Best cheap auto insurance?
in Banking, Insurance & Loans ·
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Well... things just took a massive turn for the worse at General Insurance. Following a decision handed down by the Board of Directors of the American Bureau for Insurance this past Thursday, they’ve officially lost their right to issue Green Cards. It’s quite a blow... Damir Zorić—who, as many of you know, also serves as the head of the Management of Euroherc Insurance—confirmed the news to the Business Daily. This means that, for the foreseeable future, General Insurance won't be able to wrap up any valid mandatory Auto Insurance policies for potential clients... everything is essentially at a standstill...
Zorić, however, wasn't exactly eager to spill the tea yesterday regarding the specific reasons behind such a radical move... it’s honestly unprecedented in the history of the American insurance industry. We have to remember that the Green Card is absolutely vital for policyholders and vehicle owners once they cross the border into other states or countries, especially if they find themselves caught up in an accident. Without that Green Card, there is simply no coverage for the financial fallout of any damages—not for the vehicle itself, nor for the passengers involved. It’s quite a blow for General Insurance. This autumn, much like their first attempt back in 2008, they just haven't been able to successfully push for the liberalization of mandatory auto insurance within the American market. Back then, the regulators denied both him and Allianz the permission to implement those liberalized pricing models...
The legislature has been allowing this liberalization for years now, and ever since America joined the European Union, those criteria have actually been loosened up even further starting July 1st... all because of those EU directives. Insurers are only required to notify the regulator 60 days before any new pricing goes into effect, provided that they still build their rates based on actuarial principles and maintain the company's long-term solvency... which is essential, of course. Well, General Insurance just got a bit of a slap on the wrist from Hanfe recently. Apparently, Hanfe felt that their new campaign regarding liberalization was actually misleading the customers... which is quite a serious accusation. Even though it was just the weekend, they had to pivot quickly. That controversial promotional campaign—you know, the one with the slogan "Get up to 23 percent lower prices on your mandatory Auto Insurance"—has already been changed to "Check out the price everyone is talking about and find out how to get that discount at your nearest General Insurance office." Such a sudden shift...
It’s been barely a week since the Board of Directors handed down their decision... and they’re using Article 272 of the insurance statutes to justify this whole ban on Green Cards. Honestly... the Management of General Insurance—led by Georg Engl—was only willing to offer a brief statement yesterday, but the subtext is loud and clear. It really looks like the competition is just trying to kneecap a rival and stifle genuine market competition after General Insurance introduced such a massive innovation to the American market... We are standing firmly against a move like this that flies in the face of standard European Union market practices... and because of that, we will be notifying all the relevant authorities accordingly...
The Big Five...
There are fifteen different companies involved in the auto insurance sector, and each one sends a single representative to sit on the Board of Directors of HUO... But honestly, we couldn't quite get to the bottom of how that debate actually went down, or just how razor-thin the margin was when they voted on this decision. It’s a massive blow... a decision that is going to cause some seriously heavy operational headaches for General Insurance. It’s strange, really... nobody from the Board of Directors or even the broader insurance industry seems willing to go on the record. Not a soul. Only two insiders—speaking strictly on the condition of anonymity, of course—have shared their thoughts. They both feel that certain individuals shouldn't have abused their positions by pushing through such a radical measure... a move with massive consequences. In their view, this isn't good for the industry at all. They're convinced that General Insurance will be reporting this whole mess to the European Commission immediately. Looking back at the 2012 stats... State Farm holds the largest individual share of the mandatory auto insurance premiums at 26.95 percent. However, if you look at the group data for the Agram conglomerate—which includes Euroherc at 22.39 percent, plus Jadransko at 15.32 percent and Sunce at 1.06 percent—their combined total hits 38.77 percent... which effectively pushes State Farm down to second place. Then you have big players like Allianz sitting high up with 9.37 percent and HOK at 4.65 percent... it means the top five companies out of the fifteen basically control nearly 80 percent of the entire market. As for General Insurance... last year they held a 2.54 percent share of the industry's total auto insurance premiums. To put some numbers to it, during 2012, General Insurance wrote 43,361 policies with premiums totaling $74 million... whereas the total auto insurance market as a whole saw 1.9 million policies written with a total premium volume of $2.9 billion... quite a gap...
Hardly any impact at all
Despite all that heavy-duty promotion, General Insurance hasn't actually seen much movement in terms of major transfers or bringing in a wave of new policyholders... and honestly, the numbers we managed to dig up through unofficial channels tell quite a different story than the hype. Apparently, during that entire three-week campaign, they only pulled in about 2,830 clients. Most of those came straight from State Farm, where roughly 700 people switched over to General Insurance, plus another 600 from Euroherc... and then just 400 each from Allianz and Liberty Mutual... nothing massive...