Texas Orders Allstate to Reduce Rates, Refund Customers

Texas Insurance Commissioner Mike Geeslin signed a Commissioner’s Order requiring Allstate Texas Lloyds to reduce rates for all Texas policyholders by 5 percent, the Texas Department of Insurance reported.

This action follows a contested hearing at the State Office of Administrative Hearings after which the administrative law judges issued a Proposal for Decision regarding Allstate’s rates. Allstate, operating as Allstate Lloyds, is the second largest homeowners insurer in Texas.

The order also requires Allstate to refund to policyholders the amount overcharged since December 2004, including interest on the overcharged amount at the annual rate of 13.25 percent.

In April 2006, Allstate Texas Lloyds filed a statewide 4.8 percent reduction with the Texas Department of Insurance. Allstate must lower its current filed rate by an additional .2 percent (two tenths) to equal the rate reduction ordered by the Commissioner.

This action stems from the original 2003 rate reduction and refund order, in which Allstate reduced rates and made refunds to policyholders. Part of the 2003 order required a rate filing subsequent to the initial rate reductions and refunds as a means of “true up” based on actuarial analysis. The subsequent filing was the subject of the recent contested hearing.