By BJ Austin
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-705591.mp3
Dallas, TX – The settlement of several lawsuits over rates that the State Department of Insurance said were TOO HIGH will benefit consumers, according to Ben Gonzalez, with the Department of Insurance.
Gonzalez: "There are several pieces. One of them returns 36.8 million dollars in refunds to Allstate policy holders who had policies back between December of '04 and April 23, '06. And then most recently, it's going to reduce Allstate rates by 3% moving forward. They estimate that's about 19.7 million dollars in rate reductions."
Allstate is #2 in homeowner policies written in the state of Texas, and covers about 15% of the market. Gonzalez says as many as 700 thousand policy holders will be affected by the settlement. The refunds will be mailed by November 1st.