Figures

5%

The Virginia sales tax from which items used to prepare for a hurricane would be exempt during the last week of May each year under recently-passed legislation. Sales tax won’t be collected on portable generators costing up to $1,000 and other hurricane preparedness items priced up to $60.

16%

The auto insurance savings promised to AAA members in Commerce Insurance ads that the insurer has agreed to revise in an agreement with Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. The 16 percent figure includes the 11 percent rate reduction for all drivers on average ordered by the insurance commissioner and is not a special deal available only to Commerce customers. Commerce will repay any savings those consumers lost by using Commerce rather than another insurance carrier and will make a $45,000 payment to the Commonwealth.

13.4%

The rate decrease field for by the Workers’ Compensation Rating and Inspection Bureau of Massachusetts (WCRIB) effective Sept.1, 2007. If approved, workers’ compensation rates in Massachusetts would be 64 percent less than they were in 1991 when the state’s workers’ compensation reform law was passed. WCRIB said the frequency of workplace injuries has continued to decline.

25

The number of people who have already plead guilty in a Buffalo, N.Y., staged automobile accident scheme in a case brought by federal and state investigators against 30 people in August 2005. Authorities said the group set up numerous accidents between 2001 and 2004 in order to defraud insurance companies out of tens of thousands of dollars.

$1.25 billion

The total dividends that State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. announced it will pay to its mutual auto insurance policyholders in 46 states, the District of Columbia and the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The figure eclipses the previous high of just over $1 billion in June 2000.

65%

The percentage of personal lines new written premiums that are automobile liability and physical damage lines, according to A.M. Best. The rating organization estimates that the personal lines segment will report strong earnings and capital growth in 2006, driven by several factors, including favorable frequency and severity trends, modest catastrophic activity and the maintenance of pricing and underwriting discipline.