TRENTON, N.J., March 28 – A figure to ponder is that only 10,958 insured drivers in New Jersey reported their vehicles were used for farm work last year, about the same total as the year before.

It is singled out here only to show how agriculture has declined in the state, and how farms are disappearing. The statistic is part of the voluntary market in force exposures reported each year to the New Jersey Insurance Department. After the end of World War II, thousands of drivers could get a break in their rate if their vehicles were used for farming.

Those were the days when the northern counties housed thousands of dairy farms from the Hudson to the Delaware. The dairy farms also went south from High Point at the New York State border, down to Cumberland county on Delaware Bay, not only south of Philadelphia, but below the Mason Dixon line.

Agriculture, in fact, was the second biggest industry in the state and dairy farms dotted the landscapes. Today dairy farms are scarce. There still is a sprinkling of vegetable and fruit farms in the south where motorists do use their insured vehicles for farm work, and because they do, the insurance rates are lower, a hangover break from the days when New Jersey truly was the Garden State.

Married or Single?

Another interesting tweak of the reported statistics " of the five million motorists carrying car insurance in New Jersey, about five percent of them are unmarried women and about six percent are young unmarried men under 30 years of age. These statistics on classification of the drivers are part of the automobile insurance reports sent to the state insurance department by the car insurance companies writing in New Jersey.

The motorists must, when buying car insurance, disclose whether they are single or married because it does make a difference in their premiums. The general rule is if you are under 30 and single you will be paying more for coverage than a married man or woman in that age group.

The common belief is that if you are young and single you will spend more time on the road at night and be more of a risk than a married person who generally stays at home. The accepted factors on risk are that the most serious accidents occur at night, and the more one drives at night, the more they are exposed to the risk and hence are being charged more for their coverage.

The latest breakdown of in force exposures cover 2005. The department reports that companies insure 231,000 unmarried females, or 18,505 more than the previous year. The report also shows there were about 301,000 young unmarried men carrying car insurance last year, or about 8,000 less than the previous year.

About 14 percent of the total insured motorists were seniors over 65 years of age. The reported number of senior car drivers with insurance was 706,057 in 2005, a drop of 2,325 from the previous year.

Nearly three fourths of the total insured motorists were between 30 and 65, or 139,412 more in this category than last year. The 2005 figure showed 3793,095 drivers under 65 and over 30 with car insurance.

A further breakdown of the figures shows that two million insured drivers reported they used their vehicle for both work and pleasure.