[Editor's note: After we initially published this story, we learned that the study it featured relied on a flawed interpretation of changes in auto insurance rates between 2021 and 2022. The error resulted from undisclosed changes in how the data was calculated. We updated this story after the study's authors published their corrected analysis.]
Pittsburgh motorists experienced a 40% jump in average annual commuting costs in the past year, a new analysis finds. The increase puts the region in the top third of U.S. cities in which driving to work has become more expensive since the first half of 2021.
The website Overheard on Conference Calls reported Sunday that average annual commuting expenses in Pittsburgh rose from $1,860 to $2,600 over the last year. Thirty cities elsewhere in the country experienced larger relative increases.
The study’s author, Eric Moore, said in an email that record-high gas prices accounted for most of the surge in Pittsburgh and nationally. Moore had previously found, and 90.5 WESA reported last month, that higher auto insurance rates were the primary reason for higher commuting costs in Pennsylvania.
Using data from the website Bankrate, Moore originally concluded that rates in the Keystone state rose by 35% over the past year, appearing to represent the largest such increase in the nation. But in preparing the updated analysis published Sunday, Moore corrected that number to equal 8.5%, meaning that compared to other states, Pennsylvania has experienced the 13th-highest relative increase in insurance costs since 2021.
Moore calculated the new statistic using data from the website NerdWallet. It shows that the average annual cost of full auto coverage in Pennsylvania climbed from $1,406 to $1525 between 2021 and 2022.
The figures on Bankrate, by contrast, indicate that those costs rose from $1,480 to $2,000 – a 35% spike.
But Bankrate writer and editor Cate Deventer told 90.5 WESA last week that those numbers are not comparable because this year Bankrate changed how it measures average insurance rates. Deventer said the site hadn’t noted the change until she spoke with 90.5 WESA.
Today, Bankrate assigns greater weight to the prices that insurance providers charge in more densely populated areas. Bankrate did not make such adjustments in 2021, and Deventer said it would not be feasible to apply the new methodology to the old figures.
Deventer said the new calculations provide a better idea of how much the average driver can expect to spend on auto insurance, given that the majority of a state’s population tends to live in more populated regions where rates are generally higher.
“In more urban areas … there [are] more cars on the road, and more cars on the road is going to translate to a higher likelihood of accidents,” she said. “You also generally have higher costs of living in cities. And if insurance companies know that they're going to have to pay out more in a claim, whether that's for vehicle damage or medical bills, that's also going to affect the rates.”
But regardless of location, Deventer noted that rising inflation has pushed up the cost of insurance everywhere. As vehicle technology has become more complex, she added, the cost of repairs has also increased.
Meanwhile, average fuel prices in Pennsylvania jumped by 57% in the last year, according to Overheard on Conference Calls. Six in every 10 states experienced larger increases, the research shows.
Overheard on Conference Calls, which reviews office products, included 96 of the most populous U.S. cities in its study. It measured average commute distances using federal data and multiplied those figures by the number of workdays in the year and gas and vehicle maintenance costs. Then, it added the average cost of auto insurance.
