Developments in the Home Insurance Market in Georgia in the Past Year
With recent rate increases, homeowners in Georgia began shopping for better rates.
Homeowners in Georgia always have a keen eye turned towards the developments taking place in the insurance market. After all, their homes are most likely their most valuable material asset. The developments that take place in the home insurance market during a certain time period usually are precursors to how things will shape up in the future, like will homeowners be required to sacrifice more for their policies? So, it is not surprising to note many homeowners in Georgia are turning their eyes back to the developments in the home insurance sector in 2012 in an effort to predict or understand the trends that will rule in 2013.
Increase in Georgia Homeowners Insurance Rates
The year 2012 began with a scare of sorts, for homeowners in Georgia. Insurance companies raised home owners’ insurance rates by an average of 18 percent in 11 U.S. states including Georgia.
The previous year was a year of natural disasters that not only claimed and injured lives but also damaged properties worth billions of dollars. The year 2011 saw the Texas wildfires; tornadoes that ravaged Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, and Alabama; an earthquake that devastated almost the whole of east coast from Virginia to New Jersey; and Hurricane Irene that flooded vast areas all the way from North Carolina to Vermont. According to research findings, private property and casualty insurance companies incurred about $35 billion worth of loss on underwriting from damages caused by natural catastrophes in just nine months in 2011. This is a whopping 15 times more than the amount in the same time period in 2010! Thus it is not surprising that Georgia property insurers raised rates in 2012.
Property and casualty insurers may have their reasons for hiking the homeowners’ insurance rates but their action had certainly left the latter a little wary about what to expect in the coming months. Some Georgia homeowners were seen scurrying to their agents to work out coverage adjustments to cushion the hike in their premiums.
Homeowners Receive Access to Home Value Protection Insurance
If homeowners in Georgia were moping around because of the rise in insurance rates at the start of 2012, they soon had a reason to cheer. After Ohio and Oklahoma, Georgia was the third state where the Home Value Protection insurance was rolled out. For the uninitiated, this is the only insurance of its kind in the United States that seeks to protect homeowners from the impacts of downward-spiraling property prices, a hard-hitting reality in Georgia. According to S&P/Case-Shiller Home Prices Indices, in Atlanta, which is the state’s largest real estate market, homeowners have been dismayed to find prices of houses drop by more than 12 percent over the years. This means an average loss in home values worth more than $24,000.
The Home Value Protection insurance was supposed to allow homeowners to lock the value of their insured homes for up to 10 years. The insurance policy also promised protection against initial down payments to homeowners with mortgages to repay.
Home Value Protection Insurance Fizzles Out
The year 2012 was a year of ups and downs for Georgia homeowners. Just as they were rejoicing at the introduction of the Home Value Protection insurance in their state, it was suspended and that too, within a few months of being rolled out. The existing policies would be serviced, as agents clarified to harried and harrowed customers, but no new policies would be sold.
As the above developments make clear, the home insurance market in Georgia certainly did not see any shortage of drama in 2012. Homeowners are now keeping their fingers crossed and praying that they are spared the rude shocks for this year. Just wait to see their taxes rise because of the Affordable Care Act (but that is another subject)!
If you are shopping for homeowners insurance rates in Georgia, then visit our Georgia home insurance page to learn about average rates and shop for quotes on your Georiga home.