Car insurance rates are surging as Americans struggle to pay for basic necessities and ongoing debt.
The newest Consumer Price Index shows car insurance spiked 20 percent year over year. The surge in pricing occurred after years of gradual price inflation, with earlier reports finding the rates grew by 36 percent since 2020.
That’s at the same time debt is soaring for many Americans. While Americans hold around 1.75 trillion in student debt loans alone, they also have $1.05 trillion in credit card balances not paid off.
And also insurance companies charging just as much as they can get away with.
The US system is designed to squeeze every last penny out of a person, to the point they can still “survive,” but not so much that they become destitute and can no longer buy things and pay for essential services.
That’s a bit dramatic. The way the market works: You charge a competitive price that allows you to cover your costs and make a profit. If your product provides enough value to the buyer, they’ll pay for it.
There is competition here, though. It’s not like it’s a single insurance company monopoly. You can usually get a better deal by shopping around.
The constraints everyone is working with are: vehicle prices and the cost of repairs. Both of those have gone way up. Insurance only works if they pay out less than they take in. If the cost to pay out rises, what they take in (aka what they charge) has to rise.
I’m not a fan of insurance companies. They aren’t your friend. it’s a business arrangement. But they aren’t colluding to eek every ounce of money from people. Those greedy bastards would undercut their competition in a heartbeat if they’d get more customers and make more money.
Like I said, the problem isn’t with the costs of these things as much as the stagnate wages. Wages haven’t kept pace with inflation and cost of living so you end up with things like $50-75k new vehicles when household incomes are…$50-75k.
It’s more expensive to replace vehicles and more expensive to repair them (like the article says) so everyone’s premiums are going up. But people aren’t getting paid more.
It’s kind of funny you mention this. I just sat down and went through every insurance company I could find (over 15 of them) that are still writing policies here in CA because Geico decided to jack my rates over 20% this renewal. Literally every one of them were within $5 every 6 months of the price Geico is charging me for the renewal.
Tell me again how I’m supposed to “get a better deal by shopping around”?
Oh he has no clue. He just parroted the propaganda he received in middle school.
I’m in the same boat except my rates went up 200% because of a single accident in the last 10 years. Fuck Geico and every other insurance company. Private companies should not be allowed in businesses where people have no choice. And I’m saying this as a libertarian mostly.
That’s what’s taught. There’s quite a bit more in practice, including: what insurance companies learned from management consultants.
Maybe so, though there appears to be a common interest.