Auto Insurance

Average insurance rates charged by the state's largest automobile and home insurers ticked upward in and likely will follow suit this year Ohio’s top private auto insurers increased their rates an ave average rates from the state’s largest homeowners insurance companies rose about percent last year. The rate of increase in homeowners insurance premiums in was the steepest in five years, the department said.Changes in auto insurance rates are linked to medical cos Gov. Ted Strickland’s plan to provide health-care coverage to auto insurance uninsured Ohioans is twisting in the budget winds at the Statehouse.A two year budget bill passed June by the Republican-controlled Senate eliminated health insurance reforms proposed by the governor and approved by the House where Strickland’s Democratic colleagues are in the majority. Now it will be up to a conference committee to reconcile differences in the House and Senate versions of the budget bill and determine the fate of reforms labeled as “modest” by Ohio Department of Insurance Director Mary Jo Hudson. The committee is working to meet a June auto insurance deadline to present a balanced two year spending plan for the governor’s signature.There’s still room to find agreement and make reforms in this budget,” said Hudson, the governor’s point person on the health care coverage issue.Senate Republican leaders said they view the reforms as costly mandates that will hurt consumers and businesses. But Democrats and others who support the changes say they are a start toward helping an estimated million Ohioans who lack health insurance and drive up health care costs for businesses and the workers they employ.We have worked diligently to eliminate any unnecessary burdens on private employers and the insurance industry,Hudson said.Strickland faces a political setback if the health insurance reforms are shelved. He made expanding coverage for the uninsured a major plank when he campaigned for governor in insurance pitching the creation of a free market clearinghouse where the uninsured could buy affordable coverage from private insurance plans.But state money for subsidies to make such a plan work for the poor hasn’t been forthcoming, with Strickland spending the past two years dealing with budget shortfalls caused by declining tax revenue from the recession and tax cuts passed in under the Taft administration. The clearinghouse proposal has not developed, but the state has been able to provide Medicaid coverage for an additional children on Strickland’s watch.Reforms proposed by the governor in the upcoming two year budget can be accomplished with little state funding, Hudson said. They were drawn from recommendations made a year ago by the State Coverage Initiative, a Strickland-appointed advisory group that worked with a member committee that included businesses, insurers, hospitals, doctors, labor unions and consumer advocates.We worked on this for close to two years and used an extraordinary amount of data,” Hudson said. Among the reforms are expanding dependent child coverage for family members up to age auto insurance reducing premiums in open enrollment programs for individual insurance to make them more affordable, and requiring employers to offer uninsured workers the chance to buy coverage with pretax dollars through cafeteria plans.Senate Republicans don’t like the open enrollment change because it would drive up premiums by an average of people already insured by individual health plans, said Senate President Pro Tempore Tom Niehaus, R New Richmond. He said they feel cafeteria plans are offered by many companies and don’t need to be mandates.In addition, Niehaus said members philosophically oppose extending the group child coverage age limit to At some point,” he said, “individuals have to take responsibility for their own lives.Health insurers objected to the open enrollment changes and to new reporting requirements on loss ratio data for their lines of business, said Kelly McGivern, auto of the Ohio Association of Health Plans. The trade group represents health insurers that cover million Ohioans.McGivern also questioned the need for major changes in Ohio’s insurance market when sweepin reforms are being promised at the federal level by President Barack Obama, who has said he wants a health reform bill that covers all Americans on his desk by August.Instead of rushing to make changes that won’t have any impact,McGivern said, “the more prudent thing is to see what happens in the next few months But even if Obama manages to move a health-care reform bill and funding for it through Congress, Ohio will need to regulate its insurance market, said Cathy Levine, an advocate for the uninsured and executive director of the auto insurance of Ohio. The reforms proposed by the Strickland administration are a step in that direction, she said.That is bad for businesses and people with health-care coverage, she said. Citing a study by a national consumer health-care advocacy group, Levine said families with insurance pay a hidden health tax of about a year to subsidize the cost that hospitals and other medical providers experience in caring for the uninsured. That is due to the uninsured not getting “the right care at the right place at the right time,” she said. weather-related claims, number of cars on Ohio roads and vehicle repair costs, while changes in homeowners insurance rates typically are related to building and material costs and weather-related claims, the department said.Despite last year's increases, the department noted Ohio continues to enjoy lower premiums than most other states. Ohio has the lowest auto insurance premiums and sixth lowest nger auto insurers increasedChanges in auto insurance rates are associated with medical costs, weather-related claims, the number of cars on Ohio roads and repair costs, while changes in homeowners insurance rates have been attributed to building and material costs and weather-related claims.While we did experience premium rate increases in it’s important to remember that Ohio still has some of the lowest insurance rates in the nation,Ohio Department of Insurance Hudson said the department of insurance expects the auto insurance rate activity to continue similarly as it did in For auto insurance, the average rates will likely increase slightly, and homeowners insurance rates will likely increase.