Canadians love their cars. Statistics Canada tells us there are 22.4 million light vehicle registrations in the country, which means roughly two-thirds of us own a car, SUV, or light truck (not all of them are cheap to insure). That’s a lot of vehicles on our roads every day. The distance you drive doesn’t only affect how much you pay for gas and vehicle maintenance—it can also have an impact on your auto insurance premium, making it important to understand the average mileage per year in Canada and what that means for your wallet.
Let’s take a closer look at what the average mileage Canadians are driving per year.
Average mileage per year in Canada
According to Natural Resources Canada, Office of Energy Resources, the average mileage per year in Canada is about 15,200 kilometres. Distance traveled is highest in Newfoundland and Labrador with an average of 18,100 kilometres per year, while the lowest is in British Columbia with only 13,100 kilometres traveled. Ontarians average somewhere in the middle of the pack at 16,000 kilometres each year.
Insurance companies calculate their rates according to the risk of a driver having an accident. While driving records and any speeding tickets received play a huge part in those calculations, someone’s average mileage per year can play a substantial role in determining how much you pay for insurance.
The overriding principle is that the more you drive, the more exposure you have to other drivers and the elements. But it’s not all bad news. If you work at home or close to it (or if you don’t drive your vehicle to work at all), you will benefit from greatly reduced insurance rates. This is why it’s a great idea to live close to your workplace!
With the average mileage per year in Canada hovering around 15,000 kilometres, you should check out the average car insurance rates in Ontario to compare with yours.
See how living closer to work might lower your rates!
What does the distance of my commute have to do with my insurance?
This is just one of those questions that tends to stump even the most savvy of insurance shoppers. The notorious question: how far do you travel to work each way? It’s not so much that it’s a challenging question, it’s just one of those facts that the average person doesn’t pay enough attention to – at least not enough attention to ramble off a distance in kilometers with any certainty.
And that’s where the frustration come from. Let’s take a look at why this questions matters to your car insurance company, as well as provide some tips on how to make tracking your distance easier.
Why distance matters
The distance you travel on a daily basis, whether to work, school, or even to the bus or train station can have a direct impact on the amount you pay for insurance. This is because the more often your vehicle is on the road, the greater are your chances of having an incident occur.
For example, someone that travels for an hour and a half from the suburbs to the city on a daily basis compared to someone else who drives five minutes to park at the nearby subway station are not exposed to the same amount of “risk” (yes, we just used that insurance word—it was appropriate though).
How to stay on top of your distance and rates
The easiest way is to just set that tripometer on your car this week, and pay attention to the distance traveled once you arrive. For those more digitally inclined you can always just use an online app like Google Maps that will tell you your distance from point A to B. One of the great things about getting a car insurance quote with aha insurance is that questions like this are made easy with a built-in tool that will help you to calculate your distance.
Our online quote links you right into Google Maps to let you calculate your commute distance to work. Try it out and walk away with a quote in 3 minutes.
