With the help of Jim Tennant of The Tennant Group and Michael Meyer of Rate-Highway Inc., we are conducting rate surveys on a weekly basis and providing analysis and comments where appropriate. We publish this monthly recap in our electronic edition and more comprehensive looks in the print editions.

October’s nationwide weighted average ICAR quote continued to be down from a year ago, but the decrease was the smallest in the last several months. After a run of 18 weeks (since June 19), in which rate quotes were down from the previous year every week but one, the last two weeks of October were up $0.64 last week and $3.68 this week.

This is encouraging, but two weeks is not a trend. Next month should be interesting.

Two of the five regions (Northwest and Southwest) were up in October, again for the first time in a while. The Midwest, down $9.89, accounted for virtually all of the decrease.

In the last two months, Boston had the highest average quotes, $65.01 and $69.68, while San Juan, Puerto Rico, had the lowest rates with averages of $26.16 and $25.54. Over the last 12 months, New York’s La Guardia Airport had the highest rate at $67.52 while San Diego International Airport had the lowest at $31.26.