Renewal guide
Where insurance rate increases actually come from
Your carrier did not decide to charge you more. It filed a rate with your state, and your policy met that rate at renewal. Knowing the difference tells you which part of your bill is worth arguing about.
Written by the AiM Insurance negotiation deskLast updated
Why this matters to you
If your increase came from a filed rate, no amount of pressure on the phone will move it — and the time you spend trying is time not spent on the levers that do work. If it did not, it is usually reversible in one call. Telling the two apart is the entire skill.
What a rate filing is
Personal insurance in the United States is a filed-rate business. A carrier cannot charge a price it has not lodged with the state it wants to charge it in. The lodged document — the rate filing — sets out the whole pricing machine, not just a number.
- Base rates
- The starting price for a coverage in a state before any of your own characteristics are applied.
- Rating factors
- The multipliers applied to the base rate — vehicle or dwelling characteristics, territory, coverage limits and deductibles, driving or loss history, and in states that permit it a credit-based insurance score.
- Rating rules
- The instructions for applying the plan: which discounts exist, what qualifies for each, how drivers and vehicles are assigned, how long a surcharge runs.
- Underwriting companies
- Most large insurers are a group of several licensed companies filed at different price levels. Which one holds your policy is a pricing decision, and it can sometimes be revisited.
- The actuarial support
- The exhibits justifying the change: loss experience, trend, expenses and the target profit provision. This is the part a regulator argues with.
How much review a filing gets
States do not all regulate the same way, and the same state can regulate auto and homeowners differently. Broadly, three systems are in use.
| System | What it means | Practical effect on you |
|---|---|---|
| Prior approval | The department must approve the rate before the carrier can use it. | Slower changes, and a public record of what was asked for versus what was granted. |
| File and use | The carrier files, waits any required period, then uses the rate. | Faster changes; the department's challenge, if any, comes afterwards. |
| Use and file | The carrier can use the rate and file it within a set window. | Fastest; review is retrospective. |
Which system applies to your policy depends on your state and the line of insurance, and states also retain authority to disapprove rates they find excessive, inadequate or unfairly discriminatory. Your state department of insurance is the authority on which rules apply to you.
Why an approved increase lands on a spotless policy
This is the part that feels wrong, and it is worth being precise about. A filing prices a class. The carrier is estimating what it expects to pay out across everyone rated in that class over the coming period, plus the cost of running the business and the cost of its own reinsurance. Your record decides where you sit inside the class. It does not decide whether the class moves.
So the honest answer to “why me, I’ve never claimed” is: it is not you. It is everyone the carrier has grouped you with, and the increase would have arrived whatever you had done. That is simultaneously the most infuriating and the most useful thing to know, because it tells you exactly where not to spend your energy.
How to look up your own carrier’s filing
Find the legal entity name, not the brand
It is printed on your declarations page, usually in small type near the top or at the foot. Groups file under several company names, and the brand on the advertising is often not the company that holds your policy.Go to your state department of insurance website
Look for “rate filings”, “SERFF filing access” or “consumer rate search”. Many states publish filings through the NAIC’s SERFF system; others run their own search.Search by company and line of business
Private passenger auto and homeowners are separate lines and file separately. Filter by the filing type for rate or rate/rule changes rather than form changes.Read the overall rate change and the effective dates
Filings normally state the overall percentage change being requested, the effective date for new business and the effective date for renewals. The renewal date is the one that reaches you.Compare it to what actually happened to your policy
If your increase is materially larger than the filed class change, something specific to your policy moved as well — and that part may be reversible. That is the question worth taking to the phone.
Check it yourselfAvailability, search interfaces and what is publicly viewable vary by state, and some supporting exhibits are treated as confidential. Start at your own state department of insurance rather than a third-party summary.
What to do with this
If the increase matches the filed class change
Do not spend a phone call disputing it. Spend the call on the things the filing does not fix: the accuracy of your rating information, discounts you are not receiving, whether a surcharge is due to expire, and whether you can be re-rated into a different company inside the group. Then shop the policy at identical limits, because other carriers filed on different assumptions and on different schedules.
If it is bigger than the class change
Something on your policy moved too. Work through the line-by-line comparison against last year’s declarations page and the list of things that raise a premium without a claim. One of them will usually be visible on the paperwork.
Common questions
What is an insurance rate filing?
It is the document a carrier submits to a state insurance department setting out what it intends to charge and how. A filing contains the base rates, the factors applied for things like vehicle, territory, coverage limits and driving record, the rules for applying discounts, and the carrier's justification for any change. Until a filing is in effect for your state, the carrier cannot legally charge those numbers there.
Does my state have to approve a rate increase?
It depends on the state and the line of insurance. Some states operate prior approval, where the department must sign off before the rate can be used. Others operate file-and-use, where the carrier can use the rate after filing it, or use-and-file, where the filing follows shortly after. Most states also retain the power to disapprove a rate they later find excessive, inadequate or unfairly discriminatory. Your state department of insurance publishes which system it uses.
Why did my rate go up if I have never made a claim?
Because a rate filing applies to a class of policies, not to an individual. The carrier is pricing the expected cost of the whole group you are rated in, which is driven by repair and medical costs, claim frequency and severity across that group, and the carrier's own reinsurance and expenses. Your clean record affects where you sit within the class. It does not exempt you from a change to the class.
Can I see my insurer's rate filing?
In many states, yes. Rate filings are public records in a large number of jurisdictions, and departments commonly publish them through the NAIC's SERFF filing-access system or through their own search tool. What you find is the filing document and the supporting exhibits, which state the overall rate change being requested and often break it down by coverage. Access rules and what is redacted vary by state.
Can I negotiate a filed rate down?
No, and nobody at the carrier can either. Charging a customer something other than the filed rate is unfair discrimination and is the thing regulators police hardest. What is negotiable is everything feeding the calculation: the rating information the carrier holds about you, the discounts applied on top, the structure of the coverage, which underwriting company inside the group rates you, and which carrier rates you at all.
If everyone's rates went up, is shopping pointless?
No — the opposite. Carriers file independently, at different times, with different assumptions and different appetites for particular risks. A market-wide cost pressure does not reach every carrier's filed rates in the same size or on the same schedule, which is exactly why two carriers can look at the same driver and land far apart. A general increase is a reason to shop, not a reason to give up.
Not sure which part of your increase is the filed rate?
That is the first thing we separate. Send the renewal notice and last year’s declarations page; we benchmark the same coverage across 50+ carriers and tell you plainly whether the increase is market-wide or something on your own policy. You hear back within 24 hours.
Takes 5 minutes · No card · $0 if no savings