How you can lower your car insurance costs even as rates continue to climb

SALT LAKE CITY — It would be a good time to double-check with your insurance agent and make sure you are getting all the discounts available to you. Auto insurance rates are catching up with the costs of, well, everything that has gone up thanks to inflation.

Michelle Megna, an insurance analyst with Forbes Advisors, said replacement car parts cost more than they used to, and that means we all are paying more to insure our cars, regardless of our driving records.

That rise in cost is about 6% 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.

“You can get toilet paper now no problem,” Megna said. “But as far as like auto parts and all the things you need to fix cars, there are still supply chain woes.”

“They’re making brand 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 at a body shop for more than a year waiting on replacement airbags after a fender bender caused the originals to go off. He finally got them but paid a premium.

Cars loaded with the latest technology are also leading to insurance rate hikes.

“When people are getting into accidents, it costs more to fix the cars in general, because they’re made with much more high-tech parts,” Megna said.

And people are getting into more crashes since the pandemic started to ease. There has also been an uptick in the number of accidents as well as their severity.

“That’s all contributing to a rise in the auto insurance rates that we’re seeing,” Megna explained.

So, how do you bust inflation, here?

Megna said that things you might not expect can lead to insurance discounts — like being married, your occupation, owning a home, getting good grades or even something as simple as signing up to get bills electronically rather than in the mail. Talk to your agent.