Car insurance premium increases in 2023

[explanade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWras Yes. Looking at CPI, auto maint and repair is up 13% year over year, and insurance is 16% year over year. Insurance is currently in "catch up" mode, seeing large rises in the last few months. In my so-called "personal-cpi", automobile stuff is more significant than the collective 3.5% those two items factor into the overall CPI. So this hurts. Anyone who has had any repairs done lately know the story. We can't all have new cars. If anything, this rise in repair is very regressive, hitting the people who can afford it the least hardest. One last thing about this: insurers are declaring cars "total losses" more frequently these days. This is a long term trend, spanning over decades. It seemed to really get rolling when every car had a specific headlight assembly. Now, small collisions take out all kinds of sensors which are difficult to replace and expensive as repair parts. Set off an airbag? Then it is likely game over for the vehicle.

Sounds wasteful. If an insurer writes off a car as a total loss, is anyone allowed to salvage it for other parts at least or repair and use it or re-sell it?

Or sell other parts?

Or does the insurer take control of the car and sell it to some salvage operation to recoup some of their write-off?

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by explanade Sounds wasteful. If an insurer writes off a car as a total loss, is anyone allowed to salvage it for other parts at least or repair and use it or re-sell it? Or sell other parts? Or does the insurer take control of the car and sell it to some salvage operation to recoup some of their write-off?

I think each insurance company sets its own policies. IIRC a friend who's car was totaled by the insurance company was allowed to choose: Take the car (which was fully drivable) and give up 10% of the settlement or let the insurance company deal with the car and keep the whole settlement. He kept the car which looked fairly well trashed, but was still a "good" car.

[scrabbler1]

From my 23 year career working in the actuarial field, specializing in car insurance, I can tell you, without revealing any trade secrets, some of what goes into car insurance rates.

We reviewed losses mainly for the most recent 1-3 years of data, depending on coverage. But we reviewed claim cost (losses per claim) and claim frequency (claims per car) over the longer term to see if were are more general trends. If more cars are being considered "totaled" instead of being repaired, that will appear as an increase in the claim cost, for example.

Higher medical costs will find there way into medical-based coverages such as Bodily Injury, No-Fault, Medical Payments, and Uninsured/Underinsured Motorists Bodily Injury.

Stronger mandatory insurance laws will put downward pressure on the Uninsured Motorists coverages. This happened a lot in the 1990s as computer technology helped to strengthen existing laws and motivate the passage of new laws.

This is just a sample of some of what goes into car insurance rates.

[explanade]

But if they're using data which goes back up to 3 years, remember that in 2020, there were a lot fewer miles drive, lot less cars on the road for a good part of that year.

You'd think that would result in lower costs.

[Car-Guy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by F.I.R.E User Make sure you use their app for monitoring driving behavior. The better you drive the more discount at next renewal. I pay $93.94 a month with renters insurance. This is also a business policy so I get 65.5 cents per mile deduction.

Not for me. They'd probably double my rates or drop me.

[scrabbler1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by explanade But if they're using data which goes back up to 3 years, remember that in 2020, there were a lot fewer miles drive, lot less cars on the road for a good part of that year. You'd think that would result in lower costs.

I don't know about the industry, but I did see lower rates on my own car in 2020 and 2021. They have increased back to their pre-pandemic levels.

Back in the 1991-92 recession, we saw losses trending downward before the recovery took hold in 1993.

The number of years we used in various parts of our review varied by coverage, and by the element we were reviewing. The number of claims determined the credibility of the loss data, so coverages with more claims used a greater weight on the latest year.

[JoeWras]

The BLS numbers are in at https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf

Car insurance:
- Up 17.1% year over year
- Up 2.0% month to month

2% rise from April to May! YIKES!!!!

I still think insurance is catching up to the increases in used car prices, which affects the "total loss" claims. It is also catching up to new car prices, although those have not been as dramatic.

Let's also not forget that price of repairs are up, which feeds into insurance. Those numbers from the BLS are as follows.

Motor Vehicle Maintenance and Repair:
- Up 13.5% year over year
- Up 0.6% month to month

[Stormy Kromer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scrabbler1 I worked in the actuarial field for 23 years, specializing in personal auto insurance. Some states are like the ones you described ("prior approval"). But others did not require prior approval of rate changes. Those were called "file and use" states. I don't recall the exact breakdown between these two broad groups, but I can say that the states where car insurance was more expensive in general tended to be prior approval ones. Those states asked us the most questions and gave us the hardest time before they would grant approvals. As for my own car, the rates dropped a lot during COVID. This was for liability coverages (which did not depend on aging of my car) and for physical damage coverages (Comprehensive and Collision) whose rates dropped also due to the car aging. But with COVID behind us, at least as far as car insurance goes, the rates for my liability coverages have risen pretty sharply this year, back to pre-COVID levels, while physical damage coverages have risen slightly, as opposed to still dropping due to the car's aging. Physical Damage rates, for me, are only about 20% of the total premium.

This gentleman won this argument. Shut it down,

[Stormy Kromer]

Everyone here also seems to be forgetting that the most of your premum goes towards Bodily Injury Liability and now a large part to Med Pay and Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist coverage ? Basically medical bills....have they gone up lately ?

[explanade]

Also I guess a lot of ER members are carrying high levels of coverage, so that they can get a personal umbrella insurance as well.

[JoeWras]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stormy Kromer Everyone here also seems to be forgetting that the most of your premum goes towards Bodily Injury Liability and now a large part to Med Pay and Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist coverage ? Basically medical bills....have they gone up lately ?

I don't think everybody is forgetting.

Some of this depends on your state or your zip code.

In my case, body liability and medical is $150 (per 6 months). My property liability and collision is $284. So it isn't most of my premium. Your point is well taken: medical aspects of car insurance continue their inexorable rise and a decades-long megatrend. In my state, uninsured coverage includes liability of all kinds, so it is hard to break out. But yeah, it has gone up a lot.

The thing is, the property component in the past few years has been significant. For many of us, our own collision/comprehensive has gone up year-over-year. This rarely happens. Normally, the value of the car going down causes that to drop. It is going up.

Here's a little table of my component changes from July 2021 to January 2023. Cars and coverage are identical over this time.

Liability(Injury)	6.8%
Liability(Property)	10.4%
Medical Payments	9.1%
Collision and Comprehensive	19.3%
Uninsured	98%

[Telly]

Quote:

Originally Posted by explanade ...... If an insurer writes off a car as a total loss, is anyone allowed to salvage it for other parts at least or repair and use it or re-sell it? Or sell other parts? Or does the insurer take control of the car and sell it to some salvage operation to recoup some of their write-off?

Years ago, one of our cars was totaled due to hail damage. The ins. co. would give us $4k for the car, which was ~20 years old, and they would send it to salvage. Or, we could keep the car, and in effect pay the ins. co. the salvage cost, which they quoted as $220. We kept the car, and they deducted the $220 from the $4k payment to us.

End Story - It filled a transportation need for us at the time, later became redundant, and parlayed it into a state emissions cash for clunkers program that had very narrow requirements. And form submissions that opened up once a month akin to the much-later stressful and short-window early COVID-19 vaccine online signups. $3k voucher to be used within 30 days on specific classes of higher-mileage vehicles.

[Teacher Terry]

My policy is set to renew in July so curious to see if it will go up again like last year.

[JoeWras]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teacher Terry My policy is set to renew in July so curious to see if it will go up again like last year.

2 years ago, Amica went to a 6 month renewal instead of 1 yr. They saw the rapid rise and wanted to make sure to catch it every 6 months.

[scrabbler1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stormy Kromer Everyone here also seems to be forgetting that the most of your premum goes towards Bodily Injury Liability and now a large part to Med Pay and Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist coverage ? Basically medical bills....have they gone up lately ?

You have to take into account what your limits and deductibles are, especially the BI Liability limit. No-Fault, which some states allow in lieu on the narrower Med Pay coverage, is usually costlier than Med Pay because it includes non-medical coverages such as income loss. Granted, most of No-Fault pays for Medical bills.

A newer and/or more expensive car will have high Collision rates, possibly higher than your BI rate if you don't have a high BI limit. Comprehensive tends to be a cheaper coverage but how it varies can track Collision. If you live in a part of a state prone to lots of natural disasters such as floods or hurricanes, you may see higher Comp rates despite smoothing procedures which can prevent large swings in those rates.

As for UM and UIM, they vary a lot by state. For me, UM/UIM is a very cheap coverage, never being more than 7% of my premium. I do have lower limits for UM/UIM than I have for BI, but having higher limits of UM/UIM wouldn't push up that percentage much. UIMBI can vary a lot by state because the way the coverage applies can vary a lot by state. If you live in a state with the broadest possible UIMBI coverage, you will pay more, possibly a lot more, especially if you live in an urban area in that state, especially if you buy high limits.

[JoeWras]

I normally drop collision and comprehensive when the car is 10+.

Not this time! I'm keeping it on our 12, 13 and 14 year old vehicles since their replacement value has been going up. Maybe used cars prices will crater soon and I'll drop it.

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Telly Years ago, one of our cars was totaled due to hail damage. The ins. co. would give us $4k for the car, which was ~20 years old, and they would send it to salvage. Or, we could keep the car, and in effect pay the ins. co. the salvage cost, which they quoted as $220. We kept the car, and they deducted the $220 from the $4k payment to us. End Story - It filled a transportation need for us at the time, later became redundant, and parlayed it into a state emissions cash for clunkers program that had very narrow requirements. And form submissions that opened up once a month akin to the much-later stressful and short-window early COVID-19 vaccine online signups. $3k voucher to be used within 30 days on specific classes of higher-mileage vehicles.

I've always thought it would be great to be able to buy a "totaled" hail-damaged car off a dealers lot - for the deductible. You'd have a new car (beat up, of course) warrantee, all the bells and whistles, etc. Probably last as long as a perfect car. Cheap transportation at an affordable price.

[Teacher Terry]

So GEICO just sent me my 6 month renewal and it went up 30%. I think 100/month for a 15 year old Toyota Corolla that is only driven 2700 miles a year is ridiculous. So I called and said I was going to shop around and she looked at my policy and said that she couldn’t go cheaper.

I then got quotes and nothing was cheaper. I looked at my coverage and lowered 2 of them from 300-500k to 100-300k and that got the premium down 15/month. I googled it and various places said that is sufficient coverage. I already have a 1k deductible. My car is still worth between 5500-6500 so not dropping collision. I just read that Nevada has some of the highest rates in the country.

[Telly]

We received our 6 month auto renewal with SF... 21% increase.
Our SF 12 month umbrella just went up 14%. It had been the same cost for the last 5 years. And 6 years before that, it was stable at a few dollars more than the next 5 years (reduction in cost).
So these large insurance increases are pretty unusual.

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teacher Terry So GEICO just sent me my 6 month renewal and it went up 30%.

Betcha wanted to stomp on the Gecko.