A North Carolina court ruling that questioned the insurance commissioner’s authority to approve insurance rate changes without public hearings is being challenged by Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin.
However, Goodwin is not seeking to stop the court’s order that blocked deductible and surcharge increases for the state’s wind insurance pool known as the Beach Plan.
Goodwin’s appeal of the Wake County Superior Court order takes issue with the court’s findings that the department did not have the authority to act quickly and without a public hearing in the Nov. 21, 2008 decisions by former Insurance Commissioner Jim Long.
One of the department’s concerns is that the order’s concept of insurance ratemaking does not allow rate settlements without first holding public hearings across the board, even in cases where the rate filings would benefit consumers. Goodwin thinks that opinion could harm consumers.
“From my point of view, it appears that the court’s order would prevent the insurance commissioner and the department of insurance from settling insurance rate cases which actually reduce insurance rates for citizens and businesses, and instead force each rate case to go to a full blown hearing,” said Goodwin.
Goodwin said the order could affect every type of insurance filing that the department receives, which include automobile, homeowners, workers compensation, title and health insurance and rate deviation or discount filings.
“Requiring a hearing on all such filings would, in many cases, harm consumers across North Carolina,” he said.
Last month, Wake County Superior Judge William Pittman ordered Goodwin to reconsider deductible and surcharge increases for coastal homeowners in the state insurance pool called the Beach Plan. Pittman ruled that former Insurance Commissioner Jim Long did not follow procedures before approving the increases in November.
Pittman ordered the department, now headed by Goodwin, to redo the process.
The judge’s ruling blocked higher surcharges that were supposed to take effect with new policies written since Feb. 1. It also froze a planned rise in the deductible level to 2 percent of a home’s insured value per occurrence.
Goodwin is not challenging that freeze on the surcharges and deductibles.
Topics North Carolina
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