Sounds like scapegoating to me; not from you but from the agent. But it's always the easiest thing to do from a customer service perspective to deflect the blame onto a party that isn't present therefore unable to justify or defend themselves. It's possible that it could be true, but the facts seem to point to other factors which includes inflation, greater technology in vehicles which increases the cost of repair, rise in car thefts, increase in pedestrian deaths and healthcare costs, rise in DUIs, and rise in safety design.
A recent study showed that 20% of report auto collisions are considered "totaled." The cost of repair is ridiculous compared to 90s because of all the various air bags, sensors, integrated parts, and fewer suppliers. My mom's 2014 Mazda6 was recently sideswiped by a police cruiser pulling out with their lights off (they were responding to a burglary and didn't want to hit the lights). My mom was going 25mph in 3rd gear (she's 74 and still drives a manual) when the cop turned into her passenger side fender. A fender, bumper cover, side mirror, and headlight was about $900 on eBay so I figured the repair with paint would be around $3,000...collision shop's total bill was $6K. No suspension damage and a wheel alignment proved the impact wasn't much because the car was still within spec, but the shop had to charge for software time to calibrate the blind-spot monitoring system and air bag impact sensors had to be replaced despite the air bags not deploying.
Anyway, point is that cars are expensive to repair and insurance companies are have been hit by all sorts of casualty claims from the various floods, fires, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, hail, and dust storms that have hit the country hard over the last decade.
