Below is the response Clark received from State Farm Insurance when he inquired about the possibility of insurance rates going up if customers use the towing rider on their policies...

When attempting to determine the cost of making the promises we make to our customers, we use many rating variables.

Among them are the customer's age, the customer's driving record, where the customer lives, what type of car the customer drives, how the customer uses the car, the customer's credit information and the customer's previous claims experience. Using any one rating variable is not very helpful in our effort to precisely measure auto insurance risk, but using all of them together is very helpful. All of these variables, and others, in conjunction with one another, help us determine the cost of the promises we make.

In almost all cases, emergency road service claims have no impact on our measurement of the cost of a promise. But under the right circumstances, it is remotely possible that emergency road service claims, in connection with other rating variables, could impact that measurement.

The bottom line is that we are attempting to use all of the information available to us to measure auto insurance risk as precisely as we can. We want to charge each of our customers a premium that is commensurate with the risk.

-State Farm Insurance