SALT LAKE CITY — It would be a good time to check with your insurance agent and make sure you have all the available discounts. Auto insurance rates are catching up with the costs of, well, everything that has gone up thanks to inflation.
Michelle Megna, insurance analyst at Forbes Advisors, said replacement car parts cost more than they used to, and that means we’re all paying more to insure our cars, regardless of our driving records.
That cost increase is about 6 percent on average, Megna said. But inflation isn’t the only thing driving up our premiums, so are the lingering effects of COVID-era supply chain issues.
“Now you can get toilet paper without any problem,” said Megna. “But when it comes to auto parts and all the things you need to fix cars, there are still supply chain issues.”
“They’re making new cars,” Grant Clark told KSL TV last year. “They offered to sell me a new car, but they can’t fix my old car.
Clark’s Volkswagen was stuck in a body shop for more than a year waiting for replacement airbags after a fender bender caused the originals to go off. He eventually got them but paid a premium.
Cars loaded with the latest technology are also driving up insurance rates.
“When people have accidents, it’s more expensive to fix cars in general, because they’re made of much more high-tech parts,” Megna said.
And people are having more accidents since the pandemic started to ease. There has also been an increase in the number of accidents and their severity.
“All of this is contributing to an increase in auto insurance rates that we’re seeing,” Megna explained.
So how do you eliminate inflation, here?
Megna said things you might not expect can lead to insurance discounts, such as being married, your occupation, owning a home, getting good grades or even something as simple as signing up to receive bills electronically instead of by mail. Talk to your agent.
