Car insurance rates set to go even higher

 NPR:

A slew of new tariffs, including some specific to vehicles, have many Americans reassessing their plans to buy a car — moving them up to take advantage of today's tariff-free pricing, or reevaluating whether they want a new car at all, given the economic uncertainty.

President Trump has recently floated the idea of a temporary pause on the 25% tax on imported cars, as a reprieve for automakers.

But even if he goes ahead with that idea, tariffs will still affect the auto industry. And deciding not to purchase a new car won't fully insulate drivers from price changes, either.

That's because tariffs are pushing up the prices of parts — so the cost of maintenance and repairs are also poised to rise. And when repairing cars gets more expensive, so does something else: auto insurance.
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Right now, there's a 25% tariff on imported new cars. There's also a plan to impose a 25% tariff on at least some imported car parts, although the details aren't finalized yet and that is not yet in effect. (Changes to one or both of those tariffs may be what Trump had in mind when he told reporters on April 14 that he was "looking at something to help some of the car companies.")

But other tariffs are also affecting car parts, including tariffs on steel and aluminum, and a 10% baseline tariff on most imports, as well as a 25% tariff on goods imported from Canada and Mexico that don't meet the requirements of the USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) trade deal.

Laurent Spence works at a NAPA auto parts shop in Desert Hot Springs, Calif., and rattles off some of the high-turnover products that are already being affected by tariffs. Brake pads from Mexico. Brake rotors from China. Suspension parts from Turkey and Thailand. Tools from Taiwan.

Spence says he used to update about 20 prices a week on the store shelves, many of those markdowns for sales. Now, he says, he's swapping out prices "every day" — and most of them are trending up.
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Recently, my car and truck insurance have been almost as much as the vehicle payments.  Buying a new vehicle looks like it would be even more expensive to insure them.  While the gas prices have come down somewhat, the monthly cost of that is still significant.