Texas Department of Insurance and Allstate reach agreement

by PegNews wire

Nearly 700,000 Texas homeowners will receive refunds.

IRVING — Allstate Insurance Company will send refunds or credit the accounts of nearly 700,000 of its current and former Texas homeowner insurance customers. The state's second largest home insurer is also reducing rates for many of its Texas homeowner insurance customers by an average of 3 percent statewide. The rate reduction and refund make up the core of an agreement announced today between Allstate Texas Lloyd's, the Texas Department of Insurance, and the Office of Public Insurance Counsel.

Nearly all customers who currently have an Allstate Texas Lloyd's homeowner policy will be eligible. Allstate Texas Lloyd's, an affiliate of Allstate Insurance Company, currently accounts for approximately 87 percent of Allstate's total homeowner insurance customers in Texas. The refunds will go to two groups of customers:

Current and former customers who had an Allstate Texas Lloyd's homeowner policy effective December 1, 2004 through April 23, 2006 will receive refund checks.

Allstate Texas Lloyd's customers with policies written or that had renewals processed between August 20, 2007 and June 1, 2008 will receive a credit on their current policies.

The refunds and credits, which will be completed by the end of October 2008, will vary based on each policy's premium and tenure, averaging about $80 per customer for those insured with Allstate Texas Lloyd's for both eligible time periods.

The insurer also announced it is lowering rates for Allstate Texas Lloyd's homeowner customers by 3 percent on average beginning June 2, 2008. Statewide, Allstate Texas Lloyd's rates will be approximately 5.7 percent less on average than they were five years ago.

The agreement announced today is the result of discussions between Allstate and the Texas Department of Insurance as the two parties sought common ground to end a series of ongoing disagreements stemming from Allstate Texas Lloyd's homeowners rate filings in 2004 and 2007.

Source: Allstate Insurance