If you drive in Li’l Rhody, you gotta have car insurance. In a state that ranks toward the bottom of every best-worst driver list, it’s an imperative, and state law. How much it costs depends on your age, gender, marital status, driving record, credit rating and stuff like that. But what if, for whatever reason, you can’t get coverage? Our mass transit is either unreliable or non-existent. In America, a car is required to get from A to Z, home to work, school to child care, etc. So is there a public option for car insurance in RI, a state where the government mandates you have it?
There isn’t a public option per se, but there is something. It’s called the Rhode Island Automobile Insurance Plan, and it’s an assigned risk pool. The policies themselves are held and funded by the insurance companies, at no cost to the state government. How much they fund the pool is tied directly to their market share, or how much business they do in RI. The RI Division of Insurance refers to this as the market of last resort, and it’s very much meant to be your last resort when getting car insurance.
It’s a setup very common across the country, managed and administered by the Automobile Insurance Plans Service Office or AIPSO. AIPSO handles a lot of the residual car insurance market, registering people and pairing them with an insurance company. If you can’t find insurance, they’ll help you out. They’re also headquartered in Johnston. There are some eligibility requirements before you can apply; you have to be able to certify you’ve tried and been unable to find coverage for a period of 60 days. It also may not be cheaper than a policy received directly through an insurance company, but they will cover you when no one else does.
The policy will last three years; after that companies are required to take you out of the pool and give you a regular policy like everyone else. You can also get out of it within one year if you have a three year clean driving record. And the payment options for a RIAIP are the same as any typical insurance plan. Latest estimates show that up to 15% of all RI drivers are uninsured, and fewer than 2,000 Rhode Islanders actually used RIAIP last year. While that doesn’t sound like a lot, it’s a number that has slowly climbed higher according to AIPSO’s own statistics.
Put next to that, a simple quote comparison starts to feel less like shopping around and more like common sense—something our parents and grandparents would nod approvingly at. Before resigning yourself to the market of last resort, it’s worth lining up a few estimates from standard insurers and seeing how car insurance premiums vary with driver age, driving history, and even zip code. Often, the difference between “no options” and a workable policy comes down to checking one more company or adjusting coverage slightly. The old-school rule still applies here: know what’s out there before you settle. After all, the assigned risk pool exists to keep people legal and on the road, not to replace the habit of comparing quotes the careful way folks have always done it—with patience, persistence, and a bit of healthy skepticism.
To learn more or seek assistance through this program, call (401) 946-2600 or visit aipso.com/Plan-Sites/Rhode-Island.