The top three homeowners insurers in Texas are seeking to raise rates—one by up to 15%—in 2014, the Dallas Morning News reports, but the state's public insurance counselor tells PC360 she will challenge the requests.
According to the Dallas Morning News story, written by Terrence Stutz, Farmers, State Farm and Allstate have submitted rate hike requests of 14.9%, 9.8%, and 6.5% respectively to the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI), citing reasons from increasing damages from natural catastrophes in recent years to high business costs.
A State Farm spokeswomen says in the article that the company spends $1.11 for every premium dollar it collects for claims processing and other business expenses.
Texas Public Insurance Counselor Deeia Beck, though, tells PC360 she is challenging all three rate increases, saying the estimates of current and future cost increases are exaggerated.
"Non-modeled catastrophe provisions include trend assumptions that appear largely arbitrary and unsupported," Beck wrote to Farmers Insurance Exchange in a statement she shared with PC360, in which she also wrote that "the premium and loss trend selections used in the filing are unreasonable and significantly inflate the rate indication."
She shared similar concerns regarding State Farm Lloyds and Allstate filings.
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