Is State Farm Deer-Vehicle Impact Data Pure Bunk?

Green is low risk, yellow is medium risk,and orange is high risk for deer-vehicle impact.


State Farm insurance has done the math, and they say that the state where you are most likely to hit a deer is West Virginia.

Since I dig not too far from the West Virginia-Maryland border, I do not find this too shocking.

State Farm estimates the chances of a West Virginia vehicle colliding with a deer over the next 12 months at 1 in 57, which means that it is about three times more likely than an IRS audit.

The average property loss due to deer-vehicle impact was just under $2,900.

The top 10 states in 2007 are as follows:

1. West Virginia
2. Michigan
3. Wisconsin
4. Pennsylvania
5. Iowa
6. Arkansas
7. Montana
8. South Dakota
9. North Dakota
10. Minnesota

But wait a minute. I think I saw this same list last year, and these are not the same states. Did the world of deer and vehicles change overnight? That seems a bit hard to believe. So I checked the stats put out by State Farm in 2006, and I was right -- not too much overlap, and quite a lot of difference.

The top 10 states in 2006 were as follows:

1. Pennsylvania
2. Michigan
3. Illinois
4. Ohio
5. Georgia
6. Virginia
7. Minnesota
8. Texas
9. Indiana
10. South Carolina
    

You will notice that West Virginia does not even make the top 10 list in 2006 (much less top it). Similiarly, Virginia, Texas, Illinois, South Carolina, Ohio, and Georgia are missing from the top 10 list in 2007, while both Dakotas somehow manage to show up, along with Arkansas, and Iowa.

What's going on?

The short story is that it appears that State Farm puts out different kinds of statistics in different years -- all the better to market their insurance products with, I am sure.

The 2007 list is an index of chance, while the 2006 numbers are an index of absolute impacts. It turns out that in both 2006 and 2007, Pennsylvania leads in absolute number of impacts.

Which, again, is not too surprising to me as I dig very close to the Maryland-Pennsylvania border as well. And yes, these are all the same Maryland farms. Did I mention we have a lot of deer in this area? 'Tis true.

And so, the State Farm data may not be pure bunk. It's just not consistently represented from year to year.


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