CAR's Role

Commonwealth Automobile Reinsurers (CAR), created pursuant to Chapter 175, Section 113H, of the Massachusetts General Laws, is the industry operated residual market and statistical agent for motor vehicle insurance in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and operates pursuant to a Plan and Rules of Operation.

In its residual market role, CAR provides access to private passenger and commercial motor vehicle liability and physical damage insurance to that segment of the state's motoring public that is unable to obtain coverage through the voluntary market.

Every company licensed to write motor vehicle insurance in Massachusetts is required to become a member of CAR. Member companies writing private passenger insurance will be eligible for appointment as an Assigned Risk Company and be required to accept assignments through the Massachusetts Automobile Insurance Plan (MAIP) in accordance with the Rules of Operation. All member companies writing commercial automobile insurance are required to participate financially in the residual market pool, while a limited number of member companies have been selected to issue and service commercial residual market policies.

All licensed property and casualty producers are required to become certified as Assigned Risk Producers for private passenger residual market purposes and may apply for appointment as an Exclusive Representative Producer for commercial automobile insurance business. This includes those producers who are licensed but unable to obtain a voluntary market contract.

In its role as statistical agent, CAR collects, edits, and processes Massachusetts private passenger and commercial automobile premium and loss statistics. CAR processes more than 80 million statistical records annually and utilizes numerous programs to ensure that this data meets the highest standards for data quality. The data is subsequently provided to the Automobile Insurers Bureau of Massachusetts, the Merit Rating Board, and the Highway Loss Data Institute.