A tow by itself rarely raises your auto insurance premiums. Whether towing increases your insurance premiums depends on who called the tow truck and how the cost gets paid: a tow billed through your roadside assistance rider is logged as a claim, a tow after a crash is folded into your collision or liability claim, and a tow ordered by police or a parking enforcer never reaches your insurer at all. The pattern of claims on your file, the fault finding in any accident, and whether the event lands on your claims history report are what actually move your rate.
Tows Billed Through Your Roadside Assistance Rider
Most major insurers sell roadside assistance as an optional add-on covering towing, jump-starts, flat tires, lockouts, and fuel delivery. Some carriers bundle it automatically, so check your declarations page if you’re not sure you’re paying for it.
Every time you use that rider, your insurer can log it as a claim. It doesn’t matter that the tow cost $100 and nobody was hurt. The claim exists in your file. One or two uses over several years rarely cause trouble. Filing several roadside claims inside a 12-to-36-month window is a different story. Insurers read frequent breakdowns as a sign of a poorly maintained vehicle, and they treat that as a predictor of future losses.
When claims pile up, consequences range from mild to severe. Your carrier might bump your premium at renewal, strip the roadside option from your policy, or decline to renew you altogether. Some insurers reclassify frequent claimants into a higher risk tier, which affects your base rate, not just the rider. Most companies don’t publish the exact threshold, but underwriters who see three or four roadside claims in a single policy period are paying attention.
A few limits catch people off guard. Roadside assistance generally applies only to vehicles listed on your policy, so a tow from a friend’s car or a rental won’t be covered. Trailers, boats, and campers are typically excluded. And if your car is towed to a storage lot after a crash and then needs a second tow to a body shop, that second move may fall under collision coverage with your deductible, not under the roadside rider.
Tows After an At-Fault Accident
If you cause an accident, the towing and storage charges get rolled into your collision or property damage claim. The tow isn’t a separate line item that triggers its own surcharge. Your insurer pays the tow yard directly or reimburses you, and the cost becomes part of the overall settlement.
The rate increase comes from the at-fault accident, not from the tow. And it is substantial. Industry rate analyses consistently show drivers with a single at-fault accident paying roughly 40% to 50% more for full coverage than drivers with clean records. The surcharge typically sticks for three to five years depending on your insurer and state.
Accident forgiveness can soften this if you had it in place before the crash. Some carriers include it automatically for long-time customers; others sell it as a paid endorsement. You can’t add it after the accident happens, so it only helps if you planned ahead.
Tows After a Not-at-Fault Accident
If another driver caused the crash, their liability insurance should cover your towing and storage through their property damage coverage. You often don’t need to file on your own policy at all, which means no claim lands on your record and no rate impact. Your insurer can help coordinate recovery through subrogation if you paid out of pocket first.
The complication starts when the at-fault driver is uninsured or underinsured, or when fault is disputed. In those cases you may need to file under your own collision coverage to get the car moved and repaired, and that claim can show up on your record. Many states prohibit insurers from raising rates after a not-at-fault accident, but the rules aren’t uniform, and some insurers in some states will increase premiums any time a claim is filed. Ask your agent whether filing will affect your rates before you submit the claim.
Tows Ordered by Police or a Property Owner
When your car is towed for a parking violation, expired registration, blocking a fire lane, or any other enforcement reason, your insurance company is out of the picture. They aren’t notified, no claim is filed, and your premium isn’t affected. These are civil enforcement matters handled through municipal courts and private towing contracts.
The out-of-pocket cost is still real. Tow fees typically run $150 to $300, and daily storage fees at an impound lot run from $15 to $50 or more depending on the jurisdiction. Those charges often start accruing at midnight, so even a day’s delay adds up. You may also owe outstanding parking tickets before the lot releases the car. None of this is reimbursable through insurance.
Tows After a Stolen Vehicle Is Recovered
A stolen car that police recover almost always ends up at an impound lot with towing and storage charges attached. Whether your insurance helps depends on your coverage. Comprehensive insurance, which covers theft, may reimburse towing and storage as part of the claim, though not every policy includes those costs and you’ll still owe your deductible.
A comprehensive claim for a stolen vehicle does appear on your record, but the rate impact is typically much smaller than a collision claim because the event wasn’t caused by your driving. It’s still one more data point on your claims history, and it can matter when you shop for a new policy.
Storage Fees on a Totaled Car
This is where people lose money they weren’t expecting to lose. When a vehicle is totaled after an accident, the insurer calculates your payout based on market value. If the car sat in a tow yard or impound lot accumulating daily storage fees while the adjuster processed the claim, those fees can come directly out of your settlement. A car worth $12,000 with $1,000 in accumulated storage charges could net you only $11,000.
Move quickly to limit the damage. Notify your insurer as soon as possible after the accident, cooperate with the adjuster’s inspection timeline, and ask about transferring the vehicle to a lower-cost facility if the claim is dragging. Some tow yards charge $25 to $50 per day, and a two-week delay can eat a meaningful chunk of your payout.
What Shows Up on Your CLUE Report
The Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange, or CLUE, is a claims database run by LexisNexis that tracks every insurance claim you file over a rolling seven-year period. Roadside requests, collision claims, and comprehensive claims all show up. When you apply for new coverage, the prospective insurer pulls your CLUE report and uses it to set your rate. A pattern of frequent claims, even small ones like tows, signals a higher-cost customer.
There’s an important distinction between a claim and an inquiry. Calling your insurer to ask a question is not a claim. A claim is created when you actually request that the insurer pay for a service or cover a loss. If you aren’t sure something will count, ask your agent explicitly before requesting service.
You can see what’s in your CLUE report. LexisNexis provides consumer disclosure reports through their Consumer Center at consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com, by phone at 1-866-897-8126, or by mail. If you find an error — a claim attributed to you that you never filed, for example — you can dispute it. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, LexisNexis must investigate and respond within 30 days of receiving your dispute, with a possible 15-day extension if you provide additional information during that period.1Federal Trade Commission. Consumer Reports: What Information Furnishers Need to Know The FCRA also requires that anyone who takes adverse action against you based on your CLUE report, such as charging higher premiums, must notify you and tell you where the data came from.2Federal Trade Commission. Fair Credit Reporting Act
Checking your CLUE report before shopping for new insurance is worth the ten minutes. Errors are more common than people assume, and a disputed claim that shouldn’t be there could be inflating every quote you receive.
How to Keep Tows Off Your Insurance Record
The most effective move is to use a standalone roadside assistance membership instead of the rider on your auto policy. AAA, Good Sam, and Better World Club handle towing, lockouts, and breakdowns without reporting anything to your insurer or to CLUE. Annual cost is higher than a bare-bones insurance rider — AAA starts around $59 per year, for instance — but you can call for help as often as you need without claims piling up on your record.
If you already carry the insurance rider and use it occasionally, that’s usually fine. The risk comes from repeated use. A workable rule: if you’ve already used your roadside assistance once in a policy period, pay the next tow out of pocket or call a standalone service. A $100 tow is almost always cheaper than the premium increase that follows being flagged as a frequent claimant.
For accident-related towing your options are narrower, since the tow is bundled into the larger claim. You can still hold costs down by choosing a nearby repair shop to shorten the tow, responding quickly to adjuster requests so storage fees don’t balloon, and asking your insurer about accident forgiveness before you ever need it.