New Mexico Auto Insurance Rates Jump After Deregulation
Friday, March 20th, 2009
Cliff Reisig recently wrote about significant increases in New Mexico auto insurance rates in the Alamogordo Daily News. After being hit with a 48% jump in the cost of his auto insurance premium last year, even though he had never filed an accident claim in the 20 years he had the policy, he decided to investigate the cause.
After contacting the state’s regulation commission, Cliff found that the New Mexico state legislature recently decided to deregulate the auto insurance industry. Now, insurance companies can increase their rates at any time for any reason. As a result, auto insurance rates have exploded across the state, far beyond the customary 3% or so inflation in past years.
Since New Mexico mandates that all drivers have auto insurance, a complete lack of price controls could hurt the state’s drivers.
