Huge losses from national disasters prompt industry to jack up prices and pull back from some markets; ‘worst possible scenario’ for consumers
After Allstate suffered billions of dollars in losses and failed to get the rate increases it wanted, it resorted to the nuclear option.
The insurance giant threatened last fall to stop renewing auto insurance for customers in three states that hadn’t given in to its demands, which would have left those policyholders scrambling for coverage. The states blinked.
In December, New Jersey approved auto rate increases for Allstate averaging 17%, and New York, a 15% hike. Regulators in California are allowing Allstate to boost auto rates by 30%, but still haven’t decided on its request for a 40% increase in home-insurance rates after the insurer refused to write new policies.
For many Americans, getting insurance for both their cars and homes has gone from a routine, generally manageable expense to a do-or-die ordeal that can strain household budgets.
Maybe it’s time for a state to start a nonprofit insurance fund? Insurance companies exist only for profit, which is antithetical to the point of insurance.
You egomaniac! Don’t you ever think of the shareholders? Monster!
This doesn’t address the core issue, that the math simply doesn’t work in several places. Even ignoring profit, at the very least, you have to balance your payouts with your premium revenue, and if your payouts are so high that premiums must be higher than what people can afford, then you’re toast.
Or you invoke government subsidies, in which case it’s essentially a tax to subsidize people’s poor decision making. At the end of the day, living in an area extremely prone to fires or flooding has real costs, and either somebody pays them, whether that be the individual, an insurance pool, or the government, or you simply stop incurring the cost by moving somewhere else (there’s a strong argument for some amount of government assistance here)
Florida, of all states, created this. There are requirements to use it, but for many it is their only real option.
Does it actually cover anything? I haven’t looked into it but my knee-jerk reaction is that it’s very simple and doesn’t cover anything important, especially anything having to do with climate change.
Florida here. They have adequate coverage, but there are caps in some extra options or high-end tell estate. The bigger issue is that all the other instance agencies are pulling out of the state so Citizens (the state insurance) is having to cover more and more to the point that the state is just one direct hurricane hit away from insolvency.
Being from BC the basic car insurance is a non profit Provincial run scheme. All vehicles on the road need this basic insurance. They also manage rules, regulations, and other safety requirements for the Province.
Then extra coverage can be bought from the government agency or from private providers. The government is covering for all the bad drivers and then dealing with all the scammers while the private providers then cherry pick the best drivers for the extra coverage.
Insurance is expensive and there are the usual cries to make it private so it will be much cheaper!
I’ve lived in other Provinces where it’s a private scheme. They are very expensive for new drivers, and those that have problematic issues can’t afford to get insurance making it harder on those that have it and become tangled up with these uninsured drivers. This affects the good drivers eventually too. Most insurance works this way as it is.
It seems the grass is always greener…
Well some states already have that for example Citizens in FL. Everyone who buys property insurance has to pay into it to cover people who own property in places that nobody in their right mind would insure for wind. Some states only allow work comp through the state or the state competes with private insurers as well. But given the political climate in like half of states I’m not sure how you expect that will really be better. Private insurers are definitely looking for profit but when the state steps in it’s not like rates are going to be dirt cheap, or if they are just just going to be paid by tax increases instead. Home and property insurance is hella expensive in some areas because it costs a lot of money to constantly rebuild people’s buildings and auto insurance is hella expensive because people buy hella expensive cars then drive like fuckin maniacs, and medical costs are outrageous. If they state handles the insurance you’re still gonna have to pay for your insurance and you’re still gonna have to subsidizebstupid people who drive like idiots and whatnot, but you have Ron DeSantis siphoning funds instead of CEO bonuses and golden parachutes.
Only if you make it one time thing as in you get your insurance payment only if you use it to rebuild somewhere else.
Insurance companies are required to pay out all but 15% as it is, so really, that’s the most it could save, and since a new governing body to handle claims would have to exist, it would require at least 5% to pay staff, so that cuts it down to saving maybe 10 at best over an insurance company.
Right now the nation is supplementing states that have higher storm damage. People living at those rich coastal states that get hit by these storms are paying less than their risk and causing the rest of the nation to pay higher rates because the insurance companies aren’t allowed to charge places like Florida more.
In other words, if insurance went state to state, places like Oklahoma and Missouri would save money due to the lower risk, but places like Florida would have to pay out more than they currently are or the state would lose money in payouts.
So insurance companies wanting to charge Florida and California more isn’t really going to make the insurance companies more money a year. They’re still locked at having to pay out 85% of what they take in to their insured customers. It would actually mean that the insurance company wouldn’t have to inflate prices they charge to all the rest of the country in order to supplement the customer’s they have in the states in high damage areas. I’d be all for it, since I don’t live in a warm state with a beach. It’s not right that I don’t get a day trip to the ocean, but I have to pay the higher insurance rates for the people who do.
We have province run auto insurance in British Columbia. It isn’t perfect but it works fairly well.
And the states regulate the hell out of insurance anyway, might as well just provide it at no profit if you’re making all the rules.
Or provide it at not profit because insurance decisions should not be driven by profit motivations.
They still have to be driven by basic math. You slim the margins a bit by not needing to generate profit, but the situation hasn’t fundamentally changed.
You mean like a GovErmnent Insurance COmpany?