Marshall Issues Statement on Oklahoma P/C Rate Board

The Oklahoma Department of Insurance released the following statement on the work of the DOI’s Property and Casualty Rate Board by John H. Marshall, a member of that board:

“Respecting actual insurance premium rate increases or decreases requested, our basic responsibility as Board members (each of us appointed by the Governor) is to approve or decline the actual rate requests: based on the evaluation that the premium requests are not excessive and that the rates requested are fair and non-discriminatory. At the same time, our Board (composed of volunteers, who are not on the payroll of the State Insurance Department) is called upon to review and evaluate numerous filings each year.

“Many of those filings do not deal directly with rate increases or decreases. In today’s list of filings, my quick review of the nature of the 39 filings indicates to me that 28 of the filings are not direct rate increase requests, 6 are for rate increases, 2 are for rate decreases, 1 is for a loss cost multiplier, and the other 2 requests are related to miscellaneous requests.

“Our Board, which is composed of Chairman Fisher and four competent volunteers, is dealing with many filings each month, including rate increase or decrease requests. In addition, we have no control over the flex-rating system, which is mandated by the State Legislature. Insurance companies can flex up or down against the approved rates by a 15 percent maximum.

“During the past three years, our P & C Board has managed to come up with a total of 18 percent in rate decreases for workers’ compensation premiums in the private sector for Oklahoma employers – and I wish we could approve higher decreases in this book of insurance business, the third largest book of property and casualty insurance in our state.

“Many people in private industry and the state government have contributed to the efforts to reduce WC rates in Oklahoma. Around one year ago, our Board approved major decreases in the automobile insurance rates by a number of the major writers of automobile insurance in Oklahoma.

“Recently, we denied a large increase request by a major and important insurance company in Oklahoma in the area of homeowner insurance. I do not view our work on this Board as rubber-stamp work, and I have cited these three above examples in the three largest books of insurance business in Oklahoma.”

Marshall was appointed by Governor Frank Keating for two terms and by Governor David Walters for one term.

Topics Oklahoma Property Casualty