The Expert Podcast

insurance rates are going up property casualty coverage has a lot of rate increases pending and built up behind the scenes. so why is this happening and what can you do to keep your rates from jumping. here's an article from a local news station saying that there's gonna be sticker shock on homeowners insurance and it's not just homeowners auto commercial lines a lot of other coverages are gonna go up anything with property casualty. and the reason why is because there's increases in the costs that go into the underwriting of the policy. here's an example of somebody who said their insurance company raise our homeowners policy premium seven hundred dollars a year. and that's not the premium that's how much it's going up now a lot of times the reason behind it is cost of building materials cost placing homes. insurance is based on the cost to rebuild. so think about this we see the real estate market going through the roof right houses that we used to sell for two hundred fifty are now selling for four hundred. well if you're an insurance carrier you have to factor that in to your . most insurance coverage is based on a percentage of the value the house maybe it's one percent so if you have a three hundred thousand dollar house you might have an insurance rate of three thousand dollars a . if your property value goes up to five hundred thousand your rate could go up just because of that. according to this article rate increase is gonna go up about twelve percent up to two percent. and it's not just homeowners they're talking about auto and other property casualty. it says prices are not cooling for home so prices to rebuild will stay strong when the price to rebuild the home goes up that's what the insurance here you have to factor in to figure what your premium is going to be. because if your house burns down they have to build you want to buy you one. right the prices for homes are ten percent higher than just a year ago so that's going to affect your insurance rates. multiple factors come into play with the rates and a lot of times different carriers might consider factors differently. so if you see a big rate increase check around to other companies. if you have policies that are split up home is one place autos another umbrella somewhere else maybe look at putting it together. and have your agent if you're working with a good agent they know how to do this putting together and see what it would cost. if you have a commercial lines policy or cyber liability lines policy because you're a business owner you might see if that carrier has personal lines that might help you with your homeowner's or auto. so property insurance rates are going to go up you're going to see it if you haven't already here those are some ways you might want to try to mitigate it and you could also consider changing your deductibles to cut your rate down if you're not gonna put in a claim anyways you might as well Jack deductible up so your rate might come down a little bit.