OAIN: Auto Insurance Rates for Some Personal Policies Rising in Illinois

Companies with lower annual premium totals report rate drops; Mercury has biggest overall hike.

2012-04-10

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA, April 10, 2012 (Press-News.org) Illinois drivers with personal auto coverage may have seen higher rates recently or will see them soon as regulators in the state released documents from March showing 23 companies with recent or upcoming premium changes, reports Online Auto Insurance News.

The impact shoppers will see when they compare auto insurance quotes will differ from customer to customer depending on factors like the time policyholders have been with an insurer, their driving records, applicable discounts and whether they hold both home and vehicle coverage with the same carrier.

The companies' filings were reported on average and categorized between vehicle policies covering third-party liability and first-party physical damages.

Companies writing relatively smaller volumes of total yearly premiums actually announced price drops for personal car insurance. Omni Indemnity, which reported a total of $3.5 million in annual premiums, will decrease its rates by 1.25 percent and 2.67 percent for liability and physical damage coverage, respectively. California Casualty General, which had a similarly sized premium volume, saw the biggest decrease out of the 23 insurers that filed with regulators, with a 3.8 percent drop in liability and 16.5 percent drop in property coverage.

Grange Indemnity reported one of the lowest volumes of annual premiums, writing $171,110 in personal liability and $60,284 in physical damage coverage; its premiums are lowering by an average of 5.7 percent.

West Bend Mutual reported writing personal policies to the tune of an annual $13.5 million and $9.3 million in liability and property coverage, respectively. The company was able to drop its liability policies by 2.3 percent and property policies by 1.8 percent.

For the most part, bigger insurance companies announced bigger increases. Mercury, with a total of $17.4 million in premiums, reported the steepest overall premium increase at 12.4 percent: 10 percent in liability and 16.8 percent in physical damage coverage. Travelers Home and Marine, which has the largest total annual volume of premiums at $97.4 million, will hike overall rates by 5.31 percent, one of the steeper hikes of the 23 carriers.

Higher rates for both new and renewing customers will become effective for some policyholders buying coverage from: Viking on April 16; General Casualty on May 6; Auto Club Inter Exchange on June 1; Auto Family on June 1; Mercury on June 3; American Family Home on June 8; and Nationwide on Sept. 30.

Companies that increased rates in March included West Bend, Travelers Commercial, Travelers Home and Marine and Omni Indemnity. Bristol West's hikes occurred in January while California Casualty's drop in prices happened in March.

Source: http://insurance.illinois.gov/RF3/2012/03/01privatepassengerauto.pdf

For information about the industry rates, head to http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com/compare/ for access to an easy-to-use quote-comparison generator and informative resource pages.

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OAIN: Auto Insurance Rates for Some Personal Policies Rising in Illinois

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