I stopped using Allstate years ago -- I mentioned to my agent (this was back when it was still common to actually go see an agent in person to get insurance) that I had a chip in my windshield from a rock and I had to pay to fix it. He said "No, don't pay for it, just make a claim and we'll pay for it no deductable for glass fix since we want you to have a clear windshield".<p>So I made the claim. Then made 2 more claims through him that year (major road construction meant lots of debris on the highway I commuted on).<p>And then I got my premium notice and they increased my premium by 5X (something like $300 every 6 months to $1500) due my claim history -- I had no accidents, just $120 in window repair claims.<p>I immediately switched insurance companies and never went back. It was a good lesson for me -- don't use insurance if you can avoid it. So now I run $1000 decuctables when I can since I really don't want to make an insurance claim unless it's catastrophic.
The best thing you can do is shop for auto insurance every year or two. The longer you stay with a particular company the more likely they are to very slowly and carefully hit you with small rate increases until you're paying far more than their competitors will charge you. Insurance companies understand and exploit consumer behavior better than even the best marketers.
How insurers determine your rate is generally available online [0]. That being said, some of the documents are almost unreadable.<p>I recently tried to figure out how I could optimize the amount of renter's insurance coverage I got from State Farm for the premium paid (I'm currently paying the minimum premium that they'll charge for any renter's insurance policy; $125/year) and their posted document was so dense and filled with jargon that I couldn't do it [1]. The document only contained the changes made since the previous approval. But I couldn't actually find the previous approval. So I was missing quite a few critical pages.<p>[0]: This is for NY: <a href="https://filingaccess.serff.com/sfa/home/NY" rel="nofollow">https://filingaccess.serff.com/sfa/home/NY</a><p>[1]: The overall filing package (<a href="https://filingaccess.serff.com/sfa/search/filingSummary.xhtml?filingId=131741055" rel="nofollow">https://filingaccess.serff.com/sfa/search/filingSummary.xhtm...</a>). The rate document is named "NY HO 2019-05-01 Pages Changed.pdf"
FWIW, the authors also published an extensive methodology, which is ~700 words more than the article. <a href="https://themarkup.org/allstates-algorithm/2020/02/25/show-your-work-car-insurance-suckers-list" rel="nofollow">https://themarkup.org/allstates-algorithm/2020/02/25/show-yo...</a><p>And there's a github repo: <a href="https://github.com/the-markup/investigation-allstates-algorithm" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/the-markup/investigation-allstates-algori...</a>
> One 36-year-old man from Prince George’s County, Md., who Allstate said in public records should have been paying $3,750 every six months, was instead being charged twice that, more than $7,500.<p>This man was being charged over $15,000/year for auto insurance?
The insurance industry is notoriously afraid of transparency, and the state-based rate filing system makes it too easy to divide and conquer. This is an industry ripe for disruption via total transparency.
Allstate, a favorite of recent news in metro Atlanta as well. I did check with them recently when I did my yearly check on rates; they were one of the higher ones for home and auto combined. Fortunately my state (Georgia) rejected Allstate from doing what was in this article [2]<p>Local news station has had two recently articles about them. From finding methods to not pay damages at a cemetery caused by a car insured by them [0] to be called out for not paying bills when their insured drivers caused damage to other drivers [1]<p>The second story is more damning because it is law firms that end up court for suits call out Allstate for having the most issues, it also noted that ten years ago, the American Trial Lawyers Association named Allstate the worst insurance company in America. Google searches still return that note but it should be noted that lawyers tend to call out most insurance companies.<p>* Both have video components that may start on their own
[0]<a href="https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/2-investigates-car-crashes-into-church-cemetery-insurance-company-refuses-pay/JGE4FAWUXVGZTKHHPPICVQ27AU/?_website=cmg-tv-10010" rel="nofollow">https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/2-investigates-car-crashes-...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.wsbtv.com/news/2-investigates/are-you-in-good-hands-not-if-you-get-hit-by-someone-with-allstate-victims-say/1007518669/?_website=cmg-tv-10010" rel="nofollow">https://www.wsbtv.com/news/2-investigates/are-you-in-good-ha...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/2020/02/investigation-finds-allstates-secret-algorithm-resulted-in-sucke/" rel="nofollow">https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/20...</a>
Interesting to see an article about this now. I work at a large insurer and we've been pissed off at AllState since they filed this garbage. It's made regulators hyper sensitive to this sort of price optimization even when we aren't even trying to do anything close to what they were doing.<p>I feel like the point of the article is a little bit undermined by the last section, though. A 71 year old having his rate increase "small amounts during the life of the policy" is pretty normal, and the fact that he was able to find a substantial discount elsewhere is evidence that the market is competitive.
>also offers a glimpse into a potential future where companies of all sorts, not just auto insurers<p>No, not companies of "all" sorts. Just insurance companies. Other companies are regulated by Congress as part of antitrust regulations which would prevent them from doing this kind of thing. Insurance companies, however, are not regulated by antitrust laws. Insurance is declared to be "not commerce" and therefore not answerable to antitrust laws. They are permitted to break any antitrust law they please. This is why medical insurance companies, for instance, hold national meetings every few years to decide what price they are willing to pay for medical goods and services. This is price-fixing, and it is illegal in absolutely any industry - except insurance. In insurance, they can do it publicly because there literally is no law against it. There's a law PROTECTING it. It was called the McCarran-Ferguson Act. The plan was to repeal it as part of the Affordable Care Act. It was the clause that enabled the ACA to survive the entire revision process... and was then promptly removed from the bill immediately before its passage. This is why the insurers have never really fought very hard against the ACA. If it ever gets repealed, the McCarran-Ferguson act, that is, insurance companies will fall under antitrust regulation and have to change almost every business practice they follow. They will have to compete against one another on price, compete against each other on what prices they pay, etc. It would destroy their profit margins and probably result in the majority of them going out of business quite quickly. Don't hold your breath. It's why the insurance industry spends so much on lobbying and every lobbyist for every single industry will fight its repeal. In other words, it will NEVER happen. The law has been in place since 1945.
This is a terribly misleading headline.<p>The actual story is: they developed a radically different risk model that assigned new rates to everyone, but, in an effort to retain customers, decided to spread increases over multiple years to decrease sticker-shock cancellations.<p>Folks with cheap policies (which are the biggest flight risk, because are good insurance risks and every company wants them) got the increases more slowly, and high-risk folks (who were already paying more) got their increase in fewer, larger steps.<p>This whole article is trying to make simple business into some sort of evil scam.
Anecdata but I had Allstate for at least 5 years, then they tripled my rates on renewal (Massachusetts). At the time I lived in a sketchier neighborhood of Boston, but I had no claims and a 3x increase was absurd. I switched to Geico and it was 2/3 as much as Allstate was before the raise, and it's been great since. Allstate is doing something weird.
Never had Allstate, but I had a similar experience with Amica. My auto premium increased every year despite no changes to my driving record. I called and the rep explained my policy was going up because of an accident from over 3 years ago.<p>I immediately dropped them, switched to another company and got a much lower rate. Added bonus, my premium drops every year or so.
<i>Allstate’s model seemed to determine how much a customer was willing to pay —or overpay—without defecting</i><p>Welcome to the 21st century. Comcast, Verizon, Toyota, Nabisco - the list goes on and on.
Of all the firms identified in TFA as charging poor customers higher fees, Princeton Review strikes me as the most evil. That single test that determines which colleges you can attend and scholarships you can get? If you're poor, you'll pay more to study for that test. Online. Yikes.
Key blurb because the title is unclear:<p>> In this case, Allstate’s model seemed to determine how much a customer was willing to pay —or overpay—without defecting, based on how much he or she was already forking out for car insurance.
is there an insurer with better rates than geico for young and safe driver with zero accident record and perhaps 1 or 2 speeding tickets ? [in the southeast region]
Beautiful commercial material for Allstate competitors and you don't even have to lie or deceive.<p>A black husband and wife sit by a dinner table:<p>- Honey, did you see that article on Allstate? I think we may be overpaying...<p>- Why?<p>- Well, it says here that Allstate plans to hike prices for the people who pay the most even 20% more, and they call them... suckers.<p>- What?<p>- It also says that they plan that for people living in "nonwhite" communities...<p>- That's us!<p>- Yeah... who would knew a gecko would be right? We need to call them now, maybe we save 15% or more on car insurance as well...<p>And then at the closure message: Allstate admits to hiking prices for people who pay the most and calls them suckers. Don't be a sucker, get Geico insurance now!