After fender bender, facing a second dent, to your insurance

Maybe you've learned this the hard way. You get into a small accident and make an insurance claim - say, one that nets you a couple of thousand dollars after your deductible. The next thing you know, your premium jumps. In the long run, you realize, you may actually come out behind.

It's a frustrating moment for many, as illustrated by a recent Liberty Mutual commercial touting "accident forgiveness" and portraying a dutiful customer "like the poster child for paying on time," as the spokes-character puts it. "And then one day you tap the bumper of a station wagon. No big deal - until your insurance company jacks up your rates. What good is having insurance if you get punished for using it?"

It's a fair question, and we'll get to it more in a moment. Let's start with those rate increases, documented in a study last month by insurance.Quotes.com.

Nationally, it found, a driver who makes a claim of $2,000 or more faced an average premium increase of more than 41 percent in 2014, up from 38 percent a year earlier. Using 2012 data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the study said that meant a driver with a previously clean record would face a premium increase from an average of $815 a year to $1,150. In other words, that driver would pay back more than half a $2,000 claim in just three years.

The increases were smaller in Pennsylvania, averaging 32 percent, but much larger in some states - New Jersey among them. The study said a Garden State driver with a previously clean record would face an average increase of 62 percent, or $760, from $1,220 to $1,980.

I should say here that officials at the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance dispute insuranceQuotes' findings. Spokesman Marshall McKnight suggested "there must be some sort of oversight" - perhaps that the study didn't include NJM Insurance, a major New Jersey carrier McKnight says "doesn't charge for at-fault accidents."

Laura Adams, a senior analyst at insuranceQuotes, couldn't say if NJM was included "due to confidentiality agreements," or shed much other light on New Jersey's numbers, though she did confirm they include Liberty Mutual. She says Quadrant Information Services, which did the insuranceQuotes study, uses data from "six of the largest insurers" in each state.

Interestingly, New Jersey's outlier results don't dovetail very neatly with Adams' explanation for why drivers in Massachusetts and California faced the nation's largest premium hikes, more than 75 percent. In those states, Adams blames restrictive regulations, such as rules against using credit data to set rates. That means insurers focus more on driving-related factors, she says. "Making a claim is going to move the needle substantially."

But New Jersey loosened its insurance rules a dozen years ago, leaving carriers free to set premiums using credit, education, and occupation - pretty much any predictive distinction they find that doesn't violate specific antidiscrimination rules. They can't, for instance, charge Mormons more than Methodists, whatever the data say.

But let's not lose sight of the forest. Whether your rate rises 30 percent or 60 percent, you're likely to feel walloped a second time after an accident. So the question is: What can you do?

One is to choose a company that, like NJM, offers accident forgiveness. Liberty Mutual, for example, won't raise rates if you were accident- and violation-free for the previous five years.

Another is to recognize the wisdom of self-insuring smaller losses, if another driver isn't involved and you can afford the costs or live without repairs. Plan for this, and you can also save by choosing a higher deductible.

But probably the most useful thing you can do is understand how insurance works - including how companies' reactions to claims fit the puzzle. Every insurer aims to cover costs, and all build losses into their models. If they're not charging you for claims, they're charging you - or someone else - for other factors. That's why it always can pay to shop around for insurance.

Another way New Jersey stands out is the quality of its online premium comparison, which you can find at http://bit.ly/1E4YeQI.

Pennsylvania's less-useful guide is at http://bit.ly/1J3q0Ub.