When we first moved to California the zip code for our part of the City of Irvine was listed as Santa Ana. This was because Irvine was a relatively new city (incorporated about 8 years before) and the Postal Service considered unincorporated areas as being part of whatever was the county seat, which in Orange Co is Santa Ana, and had not yet gotten around to updating their records. Now this had no effect on our mail delivery since we actually had our own zip code, just that it didn't say Irvine.
Anyway, compared to Irvine, Santa Ana is considered a high crime area and so car insurance was at least twice as much as the next city over from us, whose zip code didn't say 'Santa Ana'.
And we were not unique, with California's rapid growth in many parts of the state, this turned out to be a lot more common than many people realized before someone finally took an insurance company to court, but there was nothing that could be done since there was no regulation that said insurance companies could NOT use zip codes to determine insurance rates. Of course, this was a practice known as 'Red Lining' and it had been declared illegal in other states, but not California. So they put an initiative on the ballot and it was passed and so insurance companies in California can ONLY base your liability premiums on things which actually could effect your ability to drive safely. This includes, your driving record (how many tickets have you gotten or accidents that you've been responsible for), the number of miles that you drive each year and how many years that you've been driving (this is NOT based on age, but actual driving experience). But where you live can NO longer be used to determine your liability rates.
Anyway, it appears that Michigan should have done the same thing years ago:
http://autos.yahoo.com/news/the-city-where-no-one-has-car-insurance-220741904.html
| 