information. This way, you can see what different insurers will charge for your demographic, commute distance, credit history, and more.

Let’s get started.

Cheapest Car Insurance Rates by Company

Let’s start by looking at which insurers have the cheapest rates in New York.

Liberty Mutual and Allstate have the most expensive overall rates in the city. On the other side is Geico, Progressive, and USAA with the cheapest overall rates. Check out this USAA car insurance review.

However, make sure to look at what a company charges for your demographic, as this is usually a more accurate representation of what rate you’ll get (rather than the average, overall rate).

Best Car Insurance for Commute Rates

Insurers care about how much mileage you put on your car, as the longer you are on the road the more risk there is of a crash.

In New York, the average licensed driver travels 11,421 miles a year.

This amount of miles would place most drivers in the category of long commutes. So let’s see what companies charge for commute distances.

Just because an insurer charges for a commute doesn’t mean you should look for a new provider. Usually, providers who charge for a long commute still cost less than providers who don’t charge.

However, while the normal rate increase for a long commute is under $200–$300, some companies charge much more.

For example, Liberty Mutual charges about $700 more for a long commute. So shop around for which provider has the cheapest rate and price increase if you drive a lot each year.

Best Car Insurance for Coverage Level Rates

In such a crowded city, having high coverage will protect you the best if someone crashes into you. However, high coverage can be expensive.

Let’s see which insurers have the cheapest rates for high coverage.

Geico has the cheapest rate for high coverage, costing about $9,000 less than Liberty Mutual’s rate for high coverage. As well, it costs less than $1,000 to upgrade from low to high coverage at Geico. Learn more in our Geico car insurance review.

Best Car Insurance for Credit History Rates

Insurers use credit scores to determine risk, making your credit score just as important as your driving record. Drivers who have poor or fair credit will have to pay hundreds or thousands more on car insurance.

Once again, Geico has the cheapest rate. Geico’s rate for a bad credit score is $13,000 less than the most expensive rate for bad credit (Liberty Mutual’s ratel).

This enormous price difference shows how important it is to shop around if you have poor or bad credit. Otherwise, the car insurance prices could make it even harder to restore a credit score.

Best Car Insurance for Driving Record Rates

Let’s look at another important factor — driving records.

Make sure to shop around at providers and look at what they charge based on your driving offense.

As well, ask your insurer about accident forgiveness. You may have noticed that rates didn’t change at a few providers on the list. For example, State Farm’s rates don’t go up for a driver’s first at-fault accident, as long as the driver qualifies for accident forgiveness.

Accident forgiveness can be a great way to keep your rates low after an accident, as your premium won’t go up.

Car Insurance Factors in New York

In addition to a driver’s record, there are also outside factors that influence insurers’ rates. These outside factors often have to do with a city’s prosperity.

A city with poor economic growth, ample poverty, and crime will have higher insurance rates than a prosperous city. So let’s dive into New York’s economy.

Metro Report – Growth and Prosperity

To start, we want to take a look at Brooking’s metro report that rated the top 100 largest cities in the U.S. Let’s start with Brookings’ prosperity rating, which measured the wealth generated by a city from 2016 to 2017.

• Overall Prosperity: 11 out of 100 (good)
• Productivity: +1.7 percent (20 out of 100)
• Standard of Living: +3.2 percent (7 out of 100)
• Average Annual Wage: +1.7 percent (16 out of 100)

Take a look at these 6 major factors affecting auto insurance rates in New York.

New York ranked very well. All of the categories saw an increase from 2016 to 2017, and New York ranked 11 out of the 100 cities. Let’s see if New York’s growth (entrepreneurial growth, such as new jobs) did as well as its prosperity.

• Overall Growth: 36 out of 100
• Jobs: +1.6 percent (38 out of 100)
• Gross Metropolitan Product (GMP): +3.4 percent (21 out of 100)
• Jobs at Young Firms: +3.3 percent (51 out of 100)

New York ranked okay in growth. While growth wasn’t at the top like prosperity, New York saw increases in all growth categories.

Median Household Income

Because New York has great ratings in prosperity and okay ratings in growth, we want to see what the average New York resident’s income is.

Data USA found that the average income in New York is $60,879. This is a few hundred more than the average U.S. income, but $4,000 less than the average New York state income.

New York’s average income is good, as it is slightly more than the average U.S. income. However, we want to see how far this income stretches when residents are paying for car insurance.

Since New Yorkers’ average income is $60,879 and the average cost of New York car insurance is $7,415, New Yorkers spend an average of 12.1 percent of their income on car insurance.

Of course, this is just the average. Depending on what you make and what deals you can get on car insurance, your percentage will be higher or lower.

If you want to know what percentage you are paying right now, try out our free insurance as a percentage of income calculator below.

Homeownership in New York

Owning a home can help lower your car insurance costs. Why? Insurers offer bundling discounts to customers who purchase both a home and auto policy.

However, most New York residents won’t be getting a reduced rate. Data USA found that only 32.7 percent of New York residents owned their homes in 2017. In comparison, the national average of homeownership is 63.9 percent. New Yorkers rate is about half that.

So why do so few New York residents own their homes? Most likely, it is because of the outrageous prices of homes in the city.

In 2017, Data USA found that the average home in New York costs $609,500.

This is significantly higher than the U.S. average home cost of $193,500. So even though New Yorkers earn a few hundred more than the U.S. average income, the costs of homes are incredibly high, making for a low rate of homeownership.

Education in New York

Want to get your degree in New York? The city has numerous educational opportunities. Check out Data USA’s information on New York universities and colleges below.

The largest university in New York is New York University, which awarded 16,758 degrees in 2017. The next largest universities are Columbia University in New York (12,707 degrees) and CUNY Hunter College (5,465 degrees).

There are also a few community colleges to choose from, such as the Borough of Manhatten Community College (BMCC). Community colleges like this offer one and two-year accreditation and transfer programs.

Often, there are also online courses at community colleges for busy students. So if you want, you can continue your education from home.

Wage by Race and Ethnicity in Common Jobs

We want to look further into Data USA’s information on wages. Let’s see what the wages are by race and ethnicity in New York for a common job type.

In the category of miscellaneous managers, Asians are the highest-paid. This means that only five percent of their income goes towards car insurance, while the lowest-paid race or ethnicity spend 12 percent of their income on car insurance.

Wage by Gender in Common Jobs

In addition to looking at salary differences between races and ethnicities, we want to look at Data USA’s data on the gender wage gap in New York.

Male employees in New York earn 1.29 times more than female employees. In fact, the average male salary in New York is $78,550, while the average female salary is $60,672. So while the average male is spending 9.4 percent of their income on car insurance, the average female is spending 12.2 percent.

Poverty by Age and Gender

With such a distinctive salary difference between males and females, it makes sense that poverty levels are also different between genders. According to Data USA, females ages 25-34 are the largest demographic living in poverty in New York.

After age 18, there are more females than males living in poverty. Seeing as 18 is the usual age teenagers become independent, this age is when the gender wage gap will start having a significant impact.

In New York, 19.6 percent of the population living in poverty live below the poverty line. This percentage is higher than the national average of 13.4 percent living below the poverty line.

Poverty by Race and Ethnicity

Let’s look closer at poverty by seeing which races and ethnicities struggle the most with poverty in New York.

Hispanics are the most poverty-stricken in New York, followed by whites and blacks.

Employment by Occupations

We’ve covered wages, education, and poverty rates, but what occupations are New York residents working in?

According to Data USA, the most common occupations in New York are as follows:

• Office and Administrative Suppor Occupations (503,560 people)
• Management Occupations (426,654 people)
• Sales and Related Occupations (389,845 people)

As well, the employment rate grew at 1.75 percent from 2016 to 2017 (growing from 4,110,000 employees to 4,190,000 employees).

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Driving in New York

Driving in a city can be confusing. If you are new to town, you may run afoul of a city’s infamous pothole or find yourself on the wrong exit. To help you navigate tricky roads and avoid tickets, we are going to go through everything you need to know about New York’s roads.

Keep reading to learn about everything from roads in the city to traffic congestion.

Roads in New York

A city’s maintenance of its roads is important. If the roads are poorly cared for, drivers end up having to pay more to maintain their vehicles. As well, poorly planned roads and intersections can make for bewildering GPS routes and more crashes.

So to give you a jumpstart on what to watch out for, we are going to go through New York’s roads to prepare you for driving around the city.

Major Highways

The state of New York is crisscrossed with 31 major routes, which contribute 1,730 miles of roadway to the state. Two of the routes, I-78 and I-95, run by New York.

If you travel on a few of these major routes, though, you may be traveling through toll roads or toll bridges. One of the major tolls in New York is the New York State Thruway, which passes through New York City.

For those that frequently hit toll booths on their routes, it may be practical to get a New York E-ZPass. These electronic passes allow drivers to pass through toll booths without having to deal with change and paper tickets.

Drivers will have to pay an initial fee to buy the device and set up an account. Once the account is set up, though, the drivers save time on going through tolls.

In some areas, drivers don’t even have to slow down and stop if there is an E-ZPass express lane.

Popular Road Trips and Sites

New York City is filled with things to do.

• Man-Made Wonders: New York City has plenty of human-made attractions that are worth visiting.
• Unique City Museums: Go beyond the art museum with this list of unique museums in the city.

There are also plenty of other attractions to visit, but we want to take a look at what trips you can take outside the city.

• Abandoned Places Road Trip: If you like visiting abandoned buildings, this road trip is for you.
• Christmas Lights Road Trip: Even if you are a grinch, this road trip will put you in the Christmas spirit.
• Natural Wonders Road Trip: Want a break from human-made wonders? This list covers the most beautiful places to visit in New York.
• Small Towns Road Trip: If you want a taste of small-town life, take this road trip.

Hopefully, you now have some ideas of what to do in New York City and the surrounding state.

Road Conditions

The sheer amount of drivers in the city means more wear and tear on the roads. Let’s look at TRIP’s assessment of New York’s roads.

Only 18 percent of the city’s roads are in good condition, while 46 percent are in poor condition. The state of the roads means that the vehicle operating costs (VOC) in New York is $719.

Does New York use speeding or red light cameras?

The Insurance Insitute of Highway Safety (IIHS) says that the state of New York uses both red light and speeding cameras.

According to the New York City Department of Finance (NYC Government), speed cameras are in operation longer, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. from Monday through Friday. This is to try and reduce speeding in school zones.

As for red-light cameras, a red light ticket won’t add any points to your drivers’ license, but you will have to pay a fine. As well, it is the owner of the vehicle who has to pay the fine, not the driver.

So if you have a friend who speeds up when the light turns yellow, you might not want to lend them your car.

Vehicles in New York

Do you know what vehicle risks to watch out for in the city? If you don’t, you risk getting a ticket or having your vehicle stolen.

So if you want to prepare for owning a car in New York, keep reading to see what the most popular vehicle is, where speed traps are, and what neighborhoods have the worst vehicle theft.

Let’s jump right in.

Vehicles Most Popular Vehicles Owned

First, let’s take a look at YourMechanic’s information on what types of vehicles it services in New York City.

In addition, the most unusually popular car in YourMechanic is a BMW 328i xDrive. The IIHS’s safety rating of a BMW 3 series was fantastic, which is good news for BMW owners.

Insurers care about safety ratings and will charge less for highly-rated cars. Of course, the expense of parts also plays into how much insurers charge.

Since BMW is a luxury brand, the price may be a bit higher for repairs and parts.

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Cars Per Household

New York City is unusual. While the average number of cars owned in the U.S. tends to be two cars, the average number of cars owned in New York is zero. Let’s look closer at Data USA’s information on car ownership in the city.

Almost half of New York City households don’t have a car. This makes sense, as there are plenty of public transportation options in the city.

Households Without a Car

Let’s look closer at the number of households that don’t own cars.

The percentage of households without vehicles dropped almost imperceptibly from 2015 to 2016. Still, this a few households who bought vehicles and no longer have to use public transit.

Speed Traps in New York

SpeedTrap.org listed New York City as the fourth worst city in the state for speed traps. However, New York City may rank higher if you count the hundreds of speed cameras around the city.

In fact, New York City is installing hundreds of new speed cameras around the city to curb speeding. So not only will there be cops with radar guns around the corner, but also cameras all across the city.

Our advice? Don’t speed in New York City. The likelihood of getting a ticket is extremely high.

– Vehicle Theft in New York

In 2017, the FBI reported 5,735 stolen vehicles. This number makes New York City the worst city for vehicle theft, as the second-highest number of vehicle thefts was 833 stolen vehicles in Buffalo.

It’s no surprise that a major city like New York has plenty of crime, but there are steps you can take to reduce the risk of having your vehicle stolen.

Neighborhood Scout found that the safest neighborhood in the city is W 218th St / Broadway.

Other safe neighborhood options are:

• Randalls Island Park / Wards Island Park
• E 82nd St / 2nd Ave
• Madison Ave / E 50th St
• Madison Ave / E 96th St
• Main St / East Rd
• E 53rd St / 2nd Ave
• E 89th St / 1st Ave
• W 70th St / West End Ave
• Madison Ave / E 90th St

Why is it prudent to move to one of these neighborhoods?

The chance of being the victim of a violent crime in New York City is a one in 210 chance, which is slightly worse than the one in 280 chance in the state of New York.

So what violent crimes are happening in New York?

The rate per 1,000 residents is actually fairly low in each category. In fact, New York has a crime index rating of 30. This is good, as it means New York is safer than 30 percent of all U.S. cities. For such a large city, this is a decent crime index rating. However, let’s take a look at New York’s annual crimes to see what the rates are.

New York’s overall rate for total annual crimes isn’t bad. While it could be better than 21.17 per 1,000 residents, this isn’t a terrible rate for a major city in the U.S.

Traffic

Unfortunately, New York is well known for its traffic. If the thought of driving in crowded streets is making you sweat, don’t worry. This section covers everything you need to know about the city’s traffic.

Keep scrolling to read about New York’s traffic congestion, transportation, busiest highways, and more. Let’s begin.

Traffic Congestion in New York

New York City ranked on Inrix’s traffic scorecard, which means the city has notable traffic patterns. Let’s take a look.

Traffic in New York costs each driver an average of $1,859 a year. That’s a lot of money spent idling in traffic that could have gone to a car insurance payment.

Transportation

Let’s dig deeper into traffic congestion by looking at Data USA’s information on commutes.

The average commute time in New York is 40 minutes or an hour and 20 minutes a day.

Sorry, New Yorkers. This commute time is long. The average commute time in the U.S. is only 25.5 minutes, so a New Yorkers’ average commute is 15 minutes longer (or half an hour more each day). In other words, plan on leaving earlier for work. And if you are taking public transportation, make sure to arrive earlier for the bus or train.

So how many New York residents use public transportation?

• Public Transit: 55.8 percent
• Drove Alone: 22.3 percent
• Walked: 10.1 percent

The remaining percentage is made up of commute methods like biking to work, working at home, and taking a taxi.

Busiest Highways (U.S. Department of Transportation Report)

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the busiest highways in the New York area are:

• I-95 (14 lanes)
• I-287 (13 lanes)
• I-78 (12 lanes)

All of these highways are built to handle large amounts of traffic, as they all have at least 12 lanes. So if you need to take one of these highways, be prepared to deal with a high volume of traffic.

How safe are New York’s streets and roads?

In such a busy city, we want to see how many accidents are happening on New York’s roads and streets. Let’s start by looking at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) data on all crashes in New York City’s counties.

In 2018, Queens County and Kings County had the most fatal crashes in New York City. You may be wondering how these crashes came about.

Below, you can see crash type by county.

In 2018, the number of speeding fatalities dropped in the majority of counties. This could be due to the new speed cameras that New York is installing across the city, or increased speed traps.

Now that we know what causes these crashes, we want to look at the person-type behind these fatalities.

In 2018, Queens County and Kings County had the highest number of pedestrian deaths. Only Richmond County showed zeros in any of the categories.

This means that Richmond Count is probably the safest place to walk or bicycle around.

Now that we know which counties are the most dangerous, let’s see what the NHTSA lists as the most dangerous roads in New York state.

A majority of fatal crashes occur on interstates, minor arterial, and collector arterial roads.

An arterial road is a high-traffic road (highways), while a minor arterial road is still high-traffic but handles less than an arterial road. A collector arterial road collects local traffic and takes it to arterial roads.

A number of crashes occur on arterial roads because of the increased traffic. The more drivers there are, the more likely it is that someone will make a mistake and cause another car to wreck.

Let’s dig deeper into highway fatalities by looking at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (US DOT) information on highway and railroad crashes in New York.

The two counties above have seen crashes with railroads, so be careful in these areas if near the tracks.

Allstate America’s Best Drivers Report

Every year, Allstate reports on which of the top 200 largest cities have the best drivers. Let’s take a look at New York drivers’ ranking.

New York ranking places it in the middle of the pack. An average of nine years passes between claims, though, which isn’t bad. However, there are quite a few hard braking events happening every 1,000 miles.

In such a crowded city, though, frequent braking is to be expected in heavy traffic.

Ridesharing

With so few New York residents owning cars, most residents use public transit or rideshare services. Let’s see what New York offers, and which rideshare options are the cheapest.

• Carmel: This is the cheapest option by a few dollars.
• Juno Bliss: This is the next cheapest option.
• Lyft: If you pick this rideshare option, it will be similar or the same in price to Uber.
• Uber: This rideshare option is competitive in price to Lyft.
• Curb: This is the most expensive option.

We want to stress that if you pick luxury rides at any of the above options, it will cost significantly more. Want to compare rates for your trip? Make sure to visit sites like RideGuru to compare providers’ rates.

While taking the time to compare rates may only save you a few dollars each trip, those small amounts can really add up at the end of the year.

EStar Repair Shops

Did someone rear-end you in heavy traffic? Esurance marks reputable shops on its EStar repair program so that drivers can quickly and easily find a trusted repair shop in their area.

Let’s take a look at which shops are available in New York.

As you can see, there are plenty of shops both within and nearby the city. If you want to look for more shops in your area, use the EStar shop finder tool.

– Weather

Moving to a new state means going through ones’ wardrobe and adding to summer or winter clothes. Below, you can see what US Climate Data has recorded for New York’s average temperatures.

With an average high of only 62.3 degrees, New York is going to be a cooler city. However, the city does get a decent amount of sunshine every year.

Still, you are going to see snow every year. In fact, some of New York’s 17 natural disasters included winter disasters.

New York has had hurricanes, floods, storms, blizzards, explosions, heavy rains, power outages, snowstorms, and water shortages.

The city has actually had a higher number of natural disasters (17) than the U.S. average (13). With a higher rate of natural disasters, it may be prudent to purchase comprehensive coverage.

This coverage covers drivers from damages from natural disasters and animal collisions. It also protects in cases of theft and vandalism.

Public Transit

New York has plenty of public transportation options. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) provides both buses and subways in New York.

The basic fare costs for UniTickets (bus and train combination tickets) are below.

• NICE: Monthly is $54.75, and weekly is $13.25.
• Long Beach: $30 for a monthly pass.
• NYCT: Monthly is $44.75, and weekly is $11.50.
• MTA Bus: Monthly is $44.75, and weekly is $11.50.

If you don’t want the bus and train combination, you can pay for a daily, weekly, or monthly pass. There are also discounts for seniors, people with disabilities, Medicard holders, and children/family packages.

Alternate Transportation

Don’t’ want to ride a bus or a subway train? New York City offers the popular scooter rental Lime. As well, in addition to electric scooters, Lime offers rideshare bikes.

https://youtu.be/KZkAAMSIbro

So how do you use Lime? To unlock one of these alternate transportation methods, you need first to download the app onto your smartphone. Once you unlock your bike or scooter, you pay per minute for your ride. If you plan on renting for a while, paying per minute can add up.

Because of this, it may be worth it to invest in your own bike or scooter if you plan on using one every day.

Parking in Metro Areas

If you don’t take public transit or alternative transit, you’ll have to deal with parking. The city of New York has metered street parking, which means you’ll have to pay to park.

However, you can get the ParkNYC app to pay for street parking from your phone. If you don’t, you can physically pay at the meter with debit, credit, or change.

So what will you be paying? In Manhatten, the rates are higher to increase parking turnover.

• Midtown Core and Lower Manhatten: One hour is $4.50, and two hours is $7.50.
• Manhatten South of 96th Street: One hour is $4, and two hours is $6.75.

In other areas of New York, the rates will be cheaper (generally $1.25 per hour). If you don’t want to have to run out and pay the meter after an hour, it may be more practical to park at a parking garage.

There are plenty of parking garages in the city, so shop around to find which one has the best hourly rates. There will also be satellite parking available at local airports, hotels, and colleges if you need to leave your car.

Finally, the last thing we want to cover in parking is electric vehicle charging. The New York State Government has a useful tool where you can search for alternative energy stations across the U.S. To see what charging stations are near you in New York, enter your location in the tool on the website. This way, you’ll be aware of what stations are in your area in case you need to recharge.

Air Quality in New York

In heavily congested cities there can be problems with air quality. This is because vehicles emit smog that pollutes the air we breathe. If air quality is poor in an area, it can negatively impact people’s health.

To see what New York’s thousands of vehicles have done to the air, we are going to take a look at the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) data.

New York’s air quality has become slightly worse over the years. While the number of days unhealthy for sensitive groups remained the same over the years, there was one very unhealthy day in 2018.

Military and Veterans

Military members and veterans are often applicable for discounts, but it can be hard to determine if a discount is worth switching providers for, or if a discount is even available.

To help you navigate savings at companies, we are going to go through military discounts by providers. We will also cover veterans in New York City and nearby bases so that you can get a sense of New York’s military culture.

Let’s dive right in.

Veterans by Service Period

According to Data USA, the following service periods were the most common among New York veterans in 2017:

• Vietnam: 43,857 veterans
• Gulf War (2001–): 26,928 veterans
• Korea: 15,763 veterans
• Gulf War (1990s): 14,931 veterans
• World War II: 9,586 veterans

New York has quite a few veterans in the city limits, with over 9,500 WWII veterans and over 43,800 Vietnam veterans.

Military Bases Within an Hour

There a few military bases around New York City, but there is only one under an hour away.

The Fort Hamilton Army Base’s “mission is to provide the New York metropolitan area with military installation support for the Army National Guard and the United States Army Reserve.”

The base boasts a wide range of active duty military, from the Army to Marines. Because the base is right in New York, it makes an ideal base to commute to or visit.

Military Discounts by Providers

So which providers offer military discounts? Below, we’ve listed out which providers offer discounts, as well as the percentage saved when known.

• Allstate
• Farmers
• Geico: 15 percent
• Liberty Mutual: four percent
• Metlife: 15 percent
• Safe Auto: 25 percent
• Safeco
• StateFarm
• The General
• USAA (also offers a military garaging discount)

A few of the providers offer significant discounts for military members. If you don’t see one of your desired providers on the above list, still ask about a discount.

USAA

Let’s see how USAA’s rates compare to other New York providers, as USAA is a major provider for military members and their families.

While USAA is usually the cheapest provider in a state, in New York, Geico is the cheapest provider. Of course, USAA may still be cheaper than Geico, depending on a driver’s demographics, driving record, and credit score.

So if you are looking to save money, get quotes from both USAA and Geico.

Unique City Laws

Want to avoid a ticket? The best way to not get a ticket is to familiarize yourself with a city’s unique driving laws. If you are new to New York or just started driving, though, it can be overwhelming to learn new laws.

To prepare you for New York’s unique laws, we are going to go through must-know laws. Let’s begin.

Hands-Free Law

The IIHS states that in New York, drivers must follow the distracted driving laws below.

• Hand-Held Ban: applies to all drivers
• Young Drivers All Cellphone Ban: no ban
• Texting Ban: applies to all drivers

New York has primary enforcement on these laws, which means an officer can pull over and ticket drivers who are using hand-held devices or texting. So put down your phone in the car to avoid a ticket (or worse, an accident).

As well, New York may ban pedestrians from using their phones while walking. So keep an eye on the local news to see if your cellphone needs to stay in your pocket.

Food Trucks

You can’t just patch up an ice cream cart and start selling in New York City. Before you can operate a mobile food truck, you need to apply for permits and pass inspections.

According to the NYC Government, food trucks need a mobile food vending license. In order to get this license, venders will need to pass health and safety courses. Their trucks must also meet regulations and be up to code. Once venders pass inspection and have their licenses, they must follow driving laws in the city.

For example, drivers can’t park in intersections or block fire hydrants. Make sure to ask for more food truck driving laws when applying for a license, although most of it is common sense.

Tiny Home

In New York, downsizing allows even more people to pack into the city limits. Before you jump on the tiny home wagon, though, make sure you follow New York’s regulations.

While you can’t just plop a tiny home down anywhere in the city, careful planning around zoning regulations will allow you to have your tiny home.

Your tiny home will also need to be up to code, so make sure your contractor is familiar with New York’s laws on building tiny homes.

Parking Laws

In such a crowded city, wrong direction parking is illegal and dangerous. If you see a spot open up on the other side of the street, you need to turn around to get it, not swerve into oncoming traffic to snag the spot.

Bottom line?

If your passenger side is not curbside, an officer will ticket your vehicle. If you want to make sure you’ll have a spot, try reserving a spot at a local parking garage.

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