Photo by: Divine in the Daily

Esurance is a long-time partner of Zimride. As a direct result of the partnership, carpoolers have saved more than a million driving miles to Esurance-sponsored events like the Sasquatch! Music Festival. We’ve also teamed up to make it easier for Esurance associates to carpool their commutes.

If you’re wondering why a car insurance company would care so much about carpooling, we’re here to explain. Here are the top 3 reasons why Esurance loves a good carpool:

1. Fewer cars, fewer crashes

This is a primary motivation for all insurance providers to rally behind the carpooling cause.

When we each take our own cars to work, we contribute to traffic jams and slightly increase our risk for a collision or mechanical breakdown. Congestion is a leading cause of accidents, and can have a maddening domino effect. All it takes is a single car hitting a guardrail during rush hour. Traffic thickens and becomes more dangerous as the car is cleared and our natural rubbernecking tendency kicks in. Prime time for fender benders.

Congestion also leads to road rage, which is another leading cause of avoidable accidents. Some of the most popular and effective carpools take place during commuting hours, and there’s no better time to take a car off the road.

We have a dream of a rush hour filled with happily chatting passengers and relaxed drivers, and Zimride’s working to turn that goal into rush-hour reality. The bottom-line for Esurance as an insurance company, though, is this: Fewer cars on the road makes for safer driving. And fewer accidents lead to fewer claims — and better car insurance rates.

2. It’s green

And Esurance is reaaaaaaaaaaaaally big on green. This eco-emphasis sprouted during our dot-com roots, when we helped turn a traditionally paper-hungry industry into an electronic one. In the decade-plus since, our interest in saving trees has blossomed into numerous green partnerships and tree plantings across the country.

And encouraging our customers and associates to carpool is another way we’re able to help green the planet. Consider the eco-benefits of carpooling: If you carpool 30 miles a day with 3 other people, the shared car (let’s say it gets 25 mpg) emits 3.122 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That might sound like a lot, but by leaving Cliff’s Chrysler, Joe’s (classic) Scout, and Diane’s Prowler at home, the 4 of you end up saving 9.366 tons of CO₂ a year.

That’s a full-grown elephant’s worth of greenhouse gas saved by a few friendly commuters.

3. It’s community

Esurance sponsors and supports community events from Tampa to Tacoma, and what better way to get to them? To make it easier for everyone to find a ride, we work with Zimride to create event-specific pages for all of our sponsored events.

Last year was a banner year for Esurance ridesharing. People who signed up to share rides to sponsored events saved 1,484,853 driving miles over the course of the year. That’s 6.21 trips to the moon, not to mention an army of greenhouse-gas elephants spared.

So there you have it. Hopefully that clarifies our car insurance company’s interest in filling seats as easily as possible. See what ride-shareable events are in the cooker and sign up for a seat by visiting the Esurance carpool page.