Car insurance premiums going up and up

[Mango1956]

From the article: three main reasons-bad weather, more costly accidents and a decline in the insurance companies fall back source of income-investment (bond) income. I just had to investigate this as I was baffled why we continue to pay more even though we are model customers-no claims, safe drivers, etc etc. Seems like when we all were younger, rates just went down as the car aged. Now they go up! I've always regarded insurance as a necessary evil. An yes, I am pissed off right now. But at least I know that it's hitting everyone, and if I went shopping for another company, I will likely find the same conditions. Anybody experience anything different?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ccasazz.../#5e1bd8e4347a

[rdy2go]

That is a good article that explains why premiums are going up. As one can see, only a couple of the largest companies are making a profit on private passenger auto insurance. I am insured with a regional company rather than a huge national company. Being small, they do not have a team of actuaries and don't change rates every year like the big companies. My rates have been pretty much the same for years. Rate reviews and filings cost a company money and the smaller companies don't have the personnel and the time to make frequent changes. Hence, my rates have been steady despite my daughter being involved in an accident and getting a roof replaced due to hail. We lost our loss-free discount due to the claims, but I understand why.

[Mulligan]

I here you Mango. Just got my new 6 month premium notice. Went from $80 to $90 a month. Plus they have the nerve to suddenly start charging $1 processing fee for monthly auto deduction. My car is almost 9 years old now. So I am going to drop full coverage and take it back to $50. Paying about $500 a year with $500 deductible is dumb for a $7k vehicle. Plus I am going to pay with check every 6 months. May drop the $42 yearly towing fee. Never was hip on that only having it for past two years. I have never owned a new car my entire 37 years of owning a car and have never had a mechanical tow in my life outside of a wreck when I was 17 when I got hit.

[meierlde]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rdy2go That is a good article that explains why premiums are going up. As one can see, only a couple of the largest companies are making a profit on private passenger auto insurance. I am insured with a regional company rather than a huge national company. Being small, they do not have a team of actuaries and don't change rates every year like the big companies. My rates have been pretty much the same for years. Rate reviews and filings cost a company money and the smaller companies don't have the personnel and the time to make frequent changes. Hence, my rates have been steady despite my daughter being involved in an accident and getting a roof replaced due to hail. We lost our loss-free discount due to the claims, but I understand why.

In Texas at least on homeowners weather related claims are not allowed to be used in rate setting, since the legislature figured that the weather is not your fault. However the total spent on claims for roofs can be used to increase rates for all in an area.

[scrabbler1]

Many small and medium-sized companies "buy" actuarial services from Verisk Analytics (formerly called Insurance Services Office). They make rate filings on behalf of their member companies. (I worked for ISO in my career.)


My auto rates have risen steadily in the last 7 years, after I increased the liability limits to their present level. Liability and No-Fault have taken the biggest increases, while the rest of the coverages have been about the same or have dropped a little (which is what happens to Comp and collision over time as the car ages and its book value drops).


Back in 2003-04, there was a huge increase in Liability and no-fault coverages (on my previous car) which was due to a lot of insurance fraud, supposedly from staged accidents. But that fraud was rooted out of the system and the rates for those coverages went down to their pre-fraud levels by 2008.


Back in the late 1980s and into the 1990s, I saw several rate decreases as I aged and as I had remained accident-free with my company (State Farm) year after year. But those days are long behind me as the supply of new discounts has ended .

[rdy2go]

The P&C insurance company that I retired from does their own rates and filings for personal lines but does use ISO rates for commercial lines. The company still uses Texas forms for personal lines but uses ISO in all other states. For that reason we were the flea on the tail of the dog that doesn't get a lot of attention and get left alone.

[JoeWras]

It seems that our local TV stations are staying alive based on lawyer ads. That ad money is coming from somewhere.

[H2ODude]

We were experiencing the increases in homeowners, not car. Got solicited with a quote from Metlife agent a couple of years ago for what they call Grandprotect, homeowners and car. We have two vehicles ~$70k value, homeowners w limit of ~$600k, and umbrella for $1mm. Just raised rate a couple of bucks a month, but all in, charged monthly on 2% back Visa, is $215 a month. A few years ago monthly cost of HO alone ~$150. When moved from FL to NC 20 years ago insurance was the one cost that dropped.

Just hope I never have to find out what the customer service or claims is like. Been several decades since had anything like the need to deal with insurance other than pay the bill, thankfully.

[Fedup]

My car insurance has been going down but it's not the same as many years ago. But I did add more cars and more drivers.