OAI: Insurance Regulators' Reports Underscore Value of Pre-Purchase Research

    RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA, February 13, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Regulatory offices from seven states have reported that they collected and returned more than $150 million to insurance policyholders last year. That represents a lot of resolved disputes between insurers and their customers, and it highlights the fact that shoppers should make sure to do everything they can to avoid an insurer with bad customer service, according to OnlineAutoInsurance.com.

The large amounts of complaints hint at the fact that consumers may not want to settle for the cheapest insurance company immediately after getting their first batch of quotes. Rather, shoppers can benefit from checking regulators' consumer complaint reports and reading the reviews of past and present policyholders online so they can get an idea of the quality of the coverage they are buying. Drivers might end up being happy that they put in adequate research when it comes time to file a claim.

A large portion of the sums recovered by regulators was returned to policyholders because they had been overcharged, overpaid on a claim or wrongly denied benefits. Those policyholders did everything they could to resolve the dispute with their coverage providers, and when that wasn't enough, they went to state regulators.

After these disputes are resolved, they are logged and compiled in consumer-complaint reports. These reports show how many formal complaints were filed against the largest insurers in the state, and consumers can--and should--review them to ensure that they're not getting coverage from one of the top offenders.

Many state insurance departments post these reports online to give consumers easy access. A directory of those departments can be found at http://www.usa.gov/directory/stateconsumer/index.shtml

The following are the approximate recovered amounts for the seven states that have announced their year-end results:

- California -- $54 million
- North Carolina -- $42 million
- Michigan -- $25 million
- Ohio -- $11.6 million
- Georgia -- $10 million
- Louisiana -- $5.3 million
- Montana -- $4.7 million

For more on this and other coverage issues, head to http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com/cheap/companies/ to get access to informative resource pages and a rate-comparison generator that shoppers can use to help track down the best rates available.

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