I just saved a bundle on car insurance

From the Asbury Park Press:

Car in$urance: N.J. still No. 1

The much-ballyhooed auto insurance reforms were heralded by former Gov. James McGreevey as the solution to New Jersey’s highest-in-the-nation rates when they were enacted three years ago. Seems the solution missed the mark.

We’re still at the top of the heap, for the 16th time in the past 18 years. According to a survey compiled by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the state’s 2004 rates were $1,221 per vehicle — 46 percent higher than the national average of $838.

The newly released 2004 rates came a year after changes to the market were touted as the way to ease the burden on New Jersey residents’ wallets. The good news is that the premium increase in 2004 was held to 2.3 percent, compared to 6 percent the year before. Only in New Jersey can “reform” qualify as a way to keep increases closer to a cost-of-living adjustment, instead of reducing the cost as originally promised.

New Jerseyans are being driven out of state by ineffectual reform efforts. They want their insurance rates, their taxes, their housing and health care costs and their day-to-day living expenses to go down, not up “only a little bit.”

State Banking and Insurance Commissioner Steven M. Goldman noted that seven new carriers are doing business in the state, “driving up competition and placing downward pressure on rates while increasing availability.” Who can blame them? They can make more here than in North Dakota.

Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for that downward pressure to kick in.