MOTORISTS

Vehicles. The state also has about 1 million people who have had their license suspended, many of them with multiple suspensions.

If all those people are driving, that means there are more than 1 million drivers on the road without insurance.

The average cost of an uninsured motorist claim when there is an injury is about $20,000, according to Hanover Insurance Group, which co-sponsored the study. That is just for medical bills and lost wages and doesn’t include the cost to repair the car.

“The more people who don’t have insurance, the more expensive it is for what’s called uninsured motorist coverage and how much you have to spend to fix your car yourself, money that comes out of your own pocket,” said James Lynch, chief actuary of the Insurance Information Institute.

Lynch said it is important for people who are driving to be insured.

“If you’re not willing to bear the risk, you really shouldn’t be driving,” he said.

The 12.4 percent rate in Ohio is slightly better than the national average of 13 percent, according to the council’s study, which is based on 2015 data. The U.S. rate has been trending higher since 2010

when it was 12.3 percent.

“Affordability is the key issue,” said Dean Fadel, president of the Ohio Insurance Institute. “I think we’re doing pretty good. Our numbers are below our poverty rate.”

The state’s poverty rate is 14.6 percent.

Ohio consistently comes in as one of the lower-cost states for auto insurance.

By contrast, Michigan’s auto insurance rates are much higher than Ohio’s, and 20.3 percent of the state’s drivers there lack auto insurance.

Florida has the worst rate with 26.7 percent of drivers lacking insurance; Maine is the best with just 4.5 percent.

The council bases its study on claims data from 14 big insurance companies that have about 60 percent of the auto insurance market.

Why rates vary from 4.5 percent to 26.7 percent is something that the research council is studying, said David Corum, the council’s vice president.

The cost of insurance, jobless rates, cultural attitudes about insurance and financial responsibility, and the effectiveness of state regulations and enforcement are among the factors that may influence a state’s uninsured rate, he said.

“There are things going on other than simple economics,” he said. “We’re looking into that and hoping to have some answers later this year. It’s a bit of a mystery.”