North Carolina Commissioner Mike Causey has announced that he recently turned down a request made by insurers to boost homeowners’ insurance rates by an average of 42.2 percent.
In some beach areas, the hike would have been 99.4 percent
According to Causey, he was not provided with adequate evidence to support the claim insurers made that they would need to increase insurance rates by that amount.
“I haven’t seen the evidence to justify such a drastic rate increase on North Carolina consumers,” said Causey in a prepared statement.
“The Department of Insurance has received more than 24,000 emailed comments on this proposal, with hundreds more policyholders commenting by mail,” he added. “Scores more consumers spoke during a public comment forum. North Carolina consumers deserve a more thorough review of this proposal. I intend to make sure they get that review.”
Other states have experienced substantial increases to insurance rates
Some states have given their approval to some very high increases to premiums. For instance, in California, Allstate received the approval it requested to boost rates by 30 percent on average for the same coverage. While some parts of that state will experience a comparatively smaller increase closer to 10 percent, others will watch the premiums they pay soar by as much as 55 percent.
“Our payments to help customers recover from accidents and disasters have increased significantly over the last few years, and we need to adjust rates to reflect the cost of providing the protection our customers depend on,” said a spokesperson from Allstate.
Across the country
Across the United States, insurance rates increased by an average of 35 percent during the last couple of years, according to data released by Policygenius. Among the worst hit states were those that were affected by natural disasters such as hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes and wildfires. Therefore, Florida saw the highest bump to premiums, with a 68 percent increase in one year. New Mexico’s increases were comparably lower but still very high, at 47 percent.
Additionally, a Division of Insurance investigation in Colorado determined that only 8 percent of policies would offer adequate protection as a result of the wildfires in that state.
