We contacted the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance (DOBI), the insurance regulator for NJ, to clarify if your insurance company could possibly raise your rates due to you making an Uninsured Motorist claim.

The NJ DOBI stated that under New Jersey’s tier rating law insurers are permitted to take into consideration a wide variety of risk characteristics (risk factors) when setting rates. This includes, but is not limited to, such factors as one’s overall driving history. This means both at fault and not at fault accidents, as well as any moving traffic violations, could have an affect on your premium. The fact that you are filing a claim under your Uninsured Motorist coverage would not preclude your company from adjusting your rates provided such is in accordance with your particular insurance company's filed and approved tier rating plan with the Department of Banking and Insurance.

Under the New Jersey tier rating system, insurers assign drivers to different tiers, or rating levels, based on a number of risk characteristics. Tier rating systems are supposed to allow insurers to take the complete picture into account to identify a good risk, rather than simply penalizing drivers for accidents and motor vehicle violations.

Insurers can consider a number of risk characteristics, including driving record, years of driving experience, vehicle type, coverage limits, claims and credit history when determining a driver’s tier placement. Other factors, like age, gender and marital status, may also impact an individual’s rate within a specific tier.

Tier systems can vary greatly from company to company. Auto insurers have developed a number of ways to evaluate risk; risk characteristics considered important to one insurer do not necessarily carry the same weight with another. So rates can vary considerably from one insurance provider to the next depending upon the rating system of each insurance carrier.

This all being said, in general most insurance companies will typically raise your rates for a certain period after an accident or conviction of a moving violation, the average time being 3 years. Since the state of NJ does not set the time period through insurance companies may charge for a longer or shorter period of time. Some insurance companies may rate based on your driving record for the last 5 or 7 years instead of just 3 years.

So your body shop is incorrect and your insurance company is correct. Your agent would know about your company's filed rates and if this Uninsured Motorist claim for the physical damage to your vehicle will raise your rates or not so if they say your rates could go up due to this claim they would know best.