OAI: Non-Renew Thresholds Updated by Ariz. Auto Insurance Regulators

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA, February 15, 2011 (Press-News.org) Regulators of the Arizona auto insurance market have updated the monetary thresholds that policyholders' property damage claims records must meet in order for an insurer to legally non-renew their policies. The new threshold is $2,400 per claim, up from $2,360 in 2010.

In Arizona, as in most states, insurers are allowed to raise rates on drivers who display that they may be high risk car insurance liabilities--meaning that they have established a track record of racking up large numbers of tickets or at-fault accidents. Some drivers, though, will get so many tickets or so many accident claims that the insurer will actually refuse to renew their policies.

But Arizona differs from other states in that its insurance law establishes a particular monetary threshold that drivers' claims must meet in order for their policies to be legally non-renewed. As of the beginning of February, the threshold was altered so that a policyholder must have had three at-fault accident claims of $2,400 or more each during a three-year coverage period.

Regulators arrived at the figure by factoring in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' estimates for price changes for all goods from 2010-2011.

Source: http://www.id.state.az.us/bulletin/2011-02.pdf

Getting into three at-fault accidents with property damages of $2,400 or more per claim within a three-year period is not impossible, but it would take a seriously high risk driver to establish such a record. According to the Insurance Information Institute, the national average property damage claim in 2009 was $2,873, and about one claim was filed for every 29 insured cars that year.

To learn more about getting coverage for high risk drivers, readers can go to http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com/learn/high-risk-drivers.htm where visitors will find informative resource pages and a free-to-use quote-comparison generator that can be used to evaluate personally tailored rate estimates from a variety of reputable carriers.