BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – Your paychecks may have gone up a little in the last few years, but it never seems to go up as much as the stuff you have to buy, which includes various types of insurance. You can blame a number of things including weather, people, and inflation.
When it comes to insurance, some people might agree, you can’t live without it.
“When you start looking at inflation, it touches everything,” said Bill Jacka Jr., the executive vice president for the Alabama Independent Insurance Agents Inc.
Inflation even knows where you live.
“Right now, we’re seeing on the home owner side, it’s definitely an increase of probably 19% this year and they say some states will see up to a 23% increase,” said Jacka.
Jacka says it doesn’t matter what you’re protecting. Whether it’s life, car, or health insurance, it’s all more expensive right now due to inflation and several other factors.
“Such as changing the regulations of the laws, changing human behavior like distracted driving. Inflation, with the cost of new cars and used cars, home repairs. Building new houses, the cost of new houses, certainly all that has gone up,” he said.
Then there’s also the weather. According to Jacka, in 2023, record heat and 28 separate weather and climates disasters had insurers paying at least $1 billion in claims, which was the highest paid in one year.
So how do you protect your pockets from your protection plan?
“Go with an independent agent. Also, bundle your car and home owners together with one carrier. That generally will give you a substantial savings there. And also ask for a reduction of some type of savings. If you push back on some of these carriers, they will give you a slight decrease,” he said.
On top of that, he says you want to increase your deductible and ask for discounts. At the end of the day, there are still things driving up costs that are out of your control.
“A lot of these insurance carriers are now scared to death of any claim and so they just will pretty much settle before it goes to court. A lot times some of these insurance carriers don’t need to be settling and the cut of that cost is rolling up the price of the premiums,” said Jacka.
Another thing out of your control sometimes is how natural disasters affect where you live. In some parts of the state and the country, people have trouble even getting insurance because of the likelihood of a natural disaster happening.
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