The Friday Roundup - 2/23/2024 Edition

Why Car Insurance is Nuts Right Now; How to Fight With Your Spouse the Right Way; Asteroids Laden With Treasure; Eric Weinstein on Modern Wisdom; An Alien Invasion Show Done Right

Every Friday, I share some of the most interesting articles, videos, and books I’m looking at with our subscribers. It’s an eclectic mix fueled by my unique personal variant of ADHD and pattern recognition, so you won’t find compilations like these anywhere else.

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Happy Friday, everyone.

It’s been another busy week, so let’s get to the stories!

Why car insurance rates are so high - Marin Cogan/Vox

You’ve probably noticed it if you’ve had to renew your car insurance recently. Rates are becoming insane.

It’s not just you.

According to Cogan, writing for Vox, rates for car insurance have gone up 38% since 2020, and they were already higher then than they had been previously.

There are several reasons listed:

1. Inflation: “Everything now costs more, including cars and car repairs, and insurance companies are passing those costs on to consumers.”

2. Reckless Driving: “One reason rates are up is that driving became much more dangerous during the pandemic. People started engaging in risky behaviors like speeding and using their phones while driving more.” You’ve probably noticed this yourself. Every time I drive around town I’m stunned at how most drivers seem to be distracted, aggressive, and careless.

3. Law Enforcement Cutbacks: “While drivers were getting more dangerous, law enforcement in many parts of the country began pulling back on traffic safety enforcement, likely due to Covid-related staff shortages and criticisms over racial biases”. According to Cogan, law enforcement data is used to help underwriters assess risk. Less data makes that assessment less certain, causing rates to rise across the board to cover the margin of error.

4. Cars are More Expensive: If you’ve shopped for even an older used car in the past couple of years, you’ve gotten the sticker shock. In addition to COVID-related market changes on car pricing, cars are becoming more and more technologically advanced, making them more costly to fix.

What’s intriguing to me is that there’s an unwritten subtext to all of this. Namely, that all of this pushes us in the direction of self-driving cars, which itself may change car ownership pretty significantly.