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Auto insurers offer rebates, discounts as driving slows in coronavirus crisis

Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Traffic moves along on Interstate 75 just east of Volkswagen Drive. Traffic volumes and accidents have declined with more people staying at home, helping to reduce insurance claims and yielding new discounts and rebates for consumers.
Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Traffic moves along on Interstate 75 just east of Volkswagen Drive. Traffic volumes and accidents have declined with more people staying at home, helping to reduce insurance claims and yielding new discounts and rebates for consumers. Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Traffic moves along on Interstate 75 just east of Volkswagen Drive. Traffic volumes and accidents have declined with more people staying at home, helping to reduce insurance claims and yielding new discounts and rebates for consumers.

By Dave Flessner 5 min read

Staying at home due to coronavirus fears is giving motorists a break on their auto insurance costs.

Auto insurers are refunding billions of dollars of premiums to their policy holders, citing a dramatic drop in driving and accident claims from Americans hunkered down in their homes.

Major insurers are voluntarily cutting rates or offering paychecks back to their customers in response to the reduced number of accidents as motorists stay off the road and heed stay-at-home orders.

(READ MORE: Traffic volume cut by half as coronavirus orders keep Tennesseans at home)

Farm Bureau Insurance of Tennessee, one of the largest auto insurers in the state, is issuing $30 million in special payments to auto policyholders across Tennessee, starting the first week in May. Farm Bureau insures about 1.2 million vehicles in Tennessee and company CEO Jeff Pannell said the mutually owned insurer will use its reserve funds to make the one-time payment during the current extraordinary crisis and write physical checks back to auto policy owners. The payments will be worth roughly 24% of what policyholders would pay for two months time, officials said.