- Progressive is taking a 10% rate increase this week. The amount of claims isn't the problem, it's the severity of claims. The cost of parts have skyrocketed and body shop hourly rates have continued to climb, but personal injury lawyers are killing the industry. Fender bender accidents are turning into injury claims like never seen before.

Progressive will reduce advertising spend following a 99% first quarter combined ratio, which puts it off-track of the 96% combined ratio yearly target.

Progressive is typically ahead of other companies in terms of timeframe of rate increases, which means most of the other big players will roll out large rate increases later this year.

- Geico finally turned it around after reporting losses in six straight quarters. Their huge rate increases and a decrease in ad spend helped the cause.

- State Farm had a 3.4% increase effective 5/8/23, then another 9.7% increase filed one day later.

- Farmers is taking a 14% increase 5/29/23

- If you have Allstate you might as well start getting quotes from other companies. They filed a 28.4% increase on auto/home effective 6/1/23. Their commercial auto product will see a 45% increase new and renewal business.

- Root Insurance - There are no insurance agents. This is who they say they are:
"Root Insurance uses an app to rate drivers based on how they actually drivenot just their demographics. By not insuring bad drivers, Root is able to save good drivers hundreds on their car insurance."

Root shared its Q1 2023 results. Here are some highlights:
The company ended the quarter with 199,685 policies in force, a decrease of 135,588 auto policies (40%) compared to Q1 2022. Between Q4 2022 and Q1 2023, Root's policy count decreased by ~21k.

Gross written premium stood at $135 million, a ~28% decrease from the same period last year.

Gross accident period loss ratio was 69.3%. Gross combined ratio improved 13 points to 123%. Net combined ratio stood at 161.2%.

Net loss for the quarter stood at $40.9 million

Where did you find this info?

Thank you!

kingj3 said:

---

Where did you find this info?

Thank you!

---

Texas Dept of Insurance rate report - This shows all the rate changes filed by every company. You can sort by date, company, etc... Click on "Rate and form filing", then "Property and casualty rate report" then choose a date range.

I'm an independent insurance agent and we have marketing reps for most of the companies we represent. They come by and shoot the bull and we talk insurance.

There's a website www.coverager.com and it is very plugged into the industry and they publish all the good, bad and ugly.

Kool said:

---

I have a good friend who owns a State Farm agency. He gave me the same bad news. Loss ratios are way up. They dropped during COVID due to work from home, shutdowns of businesses, etc. People driving again, people driving worse, people driving distracted, and POS attorneys (sorry for the redundancy) who advertise on buses that every bump and minor collision should a chance to win the lottery (mostly for themselves) are driving up costs.

---

On the personal injury front... one of my agents was a passenger in a vehicle that was hit. Someone from a law firm called her (they got the police report which is public record) and tried to "sign her up". She told them she wasn't injured and he then suggested a pain management clinic to check her out, then proceed to the law firm.

She hung up the phone and a day later the pain management clinic called trying to schedule an appointment. This went on and on for a few days.

I say all that to say this... can you imagine how many calls from law firms and pain management clinics are going out all across the U.S. on a daily basis? The cheapest way for the insurance companies to do it is to settle for $20-$30,000 on a BS claim. We need to figure out some kind of legislation to deal with it or our premiums will continue to skyrocket.

No doubt about it, personal injury attorneys are a pox upon us all.

Interesting info.

It's also seemingly more and more difficult to work with the insurance companies.

My wife was in an accident recently, which totaled her vehicle. She was also injured (broken bone right at her joint). She was not at fault, and the other driver's insurance has accepted 100% liability.

It took 3.5 weeks for the insurance company to do their estimate. Then another for the collision center to provide the supplemental. It's an obvious total...and should have taken a day or two to total the truck, and for us to move forward (which we've experienced in the past). Instead, they are accruing towing/storing costs, the cost for the collision center to perform the take-down for the supplemental, our rental fees for a month, etc. These are completely unnecessary costs.

Regarding the injury, it's going to take some time for her bone to heal and then a little rehab work. But the insurance company is fighting us tooth and nail about compensating us for the injury cost, and putting a time limit on any damages. I'm not looking to make money, but just want to make sure that our costs are covered over the next few months. Nothing extraordinary...just wanted some expected medical bills to be covered.

But good gosh almighty they're being difficult. I do not want to get an attorney, but they almost force you in that direction.

I say all that, to say this: Sometimes, they're their own worst enemy. I've been in wrecks and it's been a seamless process. It seems like that's becoming a rarity, which only increases the costs all around.

Kool said:

---

No doubt about it, personal injury attorneys are a pox upon us all.

---

Thomas J Henry reading this thread…

Personal injury attorney here. Part of the problem is that the tactics that many PI lawyers use to get cases ARE illegal. Both criminally (barratry) and ethically. However, the laws are not enforced by law enforcement or the State Bar. So the laws are there to prevent this. Enforcement is the problem! Case running (whether by medical clinics, tow truck drivers, etc.) and illegal solicitation runs rampant in our profession and it puts lawyers that do things the right way at a huge competitive disadvantage. Not to mention giving us all a bad reputation. There are many PI lawyers like myself that would love better enforcement - ANY enforcement! I could tell stories... Again, it runs rampant.