(RALEIGH) -- The North Carolina Rate Bureau has announced that there will be no car insurance rate hikes for 2011.

State Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin says the rates are now below what they were five years ago.

"We are now a half percent below what the rates were in 2006, and also this is roughly where we were in 2001," Goodwin said.

North Carolina currently has the eighth lowest auto insurance rate in the country.