Washington, D.C. — A coalition of 40 consumer, community and civil rights organizations submitted comments to the Federal Insurance Office (FIO) in favor of the recently adopted affordability standard and urged the office to move forward with its first report by the end of the year.  The groups applauded FIO for setting a standard that recognizes auto insurance as unaffordable when the average premium in a community exceeds two percent of the community’s median household income.

In their letter, the organizations called on FIO to strengthen its proposed data collection approach, which would rely, in part, on the voluntary submission of information about insurance prices by the nation’s largest insurance companies.  The groups called on FIO to expand the set of insurance companies that would provide data to include all companies that collect more than $100 million in premiums annually, as opposed to the proposed threshold of more than $500 million in premiums.  Most importantly, the groups called on FIO to make the reporting of ZIP code level premium data mandatory.

The complete letter is available here:  http://bit.ly/2cViLAK

The Consumer Federation of America is an association of more than 250 non-profit consumer groups that, since 1968, has sought to advance the consumer interest through research, education, and advocacy.