Consumer Group Claims Insurers in Collusion to Hike Rates

A report issued by the consumer group Center for Justice and Democracy at New York Law School claims that carriers are planning to price-gouge buyers of insurance, particularly commercial lines insureds. The report, “Repeat Offenders: How the Insurance Industry Manufactures Crises and Harms America,” asserts that insurers are in collusion to create a hard market in which commercial lines insurers can target their customers with large rate increases.

“This country has been in a ‘soft’ insurance market since 2006, with rates stable and dropping in every state whether or not ‘tort reforms’ have been enacted. However, since early 2011, the insurance industry has been trying to push the country into a new hard market,” says the report.