Re: https://jalopnik.com/how-exactly-does-trump-plan-to-lower-car-insurance-rate-1851652717
I dealt with property & casualty insurance companies (of which auto is a part) for years as a lawyer and later in marketing, and the single biggest thing Trump could do to affect auto rates, he will never do.
Because that thing is to aggressively combat climate change. 1/
P&C insurers don't treat "auto" as a separate bucket from "homeowners" or "business property damage" or any other coverage they offer, exactly.
Rather, they math out risk/profit/loss in each bucket, then adjust any and all buckets as needed to keep their balance sheets black. 2/
The NUMBER ONE REASON auto rates are increasing is because PROPERTY DAMAGE is increasing.
The #1 reason property damage costs are increasing is because the number and severity of catastrophic weather events is increasing - every year, for decades.
The reason those catastrophic events are increasing is CLIMATE CHANGE. 3/
(Close #2 reason auto rates are increasing is auto ownership is decreasing, because an increasing number of Americans can no longer afford cars. Note that Trump also has no plan whatsoever to increase wages or subsidize the cost of car ownership directly.
Also note that putting more cars on the road will worsen climate change and is thus not a long term solution.) 4/
P&C carriers have known this for at least 20 years, btw. They have not kept it a secret. It's a major topic in publicly-accessible trade journals and has been since at least 2008, the year I started working in the industry.
Insurers know climate change is real and it is their largest threat. But they are in the business of insuring issues that exist NOW, not fixing the future.
If we want rates fixed, we need to fix the future. Trump won't touch it. 5/
(A third reason auto rates are increasing is that cars are now FAR more expensive to fix, what with all the sensors and computers and such.
The problem here is that Trump's most available direct impact is to defund the NHTSA...at which point we're then gaming whether "cheaper cars" will reduce rates faster than "total lack of safety standards and oversight" in auto manufacture and road safety will raise them. I ain't feeling lucky, punks.) 6/
@danialexis And, Texas lege has done away with safety inspection for registration renewal (of course, Abbott signed it). With the State Board of Insurance already a rubber stamp for rate increases, imagine what's coming...