Florida Homeowners Insurance Rate Hike

State Farm, Florida's second-biggest property insurance company, said that it will need to raise homeowner insurance rates for Florida residents by almost 70% in some parts of Palm Beach County, and an overall average increase of 47% across the entire state of Florida. State Farm did not mention plans to raise their Florida auto insurance rates

Big Brother Progressive

Progressive gets to monitor your driving.Starting next month, Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. will let New Jersey drivers lop as much as 60% off the nation's highest car insurance bills...If you let them monitor your driving.

The Program is called MyRate, Progressive's Pay-as-you-drive system.

The system is simple. The company gives a driver a small device that plugs into the data port built into all cars made since 1996.

That device tracks all the parameters of travel, including speed, time, mileage and distance, as well as how frequently the brakes are used and how quickly the car stops.

The device then wirelessly transmits the data back to the company, which adjusts your auto insurance rates based on how you drive.

While the company said some drivers could see auto insurance rates increase by 9%, Progressive said most drivers would expect to see 10 - 15% savings. There is no penalty for not participating in the program.

Georgia Auto Insurance Rates

GMAC Insurance announced it is reducing its
auto insurance rates in Georgia,effective immediately.
Drivers in Georgia will save an average of 7% when
purchasing GMAC Auto Insurance coverage.

The GMAC auto insurance rate reduction is a statewide
average that will affect individual customers differently. 
Overall premium changes for individual motorists will vary
depending on factors such as the coverages they carry, the
discounts for which they qualify, where they live, the kind of vehicle
insured, who drives it and how much it is driven.

Ohio Health Care

Americans pay far more for health care than any other advanced nation in the world. Are we getting our money's worth? Plenty of evidence says no.

Americans have shorter life spans and die at faster rates because of major diseases than the averages for 30 democracies that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The mortality rate for infants is especially chilling: The United States came in third worst, ahead of only Mexico and Turkey.

But that dismal showing by the nation doesn't necessarily say anything about the cost and quality of health care in Ohio.

How does Ohio measure up to its Canadian Neighbors?

Not very well:

• At birth, the difference in life expectancy is greater for Ontario residents — 76 years for Ohioans, compared to nearly 81 years in Ontario.

• In Ohio, nearly eight of 1,000 newborns die each year In Ontario, the infant mortality rate is 5.5

• Ontario also has lower mortality rates for each of the top six causes of death: heart disease, cancer, stroke, emphysema and other chronic lower respiratory diseases, diabetes and accidents.

Overall, the gap in these key health-care yardsticks was wider between Ohio and Ontario than between the two nations as a whole in all but two categories: strokes and accidents.

That difference was striking because the state and the province are so similar demographically.

Hawaii Auto Insurance Rates

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., the No. 2 auto insurance company in Hawaii, said it had lowered rates in Hawaii for the sixth time in seven years.

The average premium was reduced 5.4% on July 14

The lower auto insurance premiums were driven by a decrease in personal injury protection coverage, while collision coverage also declined. Individual premium changes will vary depending on drivers, cars and miles driven.

Private Health Insurance

The individual health insurance market is growing with the proliferation of micro-businesses, entrepreneurs, and companies no longer offering health coverage to their employees.

These days, the same people who traded company pension plans for self-managed 401(k)s are now being asked to take on another chore that used to be handled by human resources: shopping, selecting and purchasing private health insurance.

If you're purchasing your own health coverage, there are three big issues.

With group policies, health insurance companies have to cover anyone the company hires. But with individual health plans, carriers have the freedom to cherry-pick customers.

And sometimes the exclusions or limitations don't even concern a current condition. If you're a woman of child-bearing age, you could face a large deductible on anything related to maternity coverage. In addition, Consumers buying their own coverage face another challenge that didn't exist when they were under the group umbrella -- being dropped.

Under a group policy, the insurance carrier has to cover everyone in the group. It can raise the rates on the group, but it can't just drop someone. With individual insurance, the carrier can do both.

And then there is rescission. Some consumers report that after making claims during or after an illness, their carriers reviewed their applications, falsely accused them of lying about health issues, and rescinded coverage, says Flanagan. Not only are the consumers suddenly without insurance, but carriers sometimes send them a bill for any claims that have already been paid.

If you're shopping, you need to know who's selling. Go to your state insurance department Web site for a list of licensed health insurance companies and brokers who sell health insurance in your area. The state site will also have information about complaints (including complaint ratios), that paint a picture of which companies are giving the best service.

Democrats Gear Up New Push for Universal Health Care

By Perry Bacon Jr.

Democrats are launching an aggressive push for universal health care, fourteen years after a failed attempt on the issue resulted in political disaster.

A coalition of liberal groups that includes major labor unions such as the Service Employees International Union and the activist group MoveOn.org announced today it will spend $40 million to make health insurance a major issue in the campaign, with Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, as the one of the group's main spokespersons. The group, which has dubbed itself "Health Care for America Now!" plans to spend its money running ads in battleground states, canvassing 45 states to get people to sign petitions supporting the initiative and trying to get every member of Congress to sign a pledge to expand health insurance to all Americans.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Democratic staffers are trying to set up a structure for getting a bill through Congress next year.

The staffs of Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who heads the Senate's Health, Education Pensions and Labor Committee, are already meeting with key health care experts, including some from Massachusetts, which passed a landmark health care law two years ago.

In a series of meetings over the next month, Senate aides plan to meet with doctors' groups, insurance companies, business associations and other key players in reforming health care. Their goal is to have the outlines of a health care proposal by the end of this year that can be introduced in the opening days of the next president's administration.

"We want to create a mandate," said Richard Kirsch, one of the leaders of the health care organization of the liberal groups, many of whom worked together to oppose President Bush's 2005 Social Security plan.

Barack Obama has already pledged to make passing health care reform a centerpiece of his first term, and his campaign has recently added a group of advisers who specialize in the subject, including Elizabeth Edwards, Sarah Bianchi, a former Clinton White House aide and Neera Tanden, Hillary Clinton's policy director during the primaries. Tanden is working as a domestic policy adviser, while Bianchi and Edwards are participating in campaign conference calls on health care with other experts.

"It's important for this to be one of the first things that's considered," Edwards said in an interview, referring to the priorities of a new administration. "I'd like to see it on the agenda in 2009."

The coalition of liberal groups is hoping to make sure health care is a priority even if John McCain is elected and to make sure the majority of Congress backs the goal as well.
McCain has also said he would make health care a major issue if he wins the presidency, but Democrats and labor groups oppose many of his proposals, as the Arizona senator is trying to transform the health care system into one in which individuals buy their own health care in a less-regulated market, which means they could have lower costs but also would assume more risk.

The new coalition, while not outlining a specific health care plan, has goals that resembled what Obama and the Democratic candidates proposed in the primaries, offering subsidies to people so health insurance is affordable to the 47 million Americans who currently don't have it, creating new regulations that would prevent insurance companies from charging high prices or not offering insurance to people who already have chronic illnesses and allowing people to either buy insurance from a private company like Kaiser or enroll in a government-managed health care plan that would be run like but separate from Medicare.

But, even if Obama were elected, there's no broad agreement on exactly how a universal health care bill would work, which is the problem Democrats faced in 1993 when the Clintons pushed the issue. Insurance companies, who drove much of the opposition in 1993, have signaled they would not support an approach like Obama's, which add regulations for them but does not require all people to purchase health insurance. Democratic Senate aides are pointing to the legislation passed in Massachusetts in 2006 as a model. That legislation included increased subsidies for low-income people but also a mandate that all people in the state purchase insurance, something Obama has railed against on the campaign trail.

A bipartisan coalition that now includes more than a dozen senators is pushing a more radical health care reform in which people would buy coverage directly from insurance companies instead of getting it through their employers, with people getting tax credits to buy insurance in a more-tightly regulated system. Obama advisers had earlier largely ruled out that idea as too much of a drastic change for the vast majority of Americans who currently get their insurance through their employer.

While Obama has suggested ending tax cuts for people who make more than $250,000 a year to fund the health care subsidies, few Republicans will back what is effectively a tax increase, and some members of the GOP would likely need to support an agreement so it could pass in the Senate.

"It's much easier to oppose something than get something passed," Kirsch admitted.

McCain's Proposed Health Plan and effect on Employer Sponsored Coverage

Adapted From AP Article

The unkown about Sen. John McCain's health plan is how many employers will react, and more speifically, how many would drop health insurance coverage for their workers because of the tax policy changes?

The Republican presidential candidate has proposed that all Americans buying health insurance get a refundable tax credit, $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families. At the same time, he would treat employer contributions toward health insurance like income, meaning workers would have to pay income, but not payroll, taxes on it.

Most health analysts say McCain's approach would strengthen the individual health insurance and small-group insurance market. And by strengthening that market, it will pull in workers now covered through their jobs.

Employers began offering health insurance as a benefit during World War II, when a labor shortage increased competition for workers. Wage controls limited employers' ability to offer higher salaries, so they offered benefits like health insurance. Health benefits were not a major expense initially, but they have become a significant part of payroll as health care costs have spiraled upward.

A poll of employer-insured voters conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly two-thirds thought it would be harder to find a health insurance plan that matches their needs and handle administrative issues if they were buying health insurance on their own. Eight in 10 said they thought it would be harder to get a good price for health insurance or get coverage if they were sick.

Arbella Expands To Conn., N.H.

The CEO of the Arbella Insurance Group of Quincy says recent regulatory approval in Connecticut and New Hampshire for the company to sell commercial policies in those states will help offset a decrease in business caused by Massachusetts’ “managed competition” system for auto insurers.

Expanding into New Hampshire and Connecticut doubles the number of New England states in which Arbella operates.

The company will offer commercial auto, property, liability, workers compensation and other commercial lines in New Hampshire and Connecticut. Arbella is the third-largest personal auto insurer in the state and the fourth-largest commercial auto insurer.
The company also sells insurance in Rhode Island and already sells personal auto insurance in Connecticut.


High-Tech, Lowball
According to John Donohue, Arbella president and CEO, the company waited until now to begin business outside of Massachusetts and Rhode Island because it didn’t have the technology to do so.

With the technology in place, Donohue said the time to make the move came when the state enacted its “managed competition” system for auto insurance rates. The system allows insurance companies to set prices for policies under the watchful eye of the state Division of Insurance.

“The deregulation of the Massachusetts auto insurance industry is a potential impact,” he said. “There may not be as much business in the state.

Connecticut Health Plan

Andrea Bryant became the first person in the state to apply for Connecticut's new, affordable health care plan.

Bryant filled out an application Monday morning for Connecticut health insurance coverage under the Charter Oak Health Plan. The plan is open to those who don't qualify for existing state programs and aren't insured through an employer. Individual health insurance premiums will range from $75 a month to as high as $259 a month.

Charter Oak enrollments open today, and the state expects to serve a projected 19,200 adults during the first year, rising to 47,200 in its third year. The state is contracting with three private insurers — Aetna Better Health, AmeriChoice of Connecticut and Community Health Network of Connecticut — to coordinate benefits and medical providers.

Arbella Decreases Auto Insurance Rates

The Arbella Insurance Group announced that they will decrease auto insurance rates effective July 1. New private passenger auto insurance rates will result in an overall average annual rate decrease of 8.7% from last year. Arbella estimates that this will add another $4.5 million to the discounts it has already provided to its customers, saving its customers a total of over $30 million.

Arbella is the third largest auto insurance company in Massachusetts. Earlier this year they lowered rates by an average 7.7 % following the state's adoption of "managed competition."

Among the conditions that allow Arbella to trim auto insurance rates further is the decision to no longer use the driving experience of "deferred drivers" to determine the rates of the main policyholder. (A deferred driver is a household member listed as a potential driver on a customer's policy)

Arbella will continue to offer an industry-leading 20% discount for those customers who have both auto and homeowner's policies with Arbella. They will receive a 20 percent discount off of homeowners and 5 percent off auto policies.