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Fred G., a reader from Greensboro who drops me an e-mail from time-to-time, called earlier this week to chat about a couple things, including his car insurance rate going up. He had gotten a letter from his company saying that a new state law was partly to blame.

That law requires drivers to carry coverage in case of an accident with a motorist who was uninsured or under-insured. Before Jan. 1, you could opt out of such coverage or have a lower than recommended coverage. Now all drivers are required to carry coverage equal to the amount they have for other parts of their coverage.

For Fred, it meant a bump of more than $100 in his premium.

This struck me as odd since back in January, when the new law took effect, the Department of Insurance estimated that the average driver would see their rates go up $17.

"The intent is to add another layer of protection for consumers," said Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin.

Up to 12 percent of drivers are on the roads without insurance. That's illegal and those folks can't get their tags renewed, but those folks are out there. It makes sense, Goodwin said, to make sure everyone has enough coverage so they're not left with a big bill should they have an accident with one of those folks.

And, he said, the number of uninsured drivers could go up as the economy worsens and people try to cut down on expenses or simply can't pay their bills.

But, Goodwin allowed, the law "has lead to some unintended consequences."

There's already an ongoing fight between insurers and the state over insurance rates, and this question of uninsured motorist coverage has gotten sucked into that, Goodwin said.

My friend Mark Johnson, who writes for the Charlotte paper, beat me to the punch reporting this out fully. Click here for his story from today's paper that outlines the issue pretty well and includes this:

It's unclear how many car owners saw a rate increase because of the requirement for equal levels of coverage. About 70,000 customers of Nationwide, the largest auto insurer in the state, got bigger insurance bills because of the law, said Susan Valauri, director of government relations for Nationwide in North Carolina. The average increase was approximately $22 for the year, with the largest jump being about $120 for the year.

Glasgow likely saw such a sharp price increase because he had a high level of coverage on his liability insurance and the minimum level of coverage on his uninsured motorists provision.

Valauri said more than 99 percent of the company's N.C. customers already had uninsured motorist coverage, and 91 percent maintained an equal level of coverage with their liability insurance.

“It's not a big deal for the vast majority of drivers,” Valauri said. “For those other customers ... it may have been a very big deal for them.”

According to Johnson, Mecklenburg Sen. Dan Clodfelter is working on a fix to the law.

Has your car insurance rate gone up? If so, drop me a line in the comment links or at mark.binker@news-record.com.