Missouri home insurance companies are leapfrogging over one another with rate increases that range from 9 percent to an astounding 63 percent.

The state's top insurer, State Farm, which insures 24 percent of homeowners, raised its rates an average of 13 percent in April, and prior to that, by 15 percent since 2000.

The top five Missouri home insurers have raised rates in 2002 as follows:

1. State Farm Insurance — 13 percent increase.
2. American Family Mutual — 9 percent increase.
3. Shelter Mutual — 16 percent increase.
4. Safeco Insurance — 16 percent increase.
5. Allstate Insurance — 22 percent increase.

In addition, two smaller companies, Mid Century Insurance Co. and Fire Insurance Exchange, both owned by the Farmers Insurance Group, have raised home insurance rates by 63 percent over the past year.

Insurers are working, they say, to recoup costs from a slew of storms that caused tremendous damage, followed by increased costs for construction materials and building labor.

In addition, Scott Lakin, director of the Missouri Department of Insurance, says home insurance policies have typically been losers for insurers. Losses were made up either with sales of other insurance policies such as auto and life, or in the stock market, where during the 1990s insurers were able to invest premiums and get enough of a return to cover losses. But with reduced investment returns and the cost of medical bills and auto repairs going up, insurers aren't able to recover losses the way they once did.

Add the costs of natural disasters into the mix and home insurers get hit particularly hard. Two storms in Missouri over the winter of 2001/2002 left home insurers in particular distress — a large hailstorm in St. Louis and an ice storm in Kansas City. Figures from 2001 indicate insurers paid out $1.80 in claims for every $1 in premiums collected. Comparatively, in 2000 Missouri home insurers paid out 67 cents for every $1 collected.

In addition to raising rates, some insurers are nonrenewing policies of customers who have filed several claims, even if they are all related to natural disasters such as storms, according to Lakin.