"Few parts of the country were hit as hard by the national economic downturn as Detroit, and that means many residents have struggled to get back on their feet financially in the time since. However, many experts are now saying that the city's recovery could have been more robust were it not for the sky-high auto insurance costs residents have to pay. As such, it might be important for insurance agents to help consumers who are worried about the high cost of auto coverage to understand what they're paying for and why, as well as what they can do to relieve some of those costs. In many cases, Detroit residents pay as much as a few thousand dollars more than the average U.S. driver for their auto insurance every year, meaning that bills can often come in at several hundred dollars per month, according to a report from the Detroit Free Press. That, in turn, might be something which leads many people who might have otherwise considered moving there to bail on such plans, because they don't want such a large portion of their income taken up by something that can be so much cheaper elsewhere. ""It was a real shocker,"" Jay Clark Reid, a Canadian who moved to Detroit and had been accident-free for more than two decades, told the newspaper. ""I was under the impression from my American friends that insurance was inexpensive here. I just didn't know how we were going to pay it."" Can anything be done? Despite years of effort, the state of Michigan has yet to reform its current auto insurance system, which allows for no-fault accidents that lead to rates being much higher, the report said. In the meantime, Detroit is considering starting its own sort of auto insurance provider as a means of subsidizing coverage for residents and keeping costs relatively low for them to help deal with the issue. Insurance agents who can keep their consumers on top of all the latest changes to their coverage, as well as what they can do to better understand their policies on an ongoing basis are generally the most successful. This is often more valuable in terms of keeping customer satisfaction and retention rates as high as possible than even being able to help consumers save money on their coverage. For this reason, striking the right balance between these two conditions can often go a long way toward making sure agents have a significant chance at success going forward."