We learn from a very young age that the punishment should fit the crime, and we tend to take it a little personally when we're handed the punishment without even getting to enjoy doing the crime so we could deserve it! That sense of justice is what aggravates us when they allow our rates to go flying up between renewals and leave us sitting there asking, "What?" Believe it or not, however, there might be a perfectly good reason for your auto insurance rates to go on climbing whether you want them to or not!

Before we get into all the reasons that have nothing to do with you, let's take a look at the ones that do. You might be surprised by what can raise your auto insurance rates. For example, have you moved recently? Moving from a "low risk" area to a "high risk" area (i.e. one with more traffic and, by default, more chances to have an accident on the way to and from the grocery store every day) will boost your rates. So will picking up a job in another town that makes you spend more time on the road than you did when you bought the policy in the first place.

Have you recently added anyone onto your policy? Teens are notorious for driving up auto insurance rates, but even adding an experienced driver can raise your rates since you're insuring two instead of one. And trading in your old clunker for a sports car (or even a current-year model) can cost you more in insurance each year.

And then there's the obvious-accidents, speeding tickets, traffic violations, license suspensions. Raising your coverage limits. Etcetera, etcetera.

Of course, if none of that applies to you there are still plenty of legitimate reasons for auto insurance companies to raise your insurance rates. It's sad but true that just about everything costs more these days than it used to. Inflation is a bear, and that bear is forcing everyone to pay more for services that used to be at least something resembling affordable. That covers everything from milk and diapers (which auto insurance companies as a whole don't particularly care about as a whole but can be extremely pertinent to the agents) to medical care and auto repair (which are EXTREMELY pertinent when you spend your whole day paying out claims for exactly that).

If you're wondering why your auto insurance rates are going up, inflation is usually the starting and ending point for almost all of those decisions. Companies have to stay in business somehow, and they're not going to do that by paying out more than their drivers are paying in! The good news is, these rate increases are usually company wide.

Which means everyone else is just as annoyed as you are.