Insurance Department Issues Guidance to Property and Casualty Insurers

for Continued Assessment of Pandemic Impact in Rate Filings

Harrisburg, PA – Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Jessica Altman announced today that the Pennsylvania Insurance Department has issued guidance intended to ensure insurance companies adequately account for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rate filings from property and casualty insurance products. This notice, published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, outlines the continued need for incorporating the lasting effects of the pandemic into rate filings, and instructions for including analysis of the impacts of the pandemic on the product and how this has been accounted for in the filing.

“2021 has seen much optimism with the advancement of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, and the end of the pandemic in sight, but this health emergency continues to have an effect on our daily lives,” Commissioner Altman said. “Much has changed since the start of the pandemic, and there will be lasting impacts on insurance products, which must be accounted for in rate filings to ensure Pennsylvanians are not paying more than they need to for their insurance coverage.”

The notice specifies the need for rate filings to account for telework, which continues during the pandemic and is expected to transition to more permanent arrangements even after the pandemic is over at much higher levels than existed prior to the telework mandates. Insurers will also need to account for the negative impact on miles driven as workers are no longer commuting into workplaces.

The Pennsylvania Insurance Department will continue to monitor the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and will alert insurers when these types of analyses are no longer needed for rate filing requests.

The department has published various notices in the Pennsylvania Bulletin to help ease the hardships that are being felt by Pennsylvanians during this crisis and ensure minimum disruption to the department and commonwealth-regulated operations.

MEDIA CONTACT: Thaisa Jones, thajones@pa.gov