Insurance Agent Forum

[Beach Broker]

This happened back in August but I imagine there are some Allstate agents that never heard about it.

"In a sweeping victory for Florida insurance regulators, Allstate Corp. agreed Friday to pay a $5-million fine, write 100,000 new homeowners policies in Florida over the next three years and lower the premium on each of its nearly 250,000 existing Florida policies by 5.6 percent." - AP

Obviously this has to do with the underwriters. It seems like they are a constant thorn in the side.

So my question is:

After acquiring all the information to write a policy - how much of that do I give to the underwriter?

or

What are the best ways to get an underwriter to accept a policy that you've painstakingly prepared to be written?

Any comments are much appreciated.



Beach Broker

[HomeService]

With all the insurance companies in money trouble due to this "credit crisis", and with all the hurricanes and big fires and such, I would not doubt that many P&C companies are going to try and become more choosey. And, more and more insurance departments are going to step in and say, "Write the business or get out". I bet we see more and more of them -getting out. It may not matter what info you gather- if there is no company to give the info to. I am not saying Allstate will go away, but some of these smaller companies may...

[moonlightandmargaritas]

[quote=Beach Broker;113807]"In a sweeping victory for Florida insurance regulators, Allstate Corp. agreed Friday to pay a $5-million fine, write 100,000 new homeowners policies in Florida over the next three years and lower the premium on each of its nearly 250,000 existing Florida policies by 5.6 percent." - AP

They refused to write policies in Florida, or if they did, they were charging extremely high premiums. It's hard when the underwriters pick and choose what they will take - it has meant a lot of lost money for agents.[quote]

Your post is a little misleading.

They were NOT fined for "refusing to write new policies in Florida", OR "charging extremely high premiums".

They WERE fined for not producing documents, under subpoena, for review by the Florida Department of Insurance.

[Beach Broker]

Thanks HomeService - I think your comment has a lot of validity
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[quote=moonlightandmargaritas;113813][quote=Beach Broker;113807]"In a sweeping victory for Florida insurance regulators, Allstate Corp. agreed Friday to pay a $5-million fine, write 100,000 new homeowners policies in Florida over the next three years and lower the premium on each of its nearly 250,000 existing Florida policies by 5.6 percent." - AP

They refused to write policies in Florida, or if they did, they were charging extremely high premiums. It's hard when the underwriters pick and choose what they will take - it has meant a lot of lost money for agents.

Your post is a little misleading.

They were NOT fined for "refusing to write new policies in Florida", OR "charging extremely high premiums".

They WERE fined for not producing documents, under subpoena, for review by the Florida Department of Insurance.

Thanks for the info on that and expounding on the story - I came across that article and just thought of how underwriters are a constant stumbling block to getting a policy through.

Beach

[djs]

Underwriters should never be a stumbling block with P&C. You are the eyes on the property and should know if it is an acceptable risk for the current underwriting standards.

If you are trying to put something through the system that doesn't fit, you'll fight with underwriters all the time, plus, all of your cases will get scrutinized harder. If you screen them up front and put them with an appropriate company for the risk, you shouldn't have this problem.

I'm not sure who you write through, but if you have a case rejected in underwriting, make sure you understand the issue and if it can either be addressed, or if its something you missed initially. Every underwriting change should be a learning situation, and if so, very, very quickly, you won't have any issues.

Yeah, early on I had a few things that made underwriters say 'tsk, tsk, tsk', but now it happens very rarely, and then only in some off the wall situation that you couldn't guess.

Dan