NEWS RELEASE – March 23, 2006
HOMEOWNERS FACE RISING INSURANCE RATES - Reeling After Katrina, Insurers Drop Policies And Increase Premiums Far From Disaster Zones
NEW YORK, NY -- After losing an estimated $56 billion from the hurricanes that devastated the Gulf Coast last summer, major insurers are dropping policies or not writing new policies in coastal areas from Texas to Florida and all the way up the Eastern Seaboard to Massachusetts, reported The Wall Street Journal.
Leading insurers, including Allstate Corp. and Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., say that they must limit the financial risk of future storms, even those that come this year. Some homeowners in various states are having difficulty finding coverage and often have to pay higher premiums.
Regulators in states hit by hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and
Rita are approving the rate increases sought by some insurers,
and other rate increases are expected in other areas as insurers
respond to pressures related to their hurricane losses. Reinsurers
are now charging higher prices based on predictions that hurricanes
will increase in strength and frequency, costs that some primary
insurers say that they will pass along to their policyholders.
Allstate, the second-largest home insurer in the U.S. after
State Farm Insurance Cos., said that it plans to seek premium
increases in a majority of the 49 states where it has operations
to offset the higher cost of reinsurance. Allstate recently
raised premiums by 8.5 percent for homeowners in New York,
and says that it plans to submit rate-increase requests to
regulators in Connecticut and New Jersey. In Massachusetts,
which hasn't been hit by a major hurricane in 50 years, homeowners
are already paying higher premiums as some insurers refuse
to write homeowners policies in markets such as Cape Cod and
the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.
This news release is brought to you by the commitment and assurance of the A.D. Dern Insurance Agency, Inc., keeping you up to date and aware of the ever changing California Insurance market place. Continue to check back with us for other insurance articles of interest.
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