"

Across the country, millions of Americans may be concerned about the price they pay for auto insurance each month, with little recourse for lowering their rates. However, this might be particularly true in Michigan, where consumers currently pay the highest rates in the country for auto insurance (for a number of different reasons). Lawmakers there have long been working to figure out ways they can reduce those costs, and some experts now believe that a reasonable solution has been found. As a result, insurance agents might want to start letting their clients know about these new rules before they go into effect, so that both sides of the relationship are fully prepared for the potential changes.

The cost of auto insurance is so high in the Wolverine State that about 20 percent of all drivers there simply go without coverage, according to a report from the consumer savings advice site Nerdwallet. And when that issue is combined with the state's no-fault insurance laws, the cost for insurers is high, and is passed along to consumers. In some ways, then, this can be seen as a sort of vicious cycle.

What's being done?
But so much attention has been paid to the issue in the last few years that lawmakers have repeatedly tried to come up with a solution, only to run into roadblocks along the way, the report said. But now, three separate bills being considered in the legislature that will address the issue, and experts are optimistic.

""We do feel like there's some positive momentum now,"" Insurance Institute of Michigan spokeswoman Lori Conarton told the site.

Specifically, these bills would cut premiums by $100 per year per car for the next two years, and also put a cap on how much auto insurers will have to pay when dealing with medical bills stemming from an accident, the report said. Another would create new insurance rules for residents of cities like Detroit, where there are higher incidences of uninsurance, to reduce costs as a means of potentially getting more people to buy coverage. Finally, a third - related in some ways to the first - would require medical cost coverage from all auto insurers, because a certain percentage of residents don't have such assurances even as they pay more for their plans; but the number of people locked into those policies is on the rise.

Doing something in the meantime
The more that insurance agents can do to help their clients understand the potential issues they face when it comes to finding coverage that fits within their budgets, the better off agent and consumer alike are probably going to be. That's because many consumers have cited a good working relationship with an agent or insurer as being more important than simply being able to find the lowest-cost plans possible, because they value the hands-on aspects and an improved knowledge of what goes into their policies more so than, say, being able to save $25 per month. Meanwhile, that's going to translate to not only higher customer satisfaction ratings, but also better rates of customer retention.

"