The race to the bottom (pricing) seems to be over. Everyone got to the bottom and didn’t like what they saw. The current trend is who won’t take the lead on price adjustments for 2013.
Personal and commercial will be taking some rate, but nothing that seems dramatic.
Rate increase is due in part to;
Weather related claimms
Increased cost of goods and services
Lower return on investment income
I think the overall shopping climate is better, people seem to be tired of being afraid and appear to be taking more action (really good for us).
Technology is being pushed on the consumer in the form of discounts if they’ll agree to add some form of GPS/device to their vehicles. This will have an interesting life of its own. The insurance companies want it used to track the driving habits of their insureds. Currently the companies pay for the device, monitoring for their information and who knows what else, all to provide a discount to the user.
The ? behind this is, how will they sustain the extra expense and sell their product for less? Not normally a good business model, but my guess is someone has a better long term vision than I know.
Many consumers appear to be leery of the product, but change is constant, so who knows. It all could go the way of glass VIN etching (gone by most and negligible to anyone that still offers).
In this type of insurance market normally, underwriting tightens, discounts for higher deductibles become more aggressive.