I got bumped by a woman in a parking garage a few weeks ago. I was in my Jeep and was happy that the bump didn’t cause any significant damage.
She actually hit the back of my front tire & fender and then immediately blamed me for it. I started to explain the physics of how that didn’t make sense, but instead just exchanged insurance information, took some pictures, and moved on.
We’re both covered by State Farm, but neither of us made a claim.
That incident got me interested in what car insurance premiums are doing. According to BLS data, car insurance is up +56% since 2022, leading general inflation. They report premiums were finally pretty stable in 2025, and flat so far in 2026. According to the Insurance Information Institute, key causes are “increased claim severity, increased litigation, rising vehicle repair costs, more risky driving habits and severe weather in some areas.”
A buddy of mine got a brand new vehicle and his rates actually went down. He was paying $350 every 6 months for his older SUV in Minnesota last year. Then he took it to Florida and the rate jumped to $900. Florida has a lot of car accident litigation cases. When he got his new SUV this summer, he was surprised to see the rate fall to $650. Even though his new vehicle is worth many multiples of the old one. He thinks that it is less because it is loaded up with safety sensors – including one of those cameras that “watches” you as you drive.
Every 6 months, our Corvette is $800, our Audi SUV is $500, my Jeep Wrangler is $500, and our older BMW SUV is just $225. That’s a little over $4.0K per year. I asked my AI ChatGPT tool if we are getting good value for our “fleet” and it said we are probably a 9.5 out of 10 for value. The one opportunity would be a higher deductible (currently $250), but our savings are estimated at only $150-$300/year. I guess that’s worth a little savings.
How are your insurance rates looking?
Image: (c) MrFireStation.com
MrFireStation 
Your auto rates look very cheap, even the Florida ones. Here are some numbers from the People’s Republic of California. A 2008 Mercury Grand Marquis, where I am the only driver is $655.55 every six months. A 2009 Mercury Grand Marquis where my 24 YO son is the driver is $1219.10 every six months.
I used to not track by policy because everything was covered by State Farm. Back in 2021, my total annual payments to State Farm were $10,698 including Homeowners, Earthquake, Umbrella, and four autos. State Farm started cranking up the Homeowners before dropping me in 2024, three months before the Palisades Fire. They also removed my multi-line discount on my vehicles after dropping my Homeowners. My total insurance spend for 2026 will be $19,525. That is around an 85% increase over the past five years.
I was actually able to get my Fire Insurance Down by switching to CA FAIR Plan and lower my umbrella policy by shopping that around as well. The bulk of the cost delta is auto insurance.
I had a very similar experience to yours when a Tesla Cyber Truck hit my full-sized van and destroyed the passenger side mirror. Of course, the Cyber Truck driver blamed me for hitting him and said he had video. The physics didn’t support his claim, because mirror was pushed forward. I found a replacement part of Rock Auto for $40 and installed it myself. Never heard from the other driver.
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I asked ChatGPT what would happen to my rates if I moved to Pacific Palisades CA and it said they would jump from $4K to between $6-10K per year. That’s a BIG jump … !
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Wow! That is what happens when you have personal injury attorneys running almost all the ads on the radio these days and many of the other drivers on the road are uninsured.
BTW, State Farm is the cheapest out here. Even with the high rates. I have tried shopping around and keep coming up with higher numbers.
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Pasadena, California which is an urban area for rating 2013 Honda CRZ driver age 71 and 2018 Prius driver age 64 with a $5,000 physical damage deductible liability limits $500K minimum limits Uninsured motorists’ coverage, $1500 every six months.
The Honda only has 33,000 miles and Prius $54,000 miles. We drive the Honda enough to keep battery charged; wife does not want to sell her car. The Prius sometimes doesn’t get driven more than a tank of gas a month except for three to four weeks I am commuting 137 miles roundtrip daily to Lancaster to monitor a trial.
We also have an umbrella policy which is pretty inexpensive.
That is how variable life is sometimes.
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ChatGPT estimates that my vehicle insurance would be 60-150% higher in Pasadena CA, compared with Woodbury MN. Our Corvette alone would be $2,700-$4,400 per year – although given that you are paying $3K for a Prius, I’m guessing it is estimating much too low. In addition to insurance, our gas is currently $3.87 (compared to Pasadena CA $5.52)! Amazing how expensive California is, although I probably will think it is very worth it in JANUARY!
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Correction, $3K annual premium is for two vehicles a Honda and a Prius.
What is interesting is that finally a California legislator has filed a bill to allow insurers to price coverage based on telematics. The privacy fanatics are all up in arms over this. I would love to have my auto premiums based on my telematics. I have always been slow to gain speed and approach stop lights by just lifting my foot off the accelerator and using as little breaking as possible. I am convinced that my premiums would lower if based on my driving style.
On a side note, at the Toyota dealer on a service call I heard a service manager tell a customer that the dealer refused to put his car on the rack for an alignment as the wear on the tires was due to aggressive driving. The customer argued seven ways from Sunday that he knows how to drive, but Toyota stuck to their opinion.
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I think as long as it is a voluntary program you join with your car insurance company, it should be legal. California seems to be the exception among states. I actually found a State Farm “Drivewell“ sensor behind the rearview mirror when I bought my Corvette. I called the guy who sold me the car and told him his insurance rates might be going up after me driving for two weeks!
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I just got my Umbrella Policy renewal yesterday in the mail, and they are requiring me to increase my underlying insurance liability coverage. It has been really painful since State Farm dropped my Homeowners Fire Insurance. I am having to work with five different insurance providers now to get the same coverage I used to get from only State Farm. Every insurance type is trying to collect your premiums and palm as much of the risk as possible off on someone else. I have a good working relationship with my Local State Farm Agent, and she helped me find other insurers to offer the same coverage I used to get exclusively from her.
This has forced me to learn more about the different types of insurance.
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An additional use of telematics would be creating another revenue stream for California’s Government. I have heard that they want to pass a per mileage fee to make up for all the taxes they aren’t collecting at the pump from Electric Vehicles.
The area I live in has a real problem with the type of guy you described street racing. You hear their tires squealing around turns where they are surely over driving their braking. Someone pulls out of their driveway right before Mr. Tire Burner comes along and bad things will happen. They also pass on blind turns. The typical driver profile are the spoiled children of the group featured on Nick Shirley’s Hospice Fraud Video.
Around 1993, California tried to pass a Proposition that would have given us true no fault insurance. The premise behind it was that there are irresponsible drivers who drive without insurance. If they get into accident that is your, the insured driver’s fault, they collect off your policy and probably hire a Personal Injury attorney to trump up some sort of personal injury claim. Then, if one of the uninsured drivers hits your vehicle, your insurance still pays. Uninsured drivers take from the insurance pool without contributing to it.
However, this is what really sold me on the Proposition. I was in LA County Superior Court on Hill Street and I overheard two Family Law Attorneys complaining about the No-Fault Proposition with the thought that it would cause a lot of Personal Injury Attorneys to leave PI and become Family Law Attorneys. Any law that attorneys don’t like because they will make less money is a good law. Of course the Proposition got crushed via false advertising funded by the Personal Injury Attorney’s Bar. The main cause of our high insurance rates are the Personal Injury Bar is one of the larger, if not largest contributors AKA bribers to politicians
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