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| October 2004 | The
Monthly Newspaper of the NYSSCPA |
Vol.
7, No.13 |
N.J. Drivers Get Another Auto Insurance Option
By
Kate Prouty
The
green gecko mascot selling Geico auto insurance in television commercials
will no longer “tease” New Jersey drivers with “great
savings not offered to them because of their New Jersey location,”
said Holly C. Bakke, New Jersey Banking and Insurance Commissioner,
in a Geico press release.
On August 16, Geico (Government Employees Insurance Company) began selling private passenger automobile insurance to New Jersey residents.
After Mercury General, Geico was the second major auto insurance company to bring its business to New Jersey since June 2003, when Governor James E. McGreevey signed legislation to reform the auto insurance marketplace.
Giving Garden State drivers another option in choosing their auto insurer could entice all companies selling auto insurance in the state to lower premiums, creating a more competitive, consumer-directed auto insurance marketplace for residents.
Geico provides auto insurance for 6,053 of the New York State Society of CPAs’ 30,375 members. Just over 4,000 of the Society’s members live in New Jersey, according to the Society’s membership database.
“This is not the same marketplace it was two years ago,” Commissioner Bakke said in the press release. “Carriers are beginning to develop different business models and they are marketing to consumers in unique ways,” she added referring to Geico’s Internet-based sales tactic.
Mercury General’s and, most recently, Geico’s expansion to New Jersey implies that McGreevey’s June 2003 auto insurance reform is producing tangible results for consumers.
Geico’s chairman, president and CEO Tony Nicely attributes advancements in the auto insurance marketplace to “visionary thinking by state leadership and bipartisan support of the legislature.”
Geico, which was founded in 1936, makes all policy sales, customer services and claims services available directly through the Internet 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is the country’s largest direct writer of auto insurance and the fifth-largest private passenger auto insurer in the U.S., according to the press release.
