Are insurance rate filings public?

What the law says, and when

The timing is set by each state's statute, and it differs:

Department guidance can go further than the statute. Arizona's property and casualty filing instructions say that documents insurers must file with the department are presumed to be public records and open to public inspection, and that it may also make public records available online.

Publication online can also follow review rather than receipt. South Carolina says closed filings that were not withdrawn and that contain public-record information can be viewed by the public. So a filing that is open to inspection in law may not yet be on a state's website.

Where public filings are published

SERFF Filing Access. Most state insurance departments point the public to the NAIC's SERFF Filing Access for property and casualty filings. Ohio's department, for example, says access is free and that the site lets users search for, download and comment on approved filings. New Jersey says rates, rules and forms designated as public records can be viewed through it, with no fee.

Coverage dates. Each state's online record starts at a different point. Texas says filings it received after April 13, 2014 can be searched on SERFF Filing Access. Kentucky's site covers filings made after November 1, 2018.

State systems. Some departments publish through their own systems, alone or alongside SERFF. Florida's Office of Insurance Regulation runs its own IRFS filing search. California points to SERFF Filing Access for electronic property and casualty filings, and to its WARFF system for filings submitted on paper from 1998 on.

How to look up a single filing, step by step, is in SERFF tracking numbers explained. The state pages list each state's public filing search, with its official source.

What stays out of public view

• Trade secrets. A filer can ask for confidential treatment of material that qualifies under state law, and accepted material is withheld. Arizona's instructions say a document that qualifies as containing trade secrets is recorded in SERFF as not viewable by the public. Confidentiality and trade secrets in filings covers how those requests work.
• Effects on what you see. Withheld material can change what a public record appears to show. Florida's IRFS search notes that rate changes shown there may not fully reflect increases and decreases, because of trade secret claims.
• Copyrighted forms. Being able to view a document is not a right to copy it. Oregon's division says copyrighted forms in filings can be viewed but not copied without the owner's permission, and names AAIS and ISO forms as copyrighted.
• Pending filings. Where a state publishes only after review closes or the filing takes effect, a pending filing is not on its site, even if a statute would open it to inspection at the department.

Getting filings that are not online

A records request to the department is the route for filings that are older than a state's online coverage, not found online, or held only on paper.

Examples of how departments handle it:

• Texas directs readers to an open records request for filings not found in SERFF Filing Access, and for copies of documents marked confidential.
• Kentucky says filings made before November 1, 2018 are not on SERFF Filing Access and can be obtained through an open records request.
• New Jersey accepts a formal request under its Open Public Records Act as an alternative to the online interface.
• Alaska charges $0.25 per page plus postage for paper copies of requested records, and $25 for a certified copy.
• South Carolina says filings that must be retrieved from archives may carry a cost, which it will give in advance.

A request does not reach material the state has accepted as confidential. The exemptions that keep a document off the website generally apply to the request too.

Reading a public filing well

• Check the disposition. The final rate pages and disposition show what went into effect, which may differ from what was first filed.
• Look for the correspondence. Where a state publishes objection letters and responses, they show what the reviewer questioned. See SERFF objections.
• Allow for redactions. A missing exhibit may have been withheld rather than omitted, so do not infer that a state accepted a change without support.
• Note the date. A filing shows what a state accepted at one point in time; later bulletins or rules may have changed what is required.

The blog post on reading a competitor's rate filing walks through what each part of a public filing shows.