Auto Insurance
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When it comes to calculating a driver’s risk of being involved in a car accident or having the car stolen, where the driver lives really matters. That is why people who live in crowded cities generally pay more for auto insurance than those who live in sparsely populated farming communities.
Despite scary claims to the contrary by insurance companies and their allies at the California Farm Bureau Federation, that is not…
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Massachusetts auto insurers continue offering voluntary discounts.
-Massachusetts automobile insurers are continuing to offer voluntary discounts to drivers this year, despite regulatory approval of an 8.7 percent reduction in the average statewide premium.
Discount plans filed yesterday with the Massachusetts Division of Insurance indicate most of the state’s auto insurers plan to offer a variety of voluntary group discounts to employees of various companies and members of associations, but special discounts for good drivers continue to dry up.
Two companies, Amica Mutual Insurance and Electric Insurance, last year offered discounts to the state’s best drivers, but this year only Amica is offering the same type of rate relief and has targeted the benefit at a smaller group of drivers.
Amica last year offered a 5 percent discount…
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Massachusetts attorney general backs insurance revamp.
Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly said yesterday the state insurance commissioner doesn’t need to return to the Legislature for authority to revamp the system for distributing high-risk drivers among companies, setting the stage for a possible legal showdown with the state’s largest auto insurer.
Commerce Insurance of Webster, which has done well financially under the current system but says it favors the proposed changes, warned last week that the proposal under consideration may violate the law and subject insurers to “significant potential liability.”
The company is asking the quasipublic industry group scheduled to vote on the changes Tuesday either to modify…
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Quarterly Profits Up Sharply for Buffalo, N.Y.-Based Insurance Firm.
Merchants Group’s fourth-quarter profits soared as rising investment gains and shrinking loss expenses more than offset a drop in premiums, the Buffalo-based insurance company said Tuesday.
Despite a 10 percent drop in premiums and a 16 percent dip in income from its investments, Merchants’ profits…
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Rates Aside, Poll Finds Massachusetts Auto-Insurance Providers Vary in Quality.
Massachusetts auto insurance companies may all look the same when it comes to their base rates, but a handful of carriers do a far better job at customer service and processing claims than their competitors, according to a survey released yesterday by a nonprofit consumer organization.
Boston Consumers’ Checkbook, in its latest issue, reports that Amica Mutual Insurance Co., USAA, Plymouth Rock Assurance, and Electric Insurance were all rated highly by their customers in handling claims. By contrast, Encompass and Fireman’s Fund were given low ratings, while most other companies received fairly average scores.
Massachusetts residents tend to focus more on..
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Columbus, Ohio-Based Auto Insurance Firm Premiums Hit Record Highs in 2003.
Motorists Insurance Group ended 2003 with almost $600 million in premiums, the highest figure in its 75-year history.
Recent expansion, including a major push into four heartland states, have helped the Columbus company double in size in the past four years.
Motorists Insurance offers home, auto and life coverage through…
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The Boston Globe Consumer Beat Column.
The question is taking on new urgency now as state officials begin efforts to revamp the Massachusetts auto insurance system. One of the chief reasons the average premium in Massachusetts costs more than $1,000 a year is the fact that drivers here file more auto insurance claims than anyone else in the country.
Getting to the root of the problem – the key to finding a way to improve the situation – is not so easy. Based on interviews with highway safety, insurance, and law enforcement officials, there is no single cause for the high level of accidents here. It appears to be a combination of unusually aggressive drivers, periodic bad weather, lax law enforcement, insurance fraud, and too many cars being driven on an antiquated and confusing road system.
Daniel Johnston, president of the Automobile Insurers Bureau of Massachusetts, estimates the average premium could be cut by about 20 percent if the state could just lower its claim-filing rate to the level in Rhode Island. Rhode Island ranks third-highest in the nation on claim frequency, but its rate is still about 25 percent less than Massachusetts.
“There are a lot of savings at stake,” Johnston said. “But it’s almost an imponderable feat to get down to that level of accidents. The number in Massachusetts never seems to move very much.”
Massachusetts has led the nation in auto insurance claims for at least two decades….
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Sacramento, Calif., judge upholds new auto insurance regulations.
-In a rebuke to the insurance industry, a Sacramento Superior Court judge yesterday said insurers must stop using customers’ ZIP codes as their primary criteria for setting auto insurance rates.
The preliminary ruling by Judge Loren McMaster upholds new regulations ordered by Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, although the insurance industry will be given a chance to present oral arguments against the rules in a court hearing this afternoon.
The Association of California Insurance Companies, American Insurance Association and Personal Insurance Federation of California had sued to block the regulations, complaining that the changes would arbitrarily push rates higher for some drivers in the state.
After reviewing the written filings in the case, McMaster rejected their pleadings and sided with Garamendi’s argument that the ZIP code-dominated formulas that insurers now use to set auto rates are arbitrary and are not related to…
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Floridian homeowners threaten to hit back at insurers.
Jack Fenwick wants to send a message to insurance companies that drop homeowner policies or jack up their rates.
“If they do that,” he said, “we’ll just take our car insurance business somewhere else.
“It’s not about loyalty anymore.” Fenwick is one of a growing number of Florida homeowners – no one is exactly sure how many – who were dropped by their property insurance company and decided that two can play that game.
On its Web site, the Pasco County-based insurance activist group Homeowners Against Citizens, or HAC, calls for a boycott of at least seven insurance companies, including Allstate, State Farm and Nationwide, that sell both auto and homeowner polices.
“The major insurers earn millions in profits selling us auto insurance but refuse to sell homeowners,” the notice reads. “Boycotting will cut their profits drastically and that may be one way to force them to return to writing homeowners insurance in Florida.” After his homeowners policy was dropped by Hartford,…
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Insurance groups sue to halt new regulations.
hree insurance industry groups have sued to block new state regulations that would require insurers to base their auto rates more on a driver’s experience than on the ZIP code in which the car is registered.
The regulations, approved by the California Office of Administrative Law last week, are designed to bring auto insurance policies in line with Proposition 103, which California voters passed in 1988 over the objections of auto insurers.
Late Wednesday, the Association of California Insurance Companies, the American Insurance Association and the Personal Insurance Federation of California filed suit in Sacramento to block the changes.
The trade groups – whose members provide coverage for more than 90 percent of insured drivers in California – say the new rules will force insurers to raise rates for young drivers or drivers who have caused accidents or violated traffic laws.
In…
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