Will Nevada auto insurance rates keep rising this year? [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

If you’re a driver in Las Vegas, you’ve likely noticed an increase in your auto insurance bill — a trend that’s unlikely to change in 2024, experts say.

In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, as inflation rose and more people returned to the roads, the cost of insurance skyrocketed, especially in Nevada.

The Silver State has the second highest auto insurance premiums in the U.S., only behind New York, with the average annual cost of full coverage car insurance at $2,975, according to a report from Insurify. A 2023 report from Insuriy also found that auto insurance rates in Nevada increased by 36 percent over the first half of last year.

“Auto insurance rates, the trends are not too good,” said Michael DeLong, a research and advocacy associate for the Consumer Federation of America. “We’ve seen that premiums are rising not just in Nevada, but across the entire country.”

Insurify also projects that auto insurance rates across the U.S. could increase by 7 percent in 2024.

Recently insurance providers have asked the Nevada Division of Insurance for rate increases that typically range from 5 to 25 percent, said Gennady Stolyarov, lead actuary for property and casualty insurance at the division. He also said after an insurer makes a rate change request the Division of Insurance determines if it’s prudent and can lower the approved rate if it isn’t prudent.

Stolyarov estimated that recent rate approvals for auto insurance from the Division of Insurance range from 5 to 15 percent. He also noted the rates of increase requests from insurance companies have increased in the last five years when insurance companies used to typically file a rate increase every two to three years. Now companies are filing up to two to three rate increase requests in a single year.

The Division of Insurance held a webinar in November to look at some causes of rising auto insurance rates, which include:

— An increase in poor driving and crashes

— Rising costs of vehicles, repairs and litigation settlements related to crashes

— An increase in drivers on the road since even before the pandemic

— Overall tightening profits of insurance companies

The current state of auto-insurance is a “hard market” where there is less profit being made by insurance companies and there are fewer providers than before, said Scott Menath, president of the Nevada Independent Insurance Agents trade association.

“For the last 10-15 years, we’ve been in a soft market,” he said. “Over the last couple of years, we’ve gone into a hard market … the change definitely hasn’t happened overnight, but it has been probably, I’d say over the last three years.”

Menath expects that increases in auto insurance rates could normalize in late 2024, so the current level of increased rates should stick around, but the number of rate increase requests will slow down going into 2025.

“We’ve been needing a correction in the market for a long time and we’re almost there,” he said. “I tell some of my staff and some of my carriers the slogan for me this year is ‘Stay alive until 2025.’”

Both Menath and DeLong have some recommendations for people looking to save on auto insurance:

— Check to see if a policy contains some extra perks that aren’t vital to be considered insured, such as a glass deductible.

— Compare quotes across several insurance providers.

— Ask if there are discounts on policies which can include student and military discounts or if vehicles have anti-theft devices installed.

— File complaints with the Division of Insurance if interactions with an insurance provider feel unfair or illegal.

Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on X.

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