[YASBBYM3]

WSJ article from Monday.

Insurance premiums have outpaced inflation. Car insurance rates increased 19.2% in the 12 months through November, six times the rise in overall consumer prices, Labor Department data show. It was the 15th consecutive month of double-digit percentage increases in premiums, year-over-year, the longest stretch of such high hikes since the mid-1980s, according to S&P Global.


https://www.wsj.com/business/insuran...hange-03b806f3

https://archive.is/20240108215420/ht...hange-03b806f3

Some highlights:

After Allstate suffered billions of dollars in losses and failed to get the rate increases it wanted, it resorted to the nuclear option.

The insurance giant threatened last fall to stop renewing auto insurance for customers in three states that hadn’t given in to its demands, which would have left those policyholders scrambling for coverage. The states blinked.
In December, New Jersey approved auto rate increases for Allstate averaging 17%, and New York, a 15% hike. Regulators in California are allowing Allstate to boost auto rates by 30%, but still haven’t decided on its request for a 40% increase in home-insurance rates after the insurer refused to write new policies.

For many Americans, getting insurance for both their cars and homes has gone from a routine, generally manageable expense to a do-or-die ordeal that can strain household budgets.

Insurers are coming off some of their worst years in history. Catastrophic damage from storms and wildfires is one big reason. The past decade of global natural catastrophes has been the costliest ever. Warmer temperatures have made storms worse and contributed to droughts that have elevated wildfire risk. Too many new homes were built in areas at risk of fire.

As losses mounted, inflation only made matters worse, boosting the cost of repairing or replacing cars or homes.
Climate change also has made it harder for insurers to measure their risks, pushing some to demand even higher premiums to cushion against future losses.

“I have never seen the overall market this bad,” said Barry Gilway, a 52-year veteran of the industry who retired in 2023 as head of Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance, a state-created insurer of last resort that sells plans to people who can’t get coverage elsewhere.

……..

Allstate Chief Executive Tom Wilson defended the threat to yank auto coverage in the three states that generated heavy losses. “We can’t afford to use shareholder money…to support an underpriced product,” he said. A company spokesman said the “rate approvals allow us to protect more customers as we work with state regulators to improve insurance availability.”

………

Insurance premiums have outpaced inflation. Car insurance rates increased 19.2% in the 12 months through November, six times the rise in overall consumer prices, Labor Department data show. It was the 15th consecutive month of double-digit percentage increases in premiums, year-over-year, the longest stretch of such high hikes since the mid-1980s, according to S&P Global.

Simon Edwards drives a 2012 Mazda 5 in his hometown of Las Vegas. The monthly premium of his Geico auto insurance, he said, has shot up 72% in less than a year, from $130 in April to $223 now. “I’ve been in no accidents, no tickets, been with Geico for many years,” he said.

……….

Among the factors pushing up the price of auto insurance: Prices of new and used cars, and parts, have risen, more people are driving expensive vehicles, and extreme weather is destroying more cars.
“I’ve been here 27 years, and we’ve never increased auto rates in the way we have in the last two years,” said Allstate CEO Wilson.

Wilson asked hundreds of his company’s agents at a fall event in Orlando how customers were reacting. “I was like, ‘How’s it going? What are people saying? If I’d said to you three years ago we were going to raise auto prices by 17.5% in one year, you would have thrown me out.’ ”

The answer he got back, Wilson said, was that “people understand it, they understand that their cars and their houses are worth more money.” But, he said, “it’s clearly a burden for customers, and we need to figure out what to do about it.”

………

Companies are choking off new business by slashing advertising, closing sales offices or erecting barriers to getting quotes.

State Farm spent 72% less on broadcast and cable advertising in the nine months through Sept. 30, compared with the year-earlier period, according to advertising tracking company AdImpact. Geico cut back by 81%, the data show. A State Farm spokesman confirmed ad spending was down, but said the company didn’t think tracking services completely captured its marketing spending.

Geico in 2022 closed all its sales offices in California. Search for an agent on the Geico website, and the alphabetical list of states skips straight from Arkansas to Colorado. California appears not to exist. A Geico spokesman said customers still have the option to buy its policies in California directly from the company.

Agents say another common technique for restricting unprofitable growth is insisting on hard-to-locate paperwork upfront. Proof that the plumbing’s been updated, say, or documentation of work done on the roof. “It’s a way to say, we don’t want the business,” said Gaspar.

Last summer, Nationwide said it was requiring customers to supply documentation before the company would provide quotes for some new home or auto insurance products in certain states. The company, which declined to name the affected states, said the move was a response to “strong headwinds” buffeting the industry.

[MoeTE87]

I have Allstate for auto and home insurance and their prices are getting ridiculous. I have been getting quotes to drop them and get into something better and not so outrageous!

The above article does not surprise me..

Note: Wife and I have clean driving records. No accidents and no tickets.

[Chihuahua]

I was with GEICO for years, rates got a little too high for my liking (home and auto) so I contacted an agent, worked with him on coverages, and found another insurer. You can still get decent rates but you have to really hunt for them, and they may not be with one of the household names.

[Rafichicago]

Originally Posted by Chihuahua

I was with GEICO for years, rates got a little too high for my liking (home and auto) so I contacted an agent, worked with him on coverages, and found another insurer. You can still get decent rates but you have to really hunt for them, and they may not be with one of the household names.

Agree with your statement 100%.
I shop around for insurance every 6 months. The loyalty is a thing of the past with those corporations. 15% is a laugh. Last yoewr my premium was $1150 for 4 cars. My renewal comes in few days. It’s over $1700. This is getting out of hands. I have to play with coverages and options to try to get me where I want to be. I am currently with AAA. My wife and I have both perfectly clean records. Keep in mind guys that every 6 months our cars are older and worth less. So if you look at that this way it’s way more than 15% when you take inflation and high depreciation of car like M5.

[GolfCoyote]

It's not just AllState, on Reddit I see posts from people from all insurance companies (including USAA) stating their premiums have doubled or tripled.

I have USAA and so far things seem normal for now. I watched a video that claimed insurance should start to trend back down towards the end of this year.

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by GolfCoyote

It's not just AllState, on Reddit I see posts from people from all insurance companies (including USAA) stating their premiums have doubled or tripled.

I have USAA and so far things seem normal for now. I watched a video that claimed insurance should start to trend back down towards the end of this year.

I was with USAA for almost 30 years and no one could ever beat them. But then in the last three years the increases were extreme and I dropped them last year and went to State Farm, who I had before I was eligible for USAA. I’m convinced a significant factor in USAA’s increasing premiums is all this TV advertising they’re doing.

Anyway, the premium for the State Farm renewal next month increased significantly and I’m going back to USAA, but I’m going to their new “pay as you drive” company, NOBLR. Fortunately I drive fewer than 10k miles per year now. There is a base monthly rate and then there is a variable rate based on how many miles you drive each month. My monthly premium is almost $50 less than it would be with State Farm.

I’m staying with State Farm for homeowners. There’s a small increase for not having my auto policy with them, but they are still more than $300 less than USAA, and that’s with a multi-policy discount from them.

[GolfCoyote]

Originally Posted by tturedraider

I was with USAA for almost 30 years and no one could ever beat them. But then in the last three years the increases were extreme and I dropped them last year and went to State Farm, who I had before I was eligible for USAA. I’m convinced one of the major factors in USAA’s increasing premiums is all this TV advertising they’re doing.

Anyway, the premium for the State Farm renewal next month increased significantly and I’m going back to USAA, but I’m going to their new “pay as you drive” company, NOBLR. Fortunately I drive fewer than 10k miles per year now. There is a base monthly rate and then there is a variable rate based on how many miles you drive each month.

I’m staying with State Farm for homeowners. There’s a small increase for not having my auto policy with them, but they are still more than $300 less than USAA, and that’s with a multi-policy discount from them.

Well USAA is supposed to be a not for profit business, but their newest CEO has given himself like a 125% raise and takes home millions ever year. Should tell you all you need to know.
While my premiums havnt changed I did just have an accident and had to file a claim, the customer service was a nightmare to deal with. The alone has me looking elsewhere at the moment

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by GolfCoyote

Well USAA is supposed to be a not for profit business, but their newest CEO has given himself like a 125% raise and takes home millions ever year. Should tell you all you need to know.
While my premiums havnt changed I did just have an accident and had to file a claim, the customer service was a nightmare to deal with. The alone has me looking elsewhere at the moment

There is no doubt when USAA as a company and their customer service starts going to hell it’s a pretty clear confirmation of what we see every day with the rest of the world going to hell.

I’m not sure what to think about Wayne Peacock. He has zero military service. But, he’s been with USAA for over 30 years. His salary more than doubled from 2021 to 2022. From $1.9 million to $4.8 million. But, that still puts him at number nine in highest paid insurance company CEOs. State Farm tops the list at $24.4 million and Travelers and Allstate aren’t far behind.

[jiggz]

Originally Posted by MoeTE87

I have Allstate for auto and home insurance and their prices are getting ridiculous.

It's not just Allstate, I can assure you that. I work for a fortune 100 insurance company, it's really ugly right now, not just for us for every carrier out there. Billions in underwriting losses, combined ratios well above 100%, wide-spread layoffs, massive efforts to no longer grow but simply get profitable, etc.

Originally Posted by MoeTE87

Note: Wife and I have clean driving records. No accidents and no tickets.

This will only prevent an even bigger rate increase, unfortunately. Even with a clean record you're not immune to potentially multiple rate increases per year.

The auto insurer I use (different from the company I work for) recently went from 12 month to 6 month policy terms, clearly an attempt to implement rate changes more often.

* worth mentioning - to those who keep shopping around to find better rates, there's definitely nothing wrong with that. But keep in mind most insurance companies have a 'get you in the door rate' that initially sounds really good, but will re-adjust at subsequent renewals to get your premium up into the proper range.

[YASBBYM3]

According to report on TV last night, car insurance is up 20% in the last 2 months.

[fe7565]

I have been with USAA for about 30 years. In the last 5-6 years they went to hell. I am paying now in 2024 for car liability at the same rate as was paying for full coverage for my used 2012 328i. Back in 2013 the car was worth $28K and now worth about $4-6K. No accidents, ever. And I am using the USAA driver discount app that monitors me even when I fart.

USAA broadened the circle of eligible members from officer to enlisted. This increased a bit the risk profile, but not that much. If you are active duty or civil service, you are more disciplined than an average civilian...and Uncle Sam has you by the balls, so people behave. Then recently they opened up elbiblity to the second uncle's third cousin's neighbor's daughter, which introduced a huge amount of risk profiles...which IMHO contributed vastly to the skyrocketing rates.

I called USAA why the skyrocketing rates, and they said my ZIP code, but would not elaborate. My area near DC has been populated by the 2008-2016 White House admin with uninsured motorists, foreign drivers that got their home country permits under the table so they never learned to drive, etc. The traffic now reminds me of Manila or Riyadh, third world chaos and undiscipline rules.

That a-hole running USAA is a pinhead clerk who rose in the ranks of USAA. The first ever non-military. He ruined (allowed to ruin) the one of a kind customer service climate USAA was so well known for. I found my mortgage in 2015 near 3/4% lower than USAA from another company, so said screw USAA. My USAA home insurance went up from $200/year to over $1000. Was too lazy to look for new car insurance and home insurance, but will start shopping around.

[M-technik-3]

Originally Posted by GolfCoyote

It's not just AllState, on Reddit I see posts from people from all insurance companies (including USAA) stating their premiums have doubled or tripled.

I have USAA and so far things seem normal for now. I watched a video that claimed insurance should start to trend back down towards the end of this year.

My rates with USAA have increased 12% since last year and my gal and I are over 55 and have not had an accident in 15 years plus.

That being said I shopped around and did not want to loose my semi decent home owners rate so I paid their ransom. I called and spoke to a rep explaining I was extremely dissatisfied and would be noting it in my survey. Still made no change in rates.

Paying more for our 08 X3 than we were paying for our 12 Hyundai SanteFe piece of crap. Hyundai gave us a club to prevent theft of the piece of shit, I told them I wished it would fall off a cliff onto their dealership. They were not amused but neither am I with the dead thing sitting in my driveway.

[YASBBYM3]

Car insurance rates have soared 36% since 2020. Here’s why.
The rate increases coincided with a jump in the price of cars and auto repairs.


https://abcnews.go.com/Business/car-...?id=106714266#

[tturedraider]

Just fyi - I just went back to USAA, but I went to their new company that charges based on mileage and driving habits, NOBLR. State Farm was going to raise my renewal by 25%. Going to NOBLR decreased my rate by 20%. So, overall my rate is 35% lower than it was going to be. Their app on my phone monitors my driving style, but not my actual speed (State Farm monitored my speed and I always go nine miles over the limit) and the number of miles I drive each week. I like that, because I am a low mileage driver and I feel like I have been paying for a lot more miles than I actually drive pretty much ever since I moved to Chicago. NOBLR also monitors the time of day you drive. They say significantly more wrecks occur between 11:00 PM & 4:00 AM, so not driving during those hours helps.

[NickyC]

With used car prices cratering, I'm soooo sure auto insurance rates will decrease as well right?

[YASBBYM3]

Originally Posted by NickyC

With used car prices cratering, I'm soooo sure auto insurance rates will decrease as well right?

This isn’t tracking with the current increases

[fe7565]

Originally Posted by tturedraider

Just fyi - I just went back to USAA, but I went to their new company that charges based on mileage and driving habits, NOBLR. State Farm was going to raise my renewal by 25%. Going to NOBLR decreased my rate by 20%. So, overall my rate is 35% lower than it was going to be. Their app on my phone monitors my driving style, but not my actual speed (State Farm monitored my speed and I always go nine miles over the limit) and the number of miles I drive each week. I like that, because I am a low mileage driver and I feel like I have been paying for a lot more miles than I actually drive pretty much ever since I moved to Chicago. NOBLR also monitors the time of day you drive. They say significantly more wrecks occur between 11:00 PM & 4:00 AM, so not driving during those hours helps.

After reading your post, I went from USAA-liability to USAA-NOBLR-full-coverage for the same price at same levels.

Background: living in a more and more lawless and uninsured-motorist stronghold (NOVA) where my liability insurance in 2024 started to cost the same as my initial full coverage for my car in 2014. I have an older car and the annual USAA full-coverage rates went 10% above the car's value. I also drive a lot less than before. So last year I dropped full coverage and went with USAA liability.

I just signed up today, choosing the policy to start during next week. Will call USAA Monday to cancel my current insurance, although can do that online as well, but want to chat to make sure I am not missing anything.

You have to be USAA qualified, but do not need to have USAA insurance. Sign up was easy and logical online. I signed in to my USAA account and searched for NOBLR Followed the link outside to USAA's NOBLR web-quote. It imported all my USAA information and at the end I was able to choose between two pre-set policies (BASIC and MODERATE) or a CUSTOM one that you can tweak.

There are two components. One fixed rate monthly, and one variable rate monthly. The variable depends on your miles/day and (I believe) your driving score which is monitored by an app you must download. I already had USAA's SafePilot app for a few years snooping on my driving habits in exchange for a discounted rate, so had no problems with downloading "USSA Pay As You Drive by NOBLR".

Checking some "what ifs", as long as drive low miles and drive reasonably safe, the savings will materialize as estimated. A few long trips may drive the variable-rate portion of the costs higher, but should be offset by a significantly more number of low-miles days.

[tturedraider]

^^ Wow!! That’s great!! So glad my post could help!! My policy has been in force just over ten days. So far I’ve driven 145 miles and my scores are great. I drive pretty smoothly. I accelerate fairly briskly, but very smoothly and I anticipate braking and don’t come to abrupt stops. I have found that talking on the phone even with Bluetooth is too distracting for me, so I virtually never do it. The only time I answer a call while I’m driving is if I know it’s someone calling with something regarding my father and that’s very infrequent. As I mentioned, my main thing is that I do consistently speed. My standard speed is nine miles over the limit. But, NOBLR doesn’t monitor my speed. So far I have a score of 96 and the app tells me the average score is 84. I’m pretty pleased right now.

[Entropy89]

I’ve had both of my cars insured with geico for 3 years now (starting on the 4th in February) and this is the first year my policy has gone up more than ~$5/month. My renewal is up close to ~$40 a month for literally no reason, and they even admit to you on the phone that we’re paying for others mistakes. I looked back into progressive, and checked Allstate, Liberty mutual, and State Farm and geico was still the cheapest. Even bundling my homeowners insurance from State Farm didn’t help.

My wife and I have never had an accident in a combined 35 years of driving, and I’ve only ever had one speeding ticket in 2016 which was plead down to a seat belt violation with 2 points. Neither of us have ever used insurance for anything on our cars.

Insurance is just a money grabbing scam.

[YASBBYM3]

Originally Posted by Entropy89

I’ve had both of my cars insured with geico for 3 years now (starting on the 4th in February) and this is the first year my policy has gone up more than ~$5/month. My renewal is up close to ~$40 a month for literally no reason, and they even admit to you on the phone that we’re paying for others mistakes. I looked back into progressive, and checked Allstate, Liberty mutual, and State Farm and geico was still the cheapest. Even bundling my homeowners insurance from State Farm didn’t help.

My wife and I have never had an accident in a combined 35 years of driving, and I’ve only ever had one speeding ticket in 2016 which was plead down to a seat belt violation with 2 points. Neither of us have ever used insurance for anything on our cars.

Insurance is just a money grabbing scam.

My rates with Geico doubled over last 2-3 years with no tickets or points.

Most of it is due to the high number of uninsured motorist and my coverage was so high.

[Entropy89]

Originally Posted by YASBBYM3

My rates with Geico doubled over last 2-3 years with no tickets or points.

Most of it is due to the high number of uninsured motorist and my coverage was so high.

Progressive did this to me which is how I ended up with geico. And yeah you might be right, there are tons of cars in my area with out of state plates or just fake plates in general. The states they have don’t require car insurance so…

[Condorll]

Part of the general increase might be to cover the higher cost of EV repairs, (and fires)? Hertz is reducing their EV fleet because of higher cost vs ICE cars.