Bay Area's best, and worst, Zip codes for car insurance



less CarInsurance.com uses the 2014 Honda Accord as its benchmark vehicle to compare auto insurance rates across the nation. Click to see the highest and lowest rates in San Francisco, the Bay Area, California and the U.S. CarInsurance.com uses the 2014 Honda Accord as its benchmark vehicle to compare auto insurance rates across the nation. Click to see the highest and lowest rates in San Francisco, the Bay Area, California and ... more Photo: Sebastian Blanco, Autoblog.com Photo: Sebastian Blanco, Autoblog.com Image 1 of / 23 Caption Close Bay Area's best, and worst, Zip codes for car insurance 1 / 23 Back to Gallery

If you own an automobile in San Francisco or Los Angeles, you'll pay significantly more than most other Americans for car insurance, but it could be worse.

You could live in Detroit.

Detroit is worst city in America to insure a car, according to CarInsurance.com.

Using a 2014 Honda Accord as a benchmark, the website ranked the nation's 33,401 Zip codes by premium cost.

To insure the Accord, residents of ZIP code 48227 in Detroit would have to pay a whopping $5,109 a year. That's on average.

If you live in 48227, you should probably drive a 1995 Ford Escort that leaks oil. Or you could roll the dice and skip collision coverage.

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Los Angeles pays more than San Francisco for car insurance. Its 90029 Zip is saddled with the sixth highest rate in the nation -- $2,416. But two SoCal Zips near Santa Barbara boast of California's lowest premiums, about $1,000 each.

San Francisco falls in between. Most residents can count on spending somewhere in the $1,600-1700 range, but a few neighborhoods have higher rates.

CarInsurance.com's analysis showed a national average rate of $1,231.

Click through the above slideshow for the highest and lowest rates in San Francisco, the Bay Area, California and the U.S.

To find the average rate for your Zip code, go to CarInsurance.com.