
Travelers and the Auto Club of Southern California are seeking to raise insurance rates for single-family homes, though condo rates would dip.
Two major insurers, together covering nearly 760,000 households in California, are seeking to raise insurance rates for single-family homes, according to new filings with the California Department of Insurance.
The Interinsurance Exchange of the Automobile Club, the AAA-affiliated insurer for southern California applied to raise rates for homeowners by 11.2% overall, while condominium and rental home owners would see their rates decrease by 20.5% and 27%, respectively. Each customer would be impacted differently, and the range varies widely — five homeowners could see their rates decrease as much as 80% while one customer’s premium would rise from just under $1,650 a year to more than $13,100.
Meanwhile Travelers, the ninth largest home insurer in California, seeks to raise rates by 6.9% for homeowners, but decrease rates by 17% for renters, 22.8% for condominium owners and 19.6% for condominium landlords.
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There’s variation even within home types, for both insurers. Five homeowners with the Auto Club could see their rates decrease as much as 80% while one customer’s premium would rise from just under $1,650 a year to more than $13,100. Rate changes for Travelers are spread across a smaller range: about 60% of homeowners would see an increase between 5% to 10%, while just under a quarter would see rates decrease by as much as 25%.
The Auto Club – the fourth-largest home insurer in California as measured premiums – would also commit to writing over 2,000 new policies.
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“As a company founded in California more than a century ago, we believe helping to ensure insurance sustainability is the right thing to do for our members and for the future of our state,” Mike Mohamed, the Auto Club’s senior vice president of insurance operations, said in a statement.
The filing, made to California’s Department of Insurance, is the first from either insurer under the Sustainable Insurance Strategy, a set of insurance reforms finalized last year that altered the way insurance companies can determine how to charge premiums. It also imposed new requirements for how many policies insurers must write in “distressed” areas where insurance has been hard to find due to wildfire risk.
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Travelers noted in its filing that it already insures about the same share of homes in distressed areas as it does statewide. But it told regulators if its filing were approved, it would expand the number of new policies it writes and explore taking homeowners off the FAIR Plan. A spokesperson for Travelers did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday on how many more policies the insurer might write.
More than half a dozen major insurers have now made filings under the Sustainable Insurance Strategy reforms, nearly all right at or around 6.9%. At 7% or above, consumer groups can demand a mandatory hearing.
Rate increases for Mercury Insurance, USAA, Pacific Specialty Insurance Co., California Casualty Insurance Co. and CSAA — the AAA-affiliated insurer for northern California — have all been approved. A filing for Farmers Insurance Group is under review. Collectively, these companies committed to writing about 13,250 new policies in “distressed” areas.
In March, Horace Mann Insurance, a smaller insurer which caters to educators, applied for rate increases for its two subsidiaries. Rates under Horace Mann Insurance Co., the larger of the two, would rise by 8.5% overall, while rates under the smaller Horace Mann Property and Casualty Insurance Co. would rise by 12.8%. Rate changes for the roughly 20,300 residences insured by either company would range between a 40% decrease up to a 115% increase.
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Both subsidiaries have already met their required number of policies under the Sustainable Insurance Strategy, but the company noted it would offer policies to between 40 to 80 current FAIR Plan policyholders in distressed areas who get their secondary policy through Horace Mann.

Clinton Mora is a reporter for Trending Insurance News. He has previously worked for the Forbes. As a contributor to Trending Insurance News, Clinton covers emerging a wide range of property and casualty insurance related stories.

