13 Fla. Companies Request Rate Hikes

Thirteen Florida insurance companies have requested 11 to 60 percent premium rate increases from the Florida Office of Insurance Reg-ulation. Regulators are reviewing the requests and will either approve them or ask for re-visions. Approved rate increases will be reflected in all new business written after Feb. 1, while renewals will see the rate adjustment after April 1.

OIR spokesperson Valerie Beynon said 12 requests to raise rates have been received from private insurance companies. “They have been trickling in since October,” she said. “We are seeing increase requests averaging anywhere from 5 percent to 24.8 percent.”

Companies requesting rate increases are: American Strategic Insurance Corp., Atlantic Mutual Insurance Co., Citizens Property Insurance Corp., Cooperativa De Seguros Multiples De Puerto Rico Inc., Cotton States Mutual Insurance Co., Cypress Property and Casualty Insurance Co., Florida Select Insurance Co., Metropolitan Casualty Insurance Co., Safeway Property Insurance Co., Southern Family Insurance Co., State Farm Florida Insurance Co., Teachers Insurance Co. and United Fire Group.

According to Benyon, Cotton States Mutual Insurance Company and Teachers Insur-ance Company each requested 24.8 percent increases. Cotton States was asked to lower their percentage and was approved at 20 percent. MetLife Auto and Home Insurance requested permission to raise its rates, citing non-hurricane-related losses and asking to increase policyholder’s premiums by an average of 17 percent statewide. MetLife covers homes under two company names: Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance Co. and Metropolitan Casualty Insurance Co.

Citizens, Florida’s insurer of last resort asked to raise rates in some southeastern counties by as much as 60 percent with a statewide average in-crease of 19.7 percent. Wind insurance policyholders should see an 11.8 percent average increase. Citizens is asking regulators to approve a statewide increase of 23 percent for 220,000 general homeowners policies and at the same time wants to raise wind-only policy rates by about 12 percent.

In addition to the homeowners hike, Citizens is seeking to raise rates for rental, condominium and mobile homes. Com-mercial properties won’t be affected by the filing.

Citizens officials worked closely with regulators on the rate request and expect it to be approved. State insurance regulators said recently that Citizens rates are too low, not giving people an incentive to apply for traditional insurance.

Citizens is required to keep rates higher than the private insurance market and some of those companies have filed requests to raise rates.