Home insurance premiums on the rise in New Brunswick: Consumer Advocate for Insurance

Home insurance premiums are on the rise in New Brunswick and the insurance industry needs to look at the situation seriously and immediately, the province’s Consumer Advocate for Insurance says.The Consumer Advocate made his remarks in the 2010 Annual Report of the Office for the Consumer Advocate for Insurance, posted online. Concluding remarks in the report cited emerging issues in home insurance, credit scoring and auto insurance.The report does not provide any home insurance statistics for the province. Also, it says the office “certainly can’t speak in terms of a crisis or pending crisis because, in general, availability and affordability of insurance are not serious issues yet.”Nonetheless, the report suggests, the trends in home insurance need to be addressed before they reach a critical point.”House insurance premiums, in general, are on the rise and with weather related claims also increasing lately, availability and affordability of insurance could become an issue to the same extent as they were in the field of auto insurance in the early years of 2000,” the consumer advocate says in its report. “The potential for a ‘perfect storm’ in house insurance is very real and should not be dismissed lightly.”Elsewhere, the report notes home insurance clients of The Co-operators did raise concerns about being submitted to a re-qualification process in 2010.”[The] Co-operators decision to submit its house insurance clients in the northern part of the province to a re-qualification process in 2010 was a cause for concern for many home owners,” the Consumer Advocate reported. “Over 4,000 clients were involved in this process and many of them were left with changes in coverages, increased premiums for some and others were left with no other choice but to find insurance elsewhere.”The Consumer Advocate observed that credit scoring is used as an underwriting factor for home insurance. The Advocate’s report noted the provincial government had announced its intention to introduce regulations banning the use of credit scoring for the purpose of underwriting property and casualty insurance. “These regulations have not been enacted to this date,” the report notes.