OAI: Some Auto Insurance Rates Hiked in Michigan

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA, March 22, 2012 (Press-News.org) Some Michigan drivers will be seeing higher rates from six companies when they go to buy or renew policies in the next few months, according to rate filings examined by OnlineAutoInsurance.com.

State officials recently approved rate hikes both for drivers looking to buy auto insurance online or in person for the first time and for those looking to renew existing policies at Allstate, Merastar, American Fellowship Mutual, QBE Insurance Corporation and GEICO Indemnity Company.

Merastar, QBE and Allstate Property and Casualty announced the highest overall percentage rate hikes at 11.4 percent, 10.1 percent and 9.9 percent, respectively.

Insurers revise their rates based on their loss histories and ever-changing customer demographics, and policyholders should be cognizant of that fact. Michigan drivers already with these companies may want to compare prices with other insurers to see all available pricing options.

Of the six companies announcing raised rates in Michigan, those with the smallest number of impacted customers ranked among the highest in overall percentage increase: Merastar's 555 customers will see a 11.4-percent increase, American Fellowship Mutual's 2,695 customers will have rates increased a total of 8.5 percent, and QBE's 21,506 customers have already seen a 10.1-percent increase. 

Those three companies also showed higher average hikes per customer, with Merastar an average of about $203 per customer, American Fellowship Mutual an average of about $179 per customer and QBE an average of nearly $125. Those three averages ranked among the highest of the six companies announcing hikes.

Larger companies that had more total premiums sometimes showed lower percentage rate increases, with Allstate Insurance, writing a total of $75 million, increasing its overall rates by 3 percent and GEICO Indemnity, writing a total of $58 million, increasing its overall rates by 3.5 percent. Both represented the two lowest total percentage rate hikes of the six companies. 

However, there were exceptions, including Allstate Property and Casualty's with $261 million in written premiums and QBE Insurance's $26 million worth of premiums set to increase by at total of 9.9 percent and 10.1 percent, respectively. Both were among the highest three in overall rate increases.

Source: http://www.michigan.gov/lara/0,1607,7-154-10555---,00.html

For more about this and other car insurance issues, go to http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com/buy/ to get access to informative resource pages and an easy-to-use rate-comparison generator.