SPRINGFIELD, IL (KMOX) - For months, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias has been asking residents to share their frustrations with insurance rates. Now lawmakers have passed a pair of measures to provide more oversight of the industry. Abe Scarr, State Director of Illinois PIRG -- Public Interest Research Group -- tells KMOX, drivers in the state have faced car insurance rate increases of more than a billion dollars since the pandemic, "and on the homeowners side between 2021 and 2024 Illinois homeowners rates went up by 50-percent." That doesn't include State Farm's half a billion dollar rate increase filed last year.
Under the measures passed by the Illinois House and Senate, the state department of insurance would be able to question rate hikes. Insurance companies would have to give consumers advance notice of any increase higher than 10%. "It sets a standard that rates shall not be excessive, inadequate, or unfairly discriminatory," says Scarr, "and this is basic boilerplate language that's in every other state besides Illinois, and it's even in other parts of the Illinois Insurance Code, just not for property and casualty insurance. And without that standard, there's nothing to hold insurance companies accountable to. If the Department of Insurance believed a company was charging excessive rates, more than they could justify, that wasn't against the law."
Insurance carriers have argued the regulation might force them to reduce the coverage they offer or leave Illinois entirely. Companies have argued they're dealing with increases in catastrophic severe weather events and pricing is based on risk.
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KMOX's Total Information AM talks with Abe Scarr of the Illinois Public Interest Research Group
KMOX's Total Information AM talks with Abe Scarr of the Illinois Public Interest Research Group
