Report: Auto Insurance up 15% Since Beginning of the Year

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Car insurance premiums have gone up by 15% since the beginning of the year, and they are projected to be up 22% by the end of the year, a new report shows.

The annual average full-coverage car premium price is $2,329, and it is expected be $2,469 by the end of the year, according to a report from Insurify, an insurance website that compares insurance rates.

Rate increases in 2024 are a continuation of the previous year’s increase in full-coverage premiums due to underwriting losses hitting a record $33.1 billion in 2022, which accounted for a price spike in following years, according to the report.

The report blames weather-related claims, inflated prices of new cars and soaring repair costs—particulary for driver-assistance features and costs to repair electric vehicles—as among the reasons for premiums going up.

In the U.S., there was an average 20.4 billion-dollar events per year from 2019 to 2023—that’s a 56% increase in weather events that caused damages upwards of $1 billion from 2010 to 2019, the report shows.

Losses or damage to vehicles from hailstorms cost around $5,000 per claim, with claims from a single hailstorm potentially exceeding $130 million, according to the report.

Labor hours have also been going up, pushing claims up 40%—largely due to newer car technology. Vehicles with advanced driver-assistance can add up to 37.6% to total repair costs, while EVs take an average of 5.8 days longer and cost 46.9% more to repair than gas-powered cars, with an average repair cost of $6,700, the report shows.

Six states have average annual premiums surpassing the $3,000 mark: Florida ($3,201), Louisiana ($3,182), Maryland ($3,400), Nevada ($3,271), New York ($3,325) and South Carolina ($3,336). The remaining states in the top 10 most expensive states are Delaware ($2,982), Washington, DC ($2,977), Michigan ($2,719) and Georgia ($2,688). These states have at least a 15% higher price than the national average. New Hampshire was the state with the lowest premiums, with an average of $1,000, according to the report.

The states that saw the most significant percentage increases over a year were Minnesota (55%), Missouri (51%), North Carolina (46%), Illinois (46%) and California (45%). All states are projected to have growth by the end of the year.

Another factor that propelled higher percentages was car theft. California, Illinois and Missouri were in the top 10 in number of cars stolen in 2023, the report shows.

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