Car Insurance Costs Are Rising Faster Than Any Other Service We Buy

• Car insurance topped the list of items tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Services as having the highest annual cost increase.

• Americans spent 20 percent more on car insurance in 2023 than they did in the previous year.

• There are a few things that might help.

In just three years, car insurance has risen to the point where it costs Americans 43 percent more than it did during the depths of the pandemic in December 2020. That's according to the latest December 2023 consumer price index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. agency everyone now watches since inflation hit a 40-year record. But while inflation is finally cooling—December's recorded 3.4 percent is down almost two-thirds from June 2022's 9.1 percent—car insurance is still seeing double-digit surges.

Just in the past year, Americans spent an estimated 20 percent more on car insurance than they did in 2022—the largest such increase since 1976. Among the roughly 200 categories the BLS tracks, car insurance had the highest yearly increase of any expenditure. Only frozen noncarbonated juices and drinks, at 19 percent, came near. College tuition and rent increases were nowhere close to that of car insurance.