San Francisco (KGO) – State regulators have given two home insurance companies the green light to raise their tariffs in California, affecting 660,000 customers.
Mercury General, which is the fifth largest home insurer, will have its policies to grow an average of 12 percent for homeowners in late March.
A spokesman says the growth is due to increasing construction costs, not fires.
More: Here are the top 10 neighborhoods of the bay area with the highest percentage of irrevocable
“Mercury filed an application to increase the interest rates of housing owners in June 2024 to help compensate for the increase in the weight related to the water losses associated with the water supply and the increasing repair & Construction costs for labor and materials. This submission is not related to the latest fires in southern California, but it was designed to allow Mercury to continue to provide high quality insurance to homeowners on a wide range of consumers in California. “
And, the reports of the San Francisco Chronicle, owners of policies insured through Safeco, a subsidiary of Liberty Mutual, will observe an average increase of 7.2 percent in May.
The Safeco increase will not affect Kondo or tenants owners. The chronicle reports that in December the insurer told the regulators that he plans to leave the markets of the apartment and tenants in 2026.
Customers affected by this increase may expect changes to their individual premium during their next renewal after the affective date of this course.
Related: California insurer for people without private coverage needs $ 1 billion more for claims for LA fires
On February 11, the State Insurance Department announced that the fair plan of California, which provides insurance to homeowners who cannot receive private coverage, needs $ 1 billion more to pay off the wildfires related to the wild fires in the moose Angeles.
The fair plan is an insurance pool that all major private insurers pay, and then the plan issues policies to people who cannot receive private insurance, since their properties are considered too risky to insure themselves. The plan with high premiums and basic coverage is designed as a temporary option, while homeowners cannot find a permanent coverage, but more Californians rely on it from ever. In 2024, in 2024 there were more than 452,000 policies in 2024, more than double the number of issue in 2020.
The plan says it expects a loss of about $ 4 billion from Ethan and Palisades’ fires, which caused January 7, destroyed nearly 17,000 structures and killed at least 29 people. Approximately 4,700 claims have been filed this week and the plan has already paid over $ 914 million.
According to a fair plan, approved by the state Tuesday, all insurers who carry out business in California will have to bear half of the expenses and can transfer the rest of all the owners of the policies in the form of a one -time fee. Insurers can collect this price over the next two years. The State Insurance Department must approve these costs.
Civil servants did not have details about how big the fee would be. When approving the request, the state allowed the plan to send notifications and collect funding from market insurers within 30 days.
For the first time, the fair plan has sought approval for additional money for more than 30 years, the department said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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