Your name doesn’t have to be Luigi for you to feel vitriol toward the insurance industry, including auto insurers. Car owners can’t catch a break at all. The average cost of full coverage increased by 26 percent last year, and that’s on top of a 24-percent increase in 2023. Understandably, drivers paying through the nose don’t feel like they are getting their money’s worth and struggle to have their claims covered when they file them.
What’s your worst car insurance story? There are countless ways that insurers can take advantage of car owners, from ridiculous premium increases to claims rejected for seemingly no reason. Did an insurance company refuse to insure your car because of the make? This is something that happened to Hyundai and Kia owners two years ago when thefts spiked by 1,450 percent in St. Louis and then spread nationwide as the Kia Boyz social media trend made millions aware of an automaker security exploit.
Insurance companies bought your driving data for next to nothing
Your hard-earned dollars aren’t the only thing insurers are taking? Automakers are also selling our data to insurance companies. Last year, two U.S. Senators sent a letter to the FTC calling out GM, Hyundai and Honda for collecting vehicle data from drivers. These manufacturers would then sell this information for shockingly low sums of money to analytics firms. Insurers would then use the data to set the rates for specific models. Hyundai made 61 cents per car from selling driving data, and Honda took in 26 cents per car. Soon afterward, GM stopped collecting driving data.
Don’t hold back, but please don’t make actionable threats against executives. Tell us about your worst interactions with car insurance companies in the comments below. Be sure to mention the year, make and model of the vehicle involved so we can make our own assessment of the situation. We can’t wait to read the horror stories you have to offer.