Heartland Institute Releases New Property & Casualty Insurance Report Card

Today, The Heartland Institute released its fourth annual report card which examines each state's insurance regulatory system and assigns a score and letter grade. The Report Card asks two simple, fundamental questions about America’s system of state insurance regulation:

How free are consumers to choose the property and casualty insurance products they want? How free are insurers to provide the property and casualty insurance products consumers say they want?

Reviewing the data on insurance in 2011, Heartland's report found a modest, uneven, but nonetheless real trend towards more freedom for consumers and businesses in the homeowners’ and automobile insurance realms.

Among the major events in 2010:

• Florida’s legislature attempted to reduce the size and scope of the state’s massive market interventions. The proposed reforms would have created more rate freedom for insurers, new choices for consumers, and a reduction in the size of the state government’s massive insurance liabilities. Gov. Charlie Crist (I) vetoed the reforms.
• Market-restricting automobile insurance reforms in Michigan and Massachusetts gained significant support but were not enacted in either state.
• The widely accepted, pro-consumer practice of using credit scores to help determine insurance rates came under attack in Michigan, Washington State, and Massachusetts. However, no state actually passed a law banning it.

Top and Bottom Ten States for Property and Casualty Insurance Regulation

Top Ten           Grade      Score

Vermont           A+           24

Ohio                A+           22

Illinois               A            15

Maine              A            13

Wisconsin        B+           10

Arizona            B+           8

N. Dakota        B+           8

Utah                 B+           8

Idaho               B+           7

S. Carolina      B+           7

Bottom Ten       Grade        Score

Colorado           D+            -14

Tennessee          D              -14

Alaska               D              -15

Michigan            D-            -16

New York          D-            -17

Massachusetts     D-           -18

Hawaii                 F             -22

Texas                  F             -25

California             F             -28

Florida                 F             -35

The Property & Casualty Insurance Report Card, 2011 Edition can be found online at: http://www.heartland.org/firepolicy-news.org/article/30283.