Three New Jersey insurers have requested auto insurance rate increases of up to 34 percent from the New Jersey Deparment of Insurance (DOI).
The three companies are American Spirit Insurance Co., Keystone Insurance Co., and Ohio Casualty Insurance Co. of New Jersey. American Spirit insures 22,823 cars and has asked the DOI for permission to raise rates by 34 percent. Keystone insures just 2,900 cars in the state, and has requested a 17 percent rate increase. Ohio Casualty is the state's 11th-largest insurer, with 107,000 vehicles insured, and has asked to raise rates 22 percent.
| "We don't see these latest requests as being out of the ordinary." |
The requests raise the possibility that more auto insurance companies will leave the state if their rate hikes are not approved. Earlier in 2001, three insurance companies announced they will pull out of the state for financial reasons after the DOI said the insurers could not raise rates.
Already scheduled to leave the state are State Farm Indemnity Co., New Jersey's largest auto insurer, American International Insurance Co., the sixth-largest auto insurer in the state, and the diminutive Providence Washington Insurance Co., which insures just 2,000 vehicles in New Jersey and has already started to pull out of the auto insurance market.
The most recent rate-increase requests are under review by the DOI, which says it does not know whether, or when, the rates will be approved or denied.
"We get an average of 18 rate increase requests each uear," says DOI spokesperson Bill Heine. "We don't see these latest requests as being out of the ordinary."
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