I got an email notice from my insurance company that they will now start charging a $5 fee for using credit card to pay my insurance premiums which I do because the whole thing is automated and I don’t want to write checks or pay bills online. They even charge $5 for using a debit card and the only way to avoid it is to do a bank draft directly from my bank account which I don’t want to do. While it’s only $5, it is yet another increase across the board for insurance costs because this impacts both my home owners insurance and auto insurance.
I decided to check the BLS statistics on insurance costs and it confirmed what I had been thinking that insurance inflation is insane!
Auto Insurance
The chart below comes from the BLS and you can click on the data here. I would suggest you save the link and do some forecasts based on the trends for your own household budget. As you can see from the chart the auto insurance cost has tapered off a bit but still inflating. With new tariffs on autos and materials driving up costs, you can expect this to continue to climb.
Home Insurance
The chart below is from household (home) insurance. This chart shows no tapering, it’s just going straight up and like autos, with tariffs increasing the costs of materials, this will make insurance costs go higher as well. The link for this data is here.
Health Insurance
I couldn’t find an easy chart for health insurance but those costs have been insane for years. I did find this long convoluted description on how health care insurance is calculated but it’s entirely meaningless to me, I just feel the pain of insane premiums, terrible coverage and crazy co-pays.
Share The Wealth
Is insurance driving you crazy? Let me know in the comments below.