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Florida Auto-Insurance on the Rise

There are few things in the world that ignite anger quicker than seeing a dramatic increase in your bills. Whether that be power, mortgage payments, or insurance the result is still the same; frustration and a yearning to chew out an under paid customer service representative. Imagine my horror when I viewed my car insurance statement and witnessed an increase of ten percent! Needless to say it was not a great day. Living in Florida I have adapted to dwelling in a state with one of the highest auto insurance costs in the country but even I have my limits. I decided to do a little bit of research and understand the reasoning behind the increased rates and wanted to see if the recent rise in Florida was affecting the commercial industry as well.

The Hard Facts

As unpleasant as it is, the reality we face is most likely a future of increased costs. Florida has seen a consistent boom in population and combined with the unemployment rate dropping, more and more people are getting into their vehicles to drive. These are the unintended consequences of success. There are other factors which are not nearly as pleasant. Insurance fraud in Florida has been year after year reported to be some of the highest in the nation and the increasing rate of uninsured drivers also ensures those with the proper coverage pay more. Rising costs of medical care, auto repair, and auto parts  due to more sophisticated cars are also leading to increases in claims severity. Since 2005, insurance claim costs for bodily injuries have increased by 40 percent nationally. With the development and expansion of collision-avoidance technology in vehicles, there seems to be some help in reducing the kind of low-speed accidents that occur mostly in dense traffic.

Finally, distracted driving is increasingly contributing to a rise in rates. As phone applications become more engrossing and marketers become more creative, we will continue to see people utilizing their phones on the road. Because of this traffic deaths are increasing at a faster rate than driving miles. Without a doubt the leading cause for this rise in deaths is distracted driving. According to AAA, There were 45,000 distracted-driving crashes in Florida last year that resulted in roughly 39,000 bodily-injury cases and 214 deaths. It’s not just texting that is causing distracted driving accidents. Many drivers admit to doing other tasks on their phone while behind the wheel such as emailing, interacting with social media, video chat, and playing mobile app games among others.

So what can we do about the rising premiums? Well for some consideration repealing the No-Fault law in place is an interesting avenue that may be worth exploring. In recent years many states have moved away from this concept. In fact, only 8 other states still require no-fault insurance. Beyond a huge reform, it unfortunately appears we may all need to buckle up for a trend of rising insurance premiums. While the commercial fleets may not feel the effect yet, many of these factors will eventually have an impact on businesses of all types. One solution to help avoid insurance claims in the first place is to utilize FleetMode to stop distracted driving accidents in your own fleet. To learn more check out this article where we break down how FleetMode can help.