N.J. Challenges Lure Mercury General

July 29The chairman of California-based Mercury General Corp. said the firms recently announced decision to enter the New Jersey auto insurance market was brought on by recent regulatory reform and a belief there is enormous opportunity for growth.

George Joseph, who is also chief executive of the Los Angeles-based insurer, told National Underwriter, “I think what we can see now is the beginning of less micro-managing of the business to encourage companies to come into that state.” For years, he said, New Jerseys department of insurance and its state legislature had been micro-managing auto insurance.

“New Jersey is a state with a lot of automobiles, and that is our business,” he continued. “When we started here in California, we had the same thing. A lot of companies shied away from California. And some of them shy away right now. Weve been through that.”

He said his company has had a history of going into states where others fear to tread: taking up homeowners coverage when State Farm left California; and going into Florida to sell auto policies in 1998, when others were leaving. The company was formed in California in 1961 and began underwriting in that market in 1962. It writes over $2 billion in premium annually.

Mercury General, he said, does not have a problem being in states where there is micro-management of carriers, just as long as they understand what is going on in the state.

“We are specialists in automobile,” he said. “Our approach is to learn the statute and the regulations very carefully and to find ways to live within them. We have a reputation among independent agents that when we come to a state. We come to stay.”

“We never entered a state where we could not overcome or understand what the statutes were,” he added. “We look at New Jersey as a challenge, a big challenge. We are a company that is not uncomfortable with challenge.”

Mr. Joseph said that the companys application is nearly complete and hoped it would begin doing business in New Jersey some time in August.

He said the companys practice is to carefully screen the agents it decides to work with and have them go through a training period of at least three weeks before beginning to sell insurance.

The company said it plans to appoint 50 independent agents to initially sell policies in New Jersey.

Eventually, Mr. Joseph said, the company will sell other policies in the state because the agents and customers demand it.

Of the eight states Mercury General writes in, it does not write homeowners insurance in Texas, because “the situation is not clear there,” he said.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, August 4, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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N.J. Challenges Lure Mercury General

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