Starting next month, foreign-built vehicles will be subject to a 25 percent tax, and the cost of insuring those cars could go up, too. But it won't happen right away.
Car insurance rates are a lagging economic indicator, says Ben Riggs of Real Reform Louisiana -- so if the cost of fixing an import increases, it will be a while before the insurance industry catches up.
"Insurance rates are going to lag behind this kind of stuff and not be adjusted immediately," said Riggs. "They're not going to wake up tomorrow with their automobile insurance increasing."
Riggs says the same thing happened when inflation picked up a few years ago -- it took about a year for the increase in repair and replacement costs to trickle down to the insurance business.
