San Leandro, CA San Mateo, CA Car Insurance Companies Explain Rate Increases

 As a trusted Insurance Broker for more than 4,000 clients and policyholders, we hear a lot about what is going on in the world of insurance and why.  There is a lot of discussion about the concerns and stress of auto rate increases.  The major insurance companies have told us that loss ratios improved tremendously last spring and summer when very few people were driving due to shelter in place.  Loss ratios are the percentage of claims paid relative to premiums collected.  This was good news as it signaled that rates could possibly go down.  In fact, many personal auto insurance companies gave premium refunds to policyholders for a couple of months.  This was a very welcome gesture as it helped the many displaced workers due to the pandemic save a little on their insurance premiums.

It did not last.  Once shelter in place was lifted and drivers were once again back on the road, loss ratios started to deteriorate once again.  It further validated that the amount of time and miles that cars are on the road directly effect the amount of losses that insurers will have.   While this may seem basic and fundamental to those of us with common sense, insurance can have periods where common sense is pushed aside for theory and thesis.  What we are trying to say is once in awhile, insurers throw out their statistics and data in an effort to gain premium and market share.

So what should policyholders do in this type of environment?  It’s really tempting to switch your insurance for a lower rate, and we get that.  We shop insurance all day every day!  The problem with shopping insurance based on the rates of the day you intend to purchase a policy is that you do not know what rate filing changes are pending with the California Department of Insurance.  What we mean is, rate changes require approval and most carriers have rate change requests in the queue at any given time!

What should you do?  Find an insurance expert that you trust, and stick with them.   Sometimes a lower rate is a very temporary situation (while rate increases are pending) but your trusted insurance advisor will be able to guide you toward insurers that provide stability.  That is something that we all want!