Auto Insurance Increase 2024

     The trickle down theory can touch anything and everything. 

     In this blog entry, we're looking at the average monthly price of car insurance. Some individuals can remember being able to drive our U.S. roads and highways without including a hefty monetary sum for car insurance. Now, the bill is encroaching on "OMG, is this right?"

     Break out with your A.I., and conduct some research, side by side compare companies, and find bargains.  

     U.S. inflation kicked the auto industry in the rump. Hard.

     Reuters.com quote:

          "Consumer prices in December overall rose 3.4% from a year earlier, the Labor Department said on Thursday in the release of the monthly Consumer Price Index, more than the 3.2% economists polled by Reuters had expected and up from 3.1% in November."

     This rise in cost has set a new insurance precedent over the last half a century.  The trend has no predicted end, either.

     The BANKRATE True Cost of Auto Insurance Report determined the annual cost for full coverage car insurance in 2024 to be $2,543, compared to $2,014 in 2023 and $1,771 in 2022. Paying your annual premium can save you money as opposed to paying monthly premiums. An example of the increase, someone earning a median household income of $74,580 will pay  3.41% of their entire income on auto insurance. 

     The Three Largest Auto insurance companies 2024:

          State farm: $46.7 billion

          Progressive: $38.9 billion

          Geico: $38.1 billion

     Recall, in the old days, when ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE was complementary.  Some companies happily gifted out RENTAL CAR costs, too.

     In the red, white, and blue, each state can vary their rates.  Obviously shop around.  All in all, though.  Expect an increase in policy rates that won't fade.

     Long story short, auto insurance companies have been hit in the pocket.  As their costs have increased, so have the consumers costs increased, too.

     Car insurance companies were getting mashed in the last decade. Collision costs boomed, liability costs zoomed, employees pay popped, medications prescription costs sizzled, body shops off the hizzle, pain compensation costs in court rocketed, and thus we can understand the overall policy premium increases looming in the remainder of 2024.

     Side by side rate comparison sites are great.  The detailed questions in rate comparison questions will take time, though.  Have you had any recent tickets? Are you currently insured? How many drivers are there? And, etc.

     "Copy, and paste. Compare. Rate. Discover. Learn. You will. Yes, use the low policy rate force.  Let premiums guide you, you must." A.I. Yoda

     In reality, 2024, there is simply auto insurance rate increase.

     Government agency issues are taking on unfair and deceptive price practices. State by state issues can make policy prices fluctuate. Insurance company representatives state that, insurers raise costs in response to your risk as a driver, such as where you live and whether you have a teenager on the policy. They also raise rates based on risks beyond your control. Inflation for example.

     Bankrate analyst Shannon Martin shares with Kiplinger. 

          "Between 2020 and 2024, inflation increased the cost of vehicle parts and labor, car crash fatalities increased by over 10% and we saw a significant rise in extreme weather and vehicle theft claims. All these factors contribute to the high rates we’re seeing today."

     Life events increase your rates.  Adding teen drivers, DUI convictions, 

credit score changes,  at fault accidents, involved accidents, speeding tickets,  and lapse in auto insurance coverages can boost costs significantly. 

     Environmental influence costs-

          Cities with high costs:

          Detroit, Michigan 

          Hutchins, Texas

          Venice,  California 

          New York City, New York

          Santa Rosa Beach, Florida 

      Insurance pointers:

          Shop around.

          Raise your deductible.

          Bundle policies.

          Boost your credit score.

          Enroll in defensive driving. 

          Pay annually versus monthly.

     Inflation in the United States is decreasing, but this hasn't turned the tides on auto insurance rates.  We can, independently, drive better.  Maybe, future rates will follow suit.

     Good luck on the roads, stay cool, drive safely in 2024.

A.I. based noninvasive THOUGHTS to TEXT technology.

     The development of an AI-based decoder that translates brain activity into coherent text, plots a groundbreaking advancement in non-invasive mind-reading technology. This innovation enables the reconstruction of speech with remarkable precision, leveraging fMRI scans to decode thoughts without the need for surgical implants.

     The technology uses large language model artificial intelligence. OpenAI’s ChatGPT pushed a new way in. These large language models are able to represent, in numbers, the semantic meaning of speech, allowing the scientists to look at which patterns of neuronal activity corresponded to strings of words with a particular meaning rather than attempting to read out activity word by word.

     “For a non-invasive method, this is a real leap forward compared to what’s been done before, which is typically single words or short sentences,” Research Dr. Huth said.  Sometimes the decoder got the wrong end of the stick and it struggled with certain aspects of language, including pronouns. “It doesn’t know if it’s first-person or third-person, male or female,” said Huth. “Why it’s bad at this we don’t know.”  The decoder was personalized. When the model was tested on another person the readout was unintelligible. It was also possible for participants on whom the decoder had been trained to thwart the system.  By thinking of animals or quietly imagining another story, the system was confused.

     Jerry Tang, a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin and a co-author, said: “We take very seriously the concerns that it could be used for bad purposes and have worked to avoid that. We want to make sure people only use these types of technologies when they want to and that it helps them.”  

     Professor Tim Behrens, a computational neuroscientist at the University of Oxford who was not involved in the work, described it as “technically extremely impressive” and said it opened up a host of experimental possibilities, including reading thoughts from someone dreaming or investigating how new ideas spring up from background brain activity. “These generative models are letting you see what’s in the brain at a new level,” he said. “It means you can really read out something deep from the fMRI.”  Prof Shinji Nishimoto, of Osaka University, who has pioneered the reconstruction of visual images from brain activity, described the paper as a “significant advance”. “The research showed that the brain represents continuous language information during perception and imagination in a compatible way,” he said. “This is a non-trivial finding and can be a basis for the development of brain-computerinterfaces.

     The system currently is not practical for use outside of the laboratory because of its reliance on the time need on an fMRI machine. Functional MRI, magnetic resonance imaging, relies on detecting small changes in the signals used to produce magnetic resonance images that are associated with neuronal activity in the brain. Functional magnetic resonance finds functions of the brain. Functions such as speech or memory have general locations in the brain, but the exact location can change slightly between individuals.  The scan is safe. The future tech would resemble a shower cap.  The MRI tech is in a capsuled machine that scans the individual, while laying down.

     Researchers think this work could transfer to other, more portable brain-imaging systems, such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).  “fNIRS measures where there’s more or less blood flow in the brain at different points in time, which, it turns out, is exactly the same kind of signal that fMRI is measuring,” Huth said. “So, our exact kind of approach should translate to fNIRS,” although, he noted, the resolution with fNIRS would be lower.

    The technology could aid communication for people who are unable to speak due to illness or injury, including stroke or paralysis. It could also enable seamless communication between humans and machines, such as the operation of a bionic arm or robot.