President Donald Trump this week credited his tough immigration policies for a drop in car insurance premiums, falsely blaming illegal immigration during his predecessor’s time in the White House for a prior increase.
In a Monday post on Truth Social, Trump shared a graphic showing the year-over-year change in premiums from 2021 to 2026. It rises sharply from 2021 to 2023 and be
gins dropping in 2024, culminating with negative growth so far in 2026. The graphic cites a Council of Economic Advisers’ analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Car Insurance Premiums rose to RECORD HIGHS, forcing Law-abiding American Citizens to s
ubsidize the ‘free riding’ Biden Illegals,” the post reads. “After over a year of ZERO ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, and our highly successful efforts to REVERSE the Biden Invasion, Car Insurance Premiums have come tumbling down.”
But experts say that although the data in the graphic aligns with industry trends, it was chiefly the COVID-19 pandemic — not illegal immigration — that caused the uptick.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM: Trump’s tough immigration policies have led to a drop in car insurance premiums, after a spike under the Biden administration caused by illegal immigration.
THE FACTS: This is false. Experts say that increased costs were primarily due to effects
from the COVID-19 pandemic, such as riskier behavior on the roads and supply chain disruptions that led to higher repair costs. Now that insurers are on a better financial foo
ting, they are cutting rates to stay competitive. There is no evidence to suggest that illegal immigration played a significant role in either the rise or the fall of insurance premiums.
“This claim is pure fiction,” Michael Clemens, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Ec
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onomics, said of Trump’s claim. “It does not arise from any study by the White House, by the auto insurance
industry, or even by anti-immigration pressure groups. It has no basis in anything but inflammatory statements that juxtapose two unrelated trends.”
Driving decreased during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was declared in March 2020, as people began social distancing and working from home became the norm. According to experts, this led to fewer accidents and th
erefore fewer claims, leaving insurance companies with high profit margins that they used to cut rates and compete for new customers.
When people began driving again in large numbers, starting in 2022 as the country recovered, that meant more accidents and more claims. Experts said factors like reckless driving and distracted driving also contributed. At the same time
, supply chain issues made auto parts and other materials more expensive — costs insurance companies passed on to drivers in their premiums.
In 2024, rates began going down again as accidents declined and insurers found themselves in a better financial position.
“Over the past two years, the auto insurance industry has generated an underwriting profit following the implementation of significant rate actions to offset losses,” s
aid Mark Friedlander, a spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, a leading industry association. “Average auto insurance premi
ums have begun to stabilize, and replacement costs are more in line with the U.S. inflation rate. We are se
eing average rate decreases being implemented across numerous states, as well as dividends being paid to policyholders by major auto insurers such as State Farm and USAA.”
