Georgia Department of Insurance
National Association of Insurance Commisioner’s
Health Insurance Rates News Release: 1/17/2005
Category: Health Insurance Rate Enforcement
Washington, DC – A federal judge today ruled in favor of the
National Association of Insurance Commisioners and its efforts to recoup more than $100 million for health insurance consumers nation wide, an amount which the agency contends that a select few insurance companies may have overcharged health insurance consumers by inflating
Georgia health insurance prices and
Georgia health insurance
quotes.
The federal judicial panel and courts actions allows the NAIC to help reduce
Georgia health insurance
rates. The objective of NAIC staff throughout this action has been to provide health insurance rate relief for health insurance consumer policyholders who have been charged excessive health insurance rates.
NAIC staff, using authority granted by the federal judicial panel’s decision, ordered health insurance companies to reduce its health owners rates by 12 percent in September 2004.
Georgia health insurance companies appealed the reduction in district court, claiming that the they had been denied due process in ordering the rate reduction.
“NAIC staff’s latest action, based on a different law was designed to address the court’s concerns regarding due process,” said NAIC’s Deputy Commissioner for Policy. “Despite the insurance companies objections, the courts have allowed the debate based on the facts to move forward. In the end we believe the facts will show that their rates can be reduced.”
NAIC staff contends that health insurance companies have been overcharging its policyholders since June 11, 2003, the effective date of Senate Bill 14. NAIC is seeking a refund of the excessive premium plus 10 percent interest. The total amount will be calculated from June 11, 2003, to present.
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Georgia Facts: Gen. James Oglethorpe established the first permanent settlement in Georgia in 1733 as a refuge for English debtors. In 1742, Oglethorpe defeated Spanish invaders in the Battle of Bloody Marsh. A Confederate stronghold, Georgia was the scene of extensive military action during the Civil War. Union general William T. Sherman burned Atlanta and destroyed a 60-mile-wide path to the coast, where he captured Savannah in 1864. The largest state east of the Mississippi, Georgia is typical of the changing South with an ever-increasing industrial development. Atlanta, largest city in the state, is the communications and transportation center for the Southeast and the area's chief distributor of goods. Georgia leads the nation in the production of paper and board, tufted textile products, and processed chicken. Other major manufactured products are transportation equipment, food products, apparel, and chemicals.
Important agricultural products are corn, cotton, tobacco, soybeans, eggs, and peaches. Georgia produces twice as many peanuts as the next leading state. From its vast stands of pine come more than half of the world's resins and turpentine and 74.4 percent of the U.S. supply. Georgia is a leader in the production of marble, kaolin, barite, and bauxite. Principal tourist attractions in Georgia include the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Andersonville Prison Park and National Cemetery, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, the Little White House at Warm Springs where Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt died in 1945, Sea Island, the enormous Confederate Memorial at Stone Mountain, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, and Cumberland Island National Seashore. Peach State, Empire State of the South In honor of George II of England
The ten largest cities in Georgia are: Atlanta, Augusta-Richmond County, Columbus, Savannah, Athens-Clarke County, Macon, Roswell, Albany, Marietta, Warner Robins.
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