With most of the country operating under stay-at-home orders, consumer and commercial drivers are spending less time on the road — which means fewer accidents and insurance claims. The top 10 insurers, who together own 72% of the market, have all announced programs to return more than $7.5 billion to their customers in coming weeks. Most of the insurers have also announced other programs to help policyholders, including allowing them to defer premium payments and a moratorium on canceling policies for non-payments.”
The amounts being returned range from about 15% to 25% of premiums, for periods as short as a month at Farmers Insurance Group of Companies to as long as six months.
Here are some of the amounts announced during the first week of April.
State Farm | Will return 25% of premiums for a period of 10 weeks, from March 20 through the end of May. Amounts to an estimated $2 billion in reduced premiums for customers.
Geico | Will return a total of $2.5 billion through credits on six months of insurance coverage when current policyholders renew their policies or new policyholders sign up. Most of those granting relief to their clients are basing the payout on the premiums paid in the April and May period.
Allstate | Will refund about 15% of premiums paid by its customers in April and May, which comes to a total of about $600 million.
It’s likely other insurers will also make some sort of deal with car insurance policyholders, said Penny Gusner, senior consumer analyst at CarInsurance.com, a website that compares price quotes. “Now that a few of the bigger companies are offering money-back, during a time when many really could really use it, it may be bad optics to resist,” she said in a statement.
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